DreamHost On Rails

July 06, 2005 | 20 Comments

One of the things that’s cool about DreamHost is the ability to suggest something and then have other users vote on it. Well one of the things I voted on was recently implemented and I’m sure many are glad it was.

DreamHost now supports Ruby on Rails. The one thing I kept hearing about from people who were interested in DreamHost but were reluctant. It’s cool news! Especially for me because I’ve been learning how to program (a bit) with Ruby on Rails recently.

From the newsletter:

If I wasn’t making myself clear, DreamHost now supports Ruby on Rails right out of the box (so no further need to follow the crazy instructions for doing it yourself like people were posting at wiki.dreamhost.com), along with FastCGI (which you pretty much need - unless you prefer Ruby on Snails).

Did I also mention that their newsletter is one of the best I get. It’s just funny enough to get me to read it every time. If you were waiting on this to check DreamHost out, you’ve got no excuses now.

Filed under: News
Keyword Tags: dreamhost ruby+on+rails

Comments

1. Yannick L. said:

I am currently looking for a host and each and everytime you speak of Dreamhost, I am one step closer to going to them. hehe

Posted on July 6, 2005 11:56 AM | #

2. Steven Ametjan said:

I noticed a couple nights ago that Dreamhost was supporting Ruby on Rails along with FastCGI, and since one of the projects I’m getting ready to start is based on ROR it seems like a good fit. The only problem I have with getting it started has nothing to do with Dreamhost… only my inability to create a name for the stupid thing. Once the name is figured out, I’ll be setup on dreamhost and running along the rails.

Posted on July 6, 2005 12:41 PM | #

3. Jeff Hartman said:

Good news. Some things that I don’t like about Dreamhost are their control panel, mailbox names, and MySQL setup.

Splitting hairs here, but…

Control Panel - obviously home-brewed, and somewhat awkward. What’s nice is that it runs on standard ports whereas some others run on ports that are sometimes blocked by firewalls.

Mailboxes - Being assigned a mailbox number for all of your email accounts is non-intuitive. I’d rather use myname@mydomain.com instead of m14092943. Not that these change often though…

MySQL - create a unique db name, MySQL username and hostname? Hmmm. I understand unique, but they mean unique across ALL Dreamhost users. Why not, as the host, prefix all db names and usernames with something automatically (like the Dreamhost account name).

Finally, their control panel is SLOW.

All that said, I think Dreamhost is pretty solid and it’s hard to beat their pricing for what you get.

Oh, and one other thing that annoyed me…they reserve the top level directory “stats” (www.domain.com/stats). Found this out after I moved one of my sites there which used this. Still wondering if I can change that config so all my links still work (internal and external).

Posted on July 6, 2005 01:44 PM | #

4. Andrew K said:

I signed up with Dreamhost last friday. Now they are saying they refunded my paypal payment when paypal assures me they didn’t. Still waiting for them to admit they have my money.
If I link to them via my member rewards id, maybe I can get my $400 back in kickbacks.
Grrr. :(

Posted on July 6, 2005 03:28 PM | #

5. Konstantinos said:

Did I also mention that their newsletter is one of the best I get. It’s just funny enough to get me to read it every time.

Woah, I’m standing on the opposite side on this one.

It’s 5 sentences of news-worthy material turned to 10 parapraphs of rambling, and all that extra stuff is supposed to be funny, but it’s actually so incoherent and dull at times, you have trouble following it.

(Boy, that sounded mean.)

Posted on July 6, 2005 03:44 PM | #

6. Anthony said:

Agreed. One of the funniest (most entertaining might be better) newsletters I get.

Posted on July 6, 2005 03:57 PM | #

7. JR said:

I’m skeptical any time I read someone recommending Dreamhost, because I know they’re being paid. Every time someone clicks your “check DreamHost out” link and signs up, you make $97. Stuff like that needs to be mentioned - it’s a substantial amount of money changing hands.

Posted on July 6, 2005 04:06 PM | #

8. Andrew K said:

Regarding my note above about unreturned funds – Dreamhost fixed the problem about 5 minutes after I posted my above comment… Sweet :)

Posted on July 6, 2005 04:45 PM | #

9. Keith said:

Konstantinos – Oh, come on man, it’s funny. ;) Yeah, some of it is over the top and silly, but I read it every time.

JR – You should be skeptical. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop telling people about what I think is a great service when they’ve got big news. I’m not sure why they offer rewards for referring them – they’re good enough not to need it.

I mean, I run ALL of my sites for less than it cost me to run one site before I had DreamHost and I’ve yet to enounter any major problems. They’re inexpensive, good and feature rich. Not perfect, but I don’t think that can be beat.

