Overview
This article lists some FAQs related to DreamPress.
General
Where can I learn about DreamPress?
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View the DreamPress category for a list of articles.
How long does it take to set up DreamPress?
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A new DreamPress installation should finish within thirty minutes or less. The following items may delay an installation:
- if you are moving from an existing DreamHost WordPress install that has a lot of data that needs to be moved.
- if you're moving an existing site without a DreamHost plan that has a significant amount of data.
Are different DreamPress plans available?
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Yes. There are three plans. View DreamPress plans and pricing for further details.
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The primary difference is the server DreamPress is hosted on. With DreamPress, all WordPress sites are hosted on DreamCompute, DreamHost's cloud service.
In addition, WordPress is automatically installed on every instance of DreamPress. On a Shared Hosting plan, WordPress can manually be installed through the DreamHost WordPress install feature located in the DreamHost control panel.
Hosting
What can I host on DreamPress?
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The DreamPress service is only available and optimized for a single WordPress site.
What other applications can I host on DreamPress?
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DreamPress supports only a single WordPress installation. No other applications are allowed. If you require other applications to run under the same URL, a standard VPS plan is a better fit.
How many sites can I have on one DreamPress plan?
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Each DreamPress plan supports a single WordPress installation.
Is a VPS plan a better fit for my site than DreamPress?
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It depends on how your website is configured. Here are a few comparisons between a VPS plan and DreamPress:
- Number of sites — DreamPress plans allow only a single site. You can create as many WordPress installs as you like on a VPS plan.
- Multisite — Multisite is not supported on DreamPress, but you can manually install Multisite on a VPS plan.
- Unmanaged sites—DreamPress is a fully managed service where the server is maintained for you. If your site is very customized and requires server adjustments, a VPS is a better option.
How much traffic can my site take?
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DreamHost does not limit the number of visitors to your site or have any overages for traffic.
Many customers asked for a direct comparison of competitor offerings, so DreamHost examined the performance of DreamPress using loader.io, an independent benchmarking tool. This estimate is based on 50-100 un-cached visitors per minute (averaging 3 page views each) on a basic WordPress install filled with content. Under most circumstances, your site will be able to sustain significantly higher traffic levels due to DreamPress's multi-level caching systems.
Is Multisite/WPMU supported?
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Not at this time.
Is email provided with DreamPress?
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Yes. Email service is available on DreamPress plans.
Configuration
Are there any plugins I can't use?
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At this time, DreamHost has not banned customers from using any specific plugins. That said, there are some plugins that DreamHost does not recommend you use with DreamPress as they're not the best fit.
- PHP Session plugins — In general, if a plugin uses PHP Sessions, it's not going to perform well with the built-in server cache.
- Captcha plugins — These generally apply cookies and/or sessions in a way that tells the DreamPress cache not to cache. Try not to use them on comment pages.
Can I develop my site on DreamPress while it's hosted elsewhere?
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Yes. You can create a temporary dream.press domain to create your site on. Then when you're ready, Technical Support can switch it over to your actual domain name.
Can I send emails from my DreamPress server?
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DreamHost recommends only sending emails via SMTP from your WordPress site using a plugin such as WP Mail SMTP. This way, you ensure the emails are authenticated via SPF and DKIM, which helps prevent spam classification.
It's not possible to use custom scripts or custom code to send outgