Dreamhost Review

When I was planning of buying a web hosting plan, I was doing a lot of research in finding out about web hosting providers. I won’t say that Dreamhost is best web hosting provider, but surely they are one of the top rated ones, enjoying their elite position. When I heard about Dreamhost $97 discount coupon, I knew they were the one for me because they are having fairly good reviews about them and $97 discount, I would say it’s a steal. I made up my mind I am going to buy service from them only. But suddenly it was like my dreams were shattered, I was a little too late. By the time I was going to buy their plan, they already had ended their $97 discount and reduced it to just $50 discount. All I can find on internet was just $50 discount coupons with nothing add on services. Although now I know coupons that just not only give you $50 discount but many add on services too but I was a little late to use them, as I already bought web hosting plan with other provider.

Here are some feature codes that provide the max cash off of $50 off on any plan :):

DHD50DOMAIN1 - One EXTRA lifetime domain registration and $50 off

DHD37DOMAIN2 - Two EXTRA lifetime domain registrations and $37 off

DHD30DOMAIN3 - Three EXTRA lifetime domain registrations and $30 off

DHD45IP1 - One FREE unique IP address and $45 off

DHD30IP1DOM1 - One FREE unique IP, one EXTRA lifetime domain registration and $30 off

DHD45DISK30 - 30% extra disk space and $45 off

DHD45BW30 - 30% extra bandwidth and $45 off

DHD50 - Don’t need any of the extra features? Here is straight $50 off coupon :)

Well, here are some of my views about Dreamhost, my source is totally INTERNET. I have no personal experience of hosting website with them. But then a company hosting over 500,000+ domains with 10 years of standing in this competitive market can’t go wrong. All over the net I have read praises about their reliability. One of the very strong point of them they are able to retain their customers, in fact they have one of the highest number of loyal customers. Impressive definitely. The entry level plan offers 500 GB of disk space and 5 TB of monthly bandwidth. Both numbers increase by the gigabytes each week. Dreamhost include unlimited email accounts, databases, etc with all of their plans. But what’s different with them as compared to others? Well first of all they have their own control panel as compared to most of the other provider who use cPanel. Its said to be more powerful then cPanel but it has its own positive and negative sides. For in case if you are completely new to web hosting you may like their control panel and see how good it is, but if you are planning to shift your domain from another provider which use cPanel then its going to be a little difficult to get accustomed to it as most of us are already habitual of cPanel. Second thing that is different and the one I liked most beside one click installation services, they are also providing Jabber ^TM Chat Server, which I haven’t seen with most providers. Its very good if can use it, it’s like having a personal ad-free alternative to consumer IM services like AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo or Gtalk client on your website. And third thing is 97-day money-back guarantee, oh that’s gotta be good. Don’t like them just get your money back. But do read their terms and conditions as most of them are hiding some tricks in their sleeves. So almost everything is good about them, also I have read that they are good for hosting even forums too.

But with 500,000+ domains their going to be some downside too, naturally not everyone would be satisfied with them. So I was also looking for possible problem areas some of the users might be facing. Well one of the main problem I have seen is regarding their mailserver, many have complained about it not working according to expectations. Many users have also reported that SQL database is a little slow. And lastly although they are supporting phone support but their Premium Phone Support (3 call backs/month) comes at big price approx. $10/month.

My overall rating about them would be 7/10. If you have used their service or have some experience about them please share it too.

HostICan Review

Well my website is being hosted on HostICan, so I have some experience with them. Well before buying their service I already had done so much research of all web hosting providers and so thought that I could give review about them. Some reviews of HostICan that I came across on net said that their main negative point is they are expensive as compared to others. Well that’s not 100% true. There are some discount coupons available for them which I will also be discussing in this blog entry. But first let’s discuss their pros and cons.

First starting with their pros. Like many others HostICan are offering CPanel which is very easy to operate even if it is your first experience and Fantastico De Luxe another great utility, there are tons of services like blog, forum, polls and surveys, etc can be installed just through one click, great isn’t it ? :) Yes, about their customer service I would say I am simply amazed. Every time I ask them a query, I get the response within few minutes. They must be having very dedicated support staff for that. They offer 24/7/365 toll-free phone and email support. The toll-free number is displayed clearly on every page of HostICan’s web site. They also offer live chat online, available seven days a week from 8:30 AM to 10:30 PM. The reliability of their hosting is backed by Equinix, a leading datacenter provider. They do provide a 99.9% uptime guarantee and if this is not met, they claim to refund one month of hosting to the customer. If you currently using and paid for other web hosting provider, you could switch to HostICan hosting, and later apply for the extra $40 credits into your hosting bills. This is a extra $40 discount that you can get. HostICan’s also offer to transfer all your files and databases from your previous web host — and apparently it worked flawlessly. Their Setup time is very good. That is less than 6 hours. Also my domain name was activated within 24 hours

Well now discussing about their negative points. Although I haven’t any bad experienced with them, but while searching over the internet I have seen many people complaining about one thing only that is there server showing error of over use of CPU memory. This problem is normally faced only by users who are operating forum on their website with extensive database entry. So in case if you are not planning for forum it’s not a big issue. Although many review site have said there is no such problem and rate HostICan as very good for hosting forums also, but I will advice all to see all options, if you are basically planning for forums.

Well now comes the most important part, discount coupons :).
Coupon: TAKE50-12 or Coupon: 50off-12 - Saves $50 on all HostICan annual 12 month plans. Instant savings! Base-Host only costs $45.40 for a year. If you transfer from another host, you'll get an additional $40.00 off! One year of hosting, $5.40!
Coupon: VPS35-3 - Take $35 off any VPS plan on the quarterly payment plan (invoice every 3 months).

• 12 months base-host: $95.40 $45.40

• 24 months base-host: $166.80 $116.80


• 12 months tera-host: $143.40 $93.40


• 24 months tera-host: $262.80 $212.80

Here are some of the awards HostICan has received.
Awards

HostICan has caught the attention of industry and customer watchdogs, and the company has managed to snag innumerable awards over a very short period of time. For example, HostICan was one of the first domain providers who won acclaim for ethical business conduct by the 'Web Hosting Stuff'. The company was the recipient of the CNET Award for the best-certified service and support, and the 'Approved Host Award' from 'FindMyHost.com'. HostICan is also a proud member of the 'Better Business Bureau' of Richmond, Virginia, and has been named by the HostIndex, one of the toughest domain reviewing sites, as the top web hosting company today.

When your site is first created it creates some default pages such as a placeholder homepage and some default error pages with the HostICan logo and a few links. These should be changed; unless you want to give the company free advertising :P