Posted on July 6, 2005 04:50 PM | #

10. Alan said:

Watching Dreamhost over the several years, their reputation seems to be “works great 90% of the time, you’ll hear nothing from them that other 10% of the time”.

Still, this is probably the cheapest and easiest way for developers to start using Ruby and Rails.

(The $97/signup affiliate program skeeves me out. A lot. But not when it’s coming from people who actualy use the service. (-: )

Posted on July 7, 2005 06:54 AM | #

11. Jim Renaud said:

I’ve used Dreamhost for over five years and never have they raised their price on me. Actually three years ago they bumped all my limits (storage, bandwidth, etc…) and lowered my price $5 becuase they were offering a new service and wanted to reward the long-time users. That is class.

I have 13 sites hosted on Dreamhost (a lot of friends, little clients) all under my account and have never had a major problem with them.

They constantly add new services and they do have a great sense of humor. For kicks try adding Front Page Extensions! Totally hilarious. I had a client who “had” to let his nephew re-design his site and wanted Front Page Extensions. It asks you about 400 times if you are sure.

I want 97 bucks though. I had no idea they were doing this.

Shit, I need to make some cash.

Posted on July 7, 2005 07:23 AM | #

12. jacob said:

The running gag in this month’s newsletter was about going to China and eating dogs. Flippantly employing an ethnic stereotype in a company communication strikes me as more appalling than funny, but to each his own, I suppose.

Posted on July 7, 2005 07:38 AM | #

13. jekyll said:

I second everything Jeff Hartman wrote and emphasize how slow the panel is. Having to wait an hour – sometimes two – for changes/updates sometimes means tasks will take two or more days because I don’t have the time to wait. I have the time now. And if you’re that type of person, then do not use Dreamhost, you’ll become frustrated. Otherwise, I don’t mind them. Unless I have to do something. Now. :)

Regarding my note above about unreturned funds – Dreamhost fixed the problem about 5 minutes after I posted my above comment… Sweet :)

So, Keith is getting preferential treatment. They monitor his site! ;)

Posted on July 7, 2005 10:34 AM | #

14. Shashank said:

A quick stop-over at webhostingtalk would tell you that many major hosts have had ROR support when their customers asked for it.

Posted on July 7, 2005 12:19 PM | #

15. Jonathan said:

Very interesting comments. I’ve never actually used Dreamhost because I am a Site5 user myself. I’ve been with Site5 for the past almost year now. I’ve had nothing but great service from Site5, but I haven’t really heard a whole lot from Dreamhost.

I’ve heard of a lot of bad experiences, which is one of the reasons I’ve recommended that people switch away from Dreamhost, but it’s refreshing to hear a good report of them. I wish you the best of luck with them : )

Posted on July 8, 2005 11:19 AM | #

16. Daniel Schutzsmith said:

I totally overlooked that in the newsletter. This sounds great! I’ve been wanting to mess around with Rails and see what all the hub bub is about. Thanks for the tip!

Posted on July 8, 2005 02:15 PM | #

17. JR said:

Too funny that Jonathan’s comment is an affiliate shill (using a redirect), this time for Site5, who promise merely $55 or $70.

Posted on July 14, 2005 09:25 AM | #

18. Jonathan said:

I beg to different. Site5.com is a good company and it was a legit comment. I don’t post to spam, I don’t post to affiliate, I don’t post to clutter, I post because I feel my comment is worth something to the audience.

If I were posting to spam, I wouldn’t be here at all. I’m in the industry to fight against spammers.

Posted on July 28, 2005 04:00 PM | #

19. JH said:

I just signed up with dreamhost as well and am very happy so far withe waht they have to offer. For $120 a year prepaid (including tax, domain and everything) I got everything I need for my own personal RoR playground. Most people spend that on 2 months of cable. This is great!

Posted on July 31, 2005 11:33 PM | #

20. Dave said:

Yeah Dreamhost are excellent if you can get over their unconventional control panel and *sometimes* slow (but always good humoured and knowledgeable) support. Here’s a little tip that will get you their level 1 package for $2.99/month instead of $9.99/month…

go to https://panel.dreamhost.com/signup/?next_step=Index and click the button that says “12 months for $119.40” underneath L1: Crazy Domain Insane.

Choose your domain name and a username etc..

When you get to the verify total page enter “2Dollars99” (without the quotes) into the optional promo code box and click update.

That’s it! You now have 12 months for $2.99/month which works out at $35.88/year.

Posted on August 3, 2005 07:52 PM | #