Dreamhost, I Kiss You! 22 comments
UPDATE: Promo code profits donated to Seattle Ruby Brigade
I didn’t want to make it seem like I was recommending Dreamhost in order to make a profit. However, people have requested it. So if you use this promo code to sign up, you’ll get half of $97 and I’ll donate the remainder to the Seattle Ruby Brigade.
TOPFUNKY50
http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?muchawi
Dreamhost Adds Subversion
Dreamhost has just added http-based Subversion to their accounts. If your host don’t give you at least 20 GB disk space, tons of user accounts, unlimited domains, and great service, you need to switch NOW!
I have a lifetime account with another host, but I think I’ll put that one out to pasture where it can rust in peace.
When I have time, I’ll update my Dreamhost Switchtower recipe to match.
And if you haven’t read it on 42 other blogs already, RailsConf is open for registrations, which are selling speedily. And, you can get into a special session with the Pragmatic Programmers by giving a donation to charity. (or just donate anyway!)
Nuby on Rails
Geoffrey Grosenbach / Ruby / Code / Graphics / Design / Rails / Merb / Javascript / CSS
Getting the monthly Dreamhost newsletter and receiving this news made my day :D
wootbags. That’s fantastic news! I jumped on the Dreamhost bandwagon last week and like it alot. Very keen to see the updated version of your Switchtower recipe.
I love Dreamhost. This makes me love them more. I just wish they would work on their problems with downtime, especially email, which seems to experience problems on a daily basis.
I’d move to Dreamhost, too, if they were more reliable.
Yeah, how’s their support?
I use Pair for a lot of my stuff… they’re not really up to speed on Ruby yet, but, man, the service has always rocked.
Who’s the absolute best Rails hosting company right now?
Strange, I never experienced downtime with Dreamhost.
BTW, did any of you managed to get the (new) Subversion working on Dreamhost?
They sound nice, but how come they don’t have postgresql? Thats too bad.
It was great to see that in the newsletter. Pretty soon I will not need my VPS.
Now, if only they could figure out a way to get TRAC running nicely. Looking over the blog it doesn’t look easy or stable.
This is very neat – looking forward to your updated recipe.
I actually love Dreamhost, but I had such problem running Rails apps on it several months ago – the FCGI processes kept dying after a short period of time. Have you noticed any problems with this lately? SVN almost puts them back in the top spot for me if I can make rails apps stable.
I was just about to sign up (I am overall not that impressed with TxD) but…
NO POSTGRES? Seriously? What is up with that?
BTW, Rick, you might throw up your customer number or whatever to take advantage of those referral credits.
Uhh…substitute “Geoff” for “Rick”...getting messy with my tabs ;p
Alex Young has written about and found a solution for the dreamhost fastcgi problems at http://work.alexyoung.org/archives/102/dreamhost-and-rails-500-errors
Based on this post I signed up for dreamhost. So far I’m happy with the service but I got totally screwed by their promo deal. Some shady guy got $47 from my signup. That sucks. If anybody gets that money, it should be topfunky.
I created a promo code that gives the full discount possible: DH97. READ UP ON PROMOS BEFORE SIGNING UP!! (it would have been nice if one of you guys had mentioned this first so I could save the $47!)
Ok…I didn’t post a referral code because I didn’t want to make it seem like I was trying to make a profit off this.
But, if you want to sign up, use this link and the code TOPFUNKY50.
You’ll get half of $97 and I’ll get the remainder. I will donate 100% of whatever I get to the Seattle Ruby Brigade.
So use this link and the code TOPFUNKY50
http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?muchawi
I’m looking forward to seeing your changes to your DH recipe. I tried just changing the repository address to the new one but that didn’t work.
Also, maybe you could clue me in on how to remove the old DH svn repository I created before they supported this officially?
Thanks!
Dreamhost are cool if you want something to mess about with, they offer some nice features but reliablity is not one of them!
The referal system is VERY smart, a lot of new customers come that way and that’s how I found them. There is a large downside, a “mate” sung their praises and highly recommended them for business hosting – then made some money out of the referal. This is also how a lot of the good reviews come about – the reviewer has a vested interest. Google them and you’ll see glowing reports and also included will be a sign up code where the reviewer some $$$. Its human nature I guess. Yeap, TF’s goes to Seattle Ruby Brigade but most don’t.
Simply though, they just aren’t reliable; if you need your site to be actually up consistently find another host.
But, you want a load of bandwidth or a Ruby dev box – its cheap. Really though, its no wonder they have problem, we moved our business hosting quick sharp but we kept the account and now just use it to host very large files – I can and often do close to 1TB a month and I’d say I’m not the only one. You simply don’t want to be on the same shared host that I’m using!
Good points, Simon.
The more I use shared hosting, the more I realize that using ANY shared host is a risky situation. There are no guarantees of uptime, response time, or reliability.
Basically, shared hosts are for people who want a cheap server that will be maintained on a (hopefully) regular basis. I’m on a US$200/yearly plan at Dreamhost, which is less than half what my home DSL costs.
If you really need reliability, you need to pay up for a dedicated machine (or several). It depends on how important it is to you and your particular business.
I’m considering a move to a US$100/month dedicated server (in a few months). The downside is that when it goes down, it’s my responsibility to fix it!
So it’s a choice between a cheap plan with decent reliability that I don’t have to worry about, or a more expensive, potentially more reliable host that I have to fix myself.
Look for my book on this topic in a few months, with the Pragmatic Programmers and a half-dozen Rails pros!
Looking forward to your book! As for dedicated servers, you have to be REAL careful what company to buy from if you go that route. I’m surprised Google or some of the other giants don’t provide dedicated hosting services. They’d make a killing….
Yes, dreamhost is very good, but if you want a better promo code: saving use it or use his so he can donate.
have my account in hostmonster.com.Looks like dreamhost is better and planning to change to it. Thanks for the recommendation.
@Asghar: Since this article has been written, I’ve moved to RailsMachine.
If you are deploying a mission-critical application, I would not use any shared host such as Dreamhost. However, it may be useful for small prototypes.