DreamHost vs. Google Compute Engine

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
DreamHost
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
DreamHost is a website hosting service with features such as managed VPS hosting, public cloud computing, and dedicated servers. Managed options include WordPress with the DreamPress upgraded service with staging and coaching, WooCommerce hosting, as well as dedicated server hosting.
$3.95
per month
Google Compute Engine
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Compute Engine is an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) product from Google Cloud. It provides virtual machines with carbon-neutral infrastructure which run on the same data centers that Google itself uses.
$0.01
Hour
Pricing
DreamHostGoogle Compute Engine
Editions & Modules
Shared
$3.95
per month
DreamPress
$16.95
per month
Preemptible Price - Predefined Memory
0.000892 / GB
Hour
Three-year commitment price - Predefined Memory
$0.001907 / GB
Hour
One-year commitment price - Predefined Memory
$0.002669 / GB
Hour
On-demand price - Predefined Memory
$0.004237 / GB
Hour
Preemptible Price - Predefined vCPUs
0.006655 / vCPU
Hour
Three-year commitment price - Predefined vCPUS
$0.014225 / CPU
Hour
One-year commitment price - Predefined vCPUS
$0.019915 / vCPU
Hour
On-demand price - Predefined vCPUS
$0.031611 / vCPU
Hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DreamHostGoogle Compute Engine
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices vary according to region (i.e US central, east, & west time zones). Google Compute Engine also offers a discounted rate for a 1 & 3 year commitment.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DreamHostGoogle Compute Engine
Features
DreamHostGoogle Compute Engine
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
DreamHost
-
Ratings
Google Compute Engine
7.3
Ratings
10% below category average
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Monitoring tools00 Ratings3.00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Operating system support00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Security controls00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Automation00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
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User Ratings
DreamHostGoogle Compute Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DreamHostGoogle Compute Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
If you're not too technical, don't want to spend time managing a server and want something quality while sticking to a budget, DreamHost is the best it can get. We may be able to save money by switching to something like AWS, but for our usage it doesn't totally make sense even with potential cost-savings and improved speeds. The support and ease of use cannot be overstated here.
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It is excellent if you have any workloads that need raw computing or plan to have any state-full services running in your environment like DBs (for which you don't want to use Managed services), cache, etc. It also gives you complete control over which versions of software, OS, etc., you need, and thus, you can build anything and deploy it on GCE.
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Pros
  • Dreamhost has very good hosting plans that can be matched for different levels of hosting needs and expected web traffic bandwidth.
  • The hosting service is very friendly for coders and those needing to tinker "under the hood" with their sites.
  • Great uptime service with limited technical issues.
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  • A simple web-based interface that is a breeze to train new engineers to use. Our experienced engineers never have trouble finding or doing anything on GCE.
  • Sustained use and Committed use discounts mean we get top-tier VMs for an incredibly competitive price.
  • Wonderful identity and access management that gives us peace-of-mind when granting access to machines to contractors and other 3rd parties.
  • Fast VMs, lastest in hardware, and enough RAM to power even the hungriest of our services.
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Cons
  • There was one instance where DreamHost support caused unnecessary downtime because they misread my request. Unfortunately I don't have access to that account anymore (it was an old employer) so I don't remember the details. To avoid this, make it very clear whether you're just asking a question or want support to handle it (they can be quite eager to fix the problem even when you've just asked a question), and be VERY clear what you need when doing the wrong thing may cause serious problems.
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  • The L7 load balancer can be difficult to get set up. It's limited in its functionality, especially with the container engine.
  • It's hard to find certain objects on the web console. Often times the things I need to get to are buried in advanced menus.
  • Google's decision to only support MySQL on their relational DB service means that I have to manage Postgres instances in Compute on my own, managing everything from storage to backups.
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Likelihood to Renew
We have every intention of staying with Dreamhost, but we are a tad concerned with the company's recent involvement in high profile litigation and controversial topics. While we don't take a position one way or another on what type of content they should host, one concern we have is that repeated attacks on their infrastructure have caused significant downtime during business hours for us, and that's something we'll have to take into consideration going forward.
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Its pretty good, easy and good performance. Also, interface is very good for starters compared to competitors. Infra as Code (IaC) using Terraform even added easiness for creation, management and deletion of compute Virtual Machines (VM). Overall, very good and very easy cloud based compute platform which simplified infrastructure, very much recommend.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
Having interacted with several cloud services, GCE stands out to me as more usable than most. The naming and locating of features is a little more intuitive than most I've interacted with, and hinting is also quite helpful. Getting staff up to speed has proven to be overall less painful than others.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Google Compute Engine works well for cloud project with lesser geographical audience. It sometimes gives error while everything is set up perfectly. We also keep on check any updates available because that's one reason of site getting down. Google Compute Engine is ultimately a top solution to build an app and publish it online within a few minutes
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Performance
No answers on this topic
The raw computer power is excellent; our applications feel snappy, pages load almos instantly for our customers and so on. The primary reason it is not a perfect 10 is that the native tools for monitoring individual VM performance can be complex, making it challenging to easily diagnose specific resource bottlenecks without significant configuration
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Support Rating
Whether we're calling in on the phone, live chatting or emailing, we get immediate high-quality, native English-speaking support. This cannot be overstated when it comes to hosting, because support tickets are usually time sensitive and high stress. I've always had great experiences with the limited times we've needed to use DreamHost support. We've dealt with support for many other providers and no one comes close to DreamHost.
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  • The documentation needs to be better for intermediate users - There are first steps that one can easily follow, but after that, the documentation is often spotty or not in a form where one can follow the steps and accomplish the task. Also, the documentation and the product often go out of sync, where the commands from the documentation do not work with the current version of the product.
  • Google support was great and their presence on site was very helpful in dealing with various issues.
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Alternatives Considered
We've tried a few other WordPress-specific hosts, as well as other shared hosting providers (Rackspace, WPEngine, and others). We have found that DreamHost gives the best balance of cost, performance, and features, for our needs. All vendors have their own pitfalls and shortcomings, and DreamHost isn't without its own, but it works for us.
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When configuring Amazon ECS, it is a bit confusing as you are not able to find the actual issue. You need to enable Additional AppInsights to get detailed level info, which is not a concern when configuring on the Instance Level. Moreover, Azure VM does not provide an in-browser option; instead, it is Azure Bastion, but for that, you have to enable a dedicated subnet, which is a bit unnecessary.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
It works really well with other Google Cloud services, making it easy to build scalable solutions across different teams and locations.
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Return on Investment
  • It's a great product for a relatively cheap price
  • We can offer a simple hosting solution for our clients
  • Even the VPS (virtual private servers) are very affordable and you can manage it as you wish (SSH access)
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  • Scalability means flexibility and less upfront costs
  • Can become expensive when hard set compute requirements are clear, but things like Spot VMs can help here too, or just having your own infrastructure and scaling up with Google. This is for more advanced cases though
  • Ramp up time is long, but after that it is quick to do many things and ROI is awesome
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ScreenShots

Google Compute Engine Screenshots

Screenshot of How to choose the right VM
With thousands of applications, each with different requirements, which VM is right for you?Screenshot of documentation, guides, and reference architectures
Migration Center is Google Cloud's unified migration platform with features like cloud spend estimation, asset discovery, and a variety of tooling for different migration scenarios.