If you are looking for a reliable host for your website, two of the top-rated hosting providers in the market that you should consider are DreamHost and InMotion Hosting. DreamHost offers affordable hosting, while InMotion Hosting provides better security at a slightly higher price.
Which hosting provider is right for you? Is InMotion Hosting’s better security worth the higher price tag? Or should you just go with DreamHost and their more affordable plans? Read on to find out.
Contents
| DreamHost | InMotion | |
| Â |  |  |
| Price | Check Price at DreamHost.com | Check Price at InMotionHosting.com |
| Sites Hosted | Starter: 1 Unlimited: Unlimited | Launch: 2 Power: 50 Pro: 100 |
| Storage | Starter: 50GB Unlimited: Unlimited | Launch: 50GB Power: 100GB Pro: 200GB |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Free Domain | Yes | Yes |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes |
| Site Migration | Free via plugin | Free |
| Website Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Control Panel | Proprietary | cPanel |
| Email Accounts | Starter: Available for Purchase Unlimited: Unlimited | Launch: 10 Power: 50 Pro: Unlimited |
| Uptime Guarantee | 100% | 99.9% 99.99% on Pro plan |
| Customer Support | 24/7 chat Tickets (Paid) Phone callback | 24/7 chat and phone Tickets |
| Money Back Guarantee | 97 days | 90 days |
Speed and Uptime
DreamHost and InMotion Hosting provide users with very good uptime and speed.
Both DreamHost and InMotion Hosting come with uptime guarantees. For DreamHost, the uptime guarantee is 100%. This guarantee ensures that for every hour that your site is down or inaccessible, you’ll get a day’s worth of hosting back in credits.
For InMotion Hosting, they have an uptime guarantee of 99.9% for the Launch and Power plans, and a 99.99% guarantee for the Pro plan. There’s no compensation for the Launch and Power plans if they fail to reach the guaranteed uptime. Users on the Pro plan, however, will get InMotion Hosting credits if they fail to reach the promised uptime.
When it comes to actual load times and uptime, both hosts performed very well. InMotion Hosting had an average uptime of 99.96% while DreamHost had an average of 99.95%. Loading times were close as well, with both having an average of around 600ms for small sites with little content.
Performance-wise, they are very close, with InMotion Hosting having a slight advantage when it comes to uptime.
Hosting Features
InMotion Hosting plans are expensive because they offer very good security features.
Both hosts come with their own exclusive features that you won’t get with the other. We’ll be taking a look at these features, so that you can find out which host offers the features that you will need more. Let’s start with InMotion Hosting.
InMotion Hosting
- Hacking and Malware Protection – With InMotion Hosting, you’ll get better malware and hacking protection as your files are regularly scanned and patched. Your applications are automatically patched with the latest security updates to prevent any damage to your site and any security issues.
- DDoS Protection – InMotion’s security features also prevent any DDoS attacks to your site.
- Spam Filtering – Real-time spam filtering from InMotion Hosting ensures that you are protected from viruses, potential hackers and more.
- Free Email Accounts – Even with the cheapest plan, you’ll get free email accounts (10). DreamHost’s cheapest shared plan does not come with free email accounts.
- Marketing Credits – You can jumpstart the promotion of your site with InMotion’s free advertising credits.
- cPanel – cPanel is easy to use and it is the standard control panel for most major hosting companies.
- Free Site Migration – InMotion Hosting’s free site migration offer is not limited to a free automated plugin. Their technical team will handle the migration for you.
DreamHost
- Unlimited Sites and Storage – With DreamHost, you’ll get to host unlimited sites with unlimited storage on their Shared Unlimited Plan.
- 97 Days Money Back – The 97 days money back guarantee that you get with DreamHost is still unmatched by any other hosting companies.
- Free Daily Backups – DreamHost offers free daily backups that can help you save time and headaches if you ever need to restore your site to a previous version.
- Free Domain Privacy – You can protect your identity and mask your domain’s info with DreamHost’s free domain privacy. With this, hackers and spammers are less likely to target you and your site.
Ease of Use and Customer Support
DreamHost and InMotion Hosting both come with their own easy to use website builders.
When it comes to navigating your account, InMotion Hosting comes with the standard cPanel, while DreamHost uses its own proprietary control panel. The standard cPanel is easy to use and navigate, especially if you have already used it in the past. That said, DreamHost’s proprietary control panel is not bad. It comes with a minimalistic layout, it’s also easy to navigate, and it won’t take too long to get used to it.
For beginners, and even experienced site owners, both hosts have their own website builders that you can use to make websites with ease. Both site builders don’t require any coding knowledge and both come with several templates to choose from. You’ll be able to create a website within an hour.
Both InMotion Hosting and DreamHost offer 24/7 customer support. DreamHost support channels include 24/7 live chat, a ticketing system and an optional phone callback (paid). In contrast, InMotion Hosting offers 24/7 chat and phone support, a ticketing system and you can also contact them via email. InMotion Hosting gives its users more ways to contact them if there are any issues with their sites and/or account.
Hosting Plans
DreamHost offers cheaper plans.
Both InMotion Hosting and DreamHost offer different types of hosting packages. InMotion Hosting offers shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS, dedicated servers and more. DreamHost, just like InMotion Hosting, offers WordPress hosting, shared hosting, VPS and dedicated servers.
While they offer similar hosting services, they are very different when it comes to pricing, especially on their shared hosting packages. InMotion Hosting shared plans are more expensive than DreamHost shared plans.
With InMotion Hosting, you get to choose from three shared hosting plans—Launch, Power and Pro. Their cheapest shared plan is the Launch plan, and it starts at $5.99/month for a 2-year term. The Power and Pro plans start at $8.99/month and $14.99/month, respectively. These prices are also for a 2-year term. You can choose to be billed every two years, yearly or monthly. The longer term will net you a bigger discount. InMotion Hosting comes with a 90-day money back guarantee.
As for DreamHost, they have two shared plans—Starter and Unlimited. The Starter plan starts at $2.49/month, while the Unlimited plan starts at $3.95/month. These prices are for 3-year terms. Billing options for DreamHost are monthly, yearly or every three years. Same with InMotion Hosting, the longer terms give you better discounts. DreamHost gives you a 97-day money back guarantee.
Verdict
If you value site security, you should definitely go with InMotion Hosting. However, if budget is your main concern, DreamHost is a good option.
Choosing between DreamHost and InMotion Hosting will come down to your budget. If you don’t mind paying more for better features, security and performance, InMotion Hosting is our recommended host. Their features are centered around security, and they offer very good uptime and load times. Additionally, they offer free site migration for users that want to change their hosting provider.
For those on a strict budget, DreamHost is definitely a good host to go with. Their shared plans are very affordable and they offer very good performance as well. They offer basic features, but this is understandable because their prices are very low.
FAQs
If you want better features, InMotion Hosting provides the superior hosting service. They have better security features in place for vulnerabilities that your site might encounter. On the other hand, DreamHost offers more affordable hosting, so if budget is a major factor, DreamHost is a very good option.
Yes, they have affordable plans, helpful support and good performance.
Their plans are more expensive than other hosts, but they make up for it by providing users good performance, impressive security features and good customer support.
No, they use their own proprietary control panel.
