DreamHost vs Liquid Web

DreamHost is strongest for WordPress sites. Liquid Web is strongest for agencies. Here's how they stack up on price, uptime, and support.

Feature	DreamHost	Liquid Web
Starting price	$10.99/mo	$5/mo
Best for	WordPress sites Beginners wanting simple shared hosting Small business web hosting Budget dedicated servers	Agencies E-commerce/WooCommerce High-traffic WordPress Businesses wanting fully-managed support
Stated uptime SLA	100%	100% (Liquid Web's published network/power/infrastructure uptime guarantee)
Storage	NVME	SSD
Regions	1	3
Managed Kubernetes	No	No
Support channels	Ticket, Live chat, Phone (WordPress plans), Docs, Knowledge base	24/7/365 phone, Live chat, Ticket, Docs/Knowledge Base
Compliance	GDPR	PCI DSS, HIPAA (available), SOC 2
Hidden costs to watch for	Steep renewal price increases after intro term (e.g. shared Launch plan: $2.89/mo intro jumps to $10.99/mo renewal, a ~280% increase) VPS and dedicated servers billed monthly only -- no hourly/pay-as-you-go option to spin down cheaply Free domain registration is only free for the first year, then renews at standard registrar rates DreamPress monthly visit allowances are soft caps; exceeding them can trigger upsell to a higher tier	Advertised prices are frequently promotional (e.g. 50% off for the first 2 months, or 10-15% off for 1-2 year prepay terms); renewal pricing is meaningfully higher than the teaser rate Bandwidth overages and additional storage are billed as add-ons beyond plan allowances Managed WordPress/Nexcess plans are billed upfront annually to get the advertised per-month rate ("2 months free" annual billing) in many cases Windows OS licensing adds a surcharge over equivalent Linux dedicated/cloud dedicated configurations
Last reviewed	2026-07-18	2026-07-18