DreamHost vs IONOS
DreamHost and IONOS compared on measured uptime, response time, pricing and features from our own tests. DreamHost scores higher overall.
By Jennifer T. · Updated
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Verdict
DreamHostWins overall
Independent since 1997: three shared plans with renewals printed on the card, daily backups and a 100% uptime credit
The former 1&1: unlimited sites and traffic from $8 a month at renewal, with a free domain and wildcard SSL
DreamHost wins 4 of the six sub-scores and comes out ahead overall (7.6 vs 7.1).
How do the scores compare?
DreamHost leads on 4 sub-scores, IONOS on 0. Higher is better.
Which one is faster and more reliable?
Which one costs less?
On renewal, DreamHost is cheaper ($10.99/mo vs $14.00/mo). Intro prices need the listed term.
What does each include?
| DreamHost | IONOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Free domain | First year, on annual and multi-year terms only | One domain free for the first year on every plan: .us, .ca, .com, .net, .org, .info, .me, .biz or .online |
| Free SSL | Unlimited certificates on every plan | One DV wildcard certificate on Essential, Starter and Plus; unlimited wildcard certificates on Ultimate |
| Backups | Daily automated backups on every plan, restored from the panel | Daily backup of storage and databases with data recovery, every plan |
| Free migration | The product page links a migration path for existing sites; terms not read | No |
| Free CDN | No | Starter, Plus and Ultimate; not on Essential |
| Caching | No | Server compression and HTTP/2 listed; no caching layer named on the plan page |
| Staging | No | No |
| 20, 40 or 60 mailboxes free for the first three months, then billed separately | 1, 2, 4 or 5 accounts of 2 GB by plan, with forwarding, webmail and anti-spam | |
| Resource limits | No | CPU priority 1x, 3x, 5x and 10x by plan; 262,144 inodes on every plan; cron jobs 10, 25, 50 and 100 |
| Data center choice | Oregon, Virginia, Amsterdam and Singapore per the product page and help center; the panel shows where each service lives | No |
| Uptime guarantee | 100% in the terms, with a credit of one day of hosting per hour of qualifying downtime, up to 10% of the next renewal, counted from the support ticket | 99.99% in the general terms, with a credit for the month proportional to the downtime, on request and at IONOS's discretion |
| Performance scans | Automated and on-demand performance scans on every plan | Not stated |
| Phone support | No | 24/7, with a personal consultant |
| Windows hosting | No | No |
| SSH, SFTP, WP-CLI and Git | Not stated | Every plan, with 200 SFTP accounts, Perl and Python |
| PHP versions | Not stated | 8.4, 8.3 and 8.2, with paid extended support for 5.6 and later |
| Websites and traffic | Not stated | Unlimited websites and unlimited traffic on every plan; 5,000 subdomains |
| Security | Not stated | Daily malware scanning (basic, or advanced with automatic removal on Ultimate), DDoS protection, geo-redundancy |