Axton Miles

I’ve been using Namecheap for domain registration and hosting for a long time, but there is one thing I hate about their shared hosting: They don’t have free SSL certificates. They only have premium SSL certificates, which you get for free with any hosting plan for the first year, then it costs an extra $13 per year to renew each certificate, and that’s just the cheapest one. That’s a totally unnecessary cost these days where most hosts offer free SSL certs.

Brixly was one of the best UK web hosts I’ve used, then the company was acquired by Enix and some things started changing. The most disappointing change was the drop in support quality. There are complaints from other customers about this too. I’ve seen the same happen with other hosts when they get bought out by a bigger brand. If you’re not happy with it anymore, just move on… Some of the better alternatives I’ve used are Ethernet Servers, WebGee, and HostWorld.

DreamHost has been around forever in the web hosting space. I remember recommending it years ago because it felt honest compared to the giant hosting brands that overloaded users with upsells and confusing pricing. But over time, shared hosting has changed. Modern hosting companies started focusing more on cloud infrastructure, NVMe storage, LiteSpeed servers, better caching, and lower-density shared environments. Meanwhile, DreamHost’s shared hosting can sometimes feel a bit dated by comparison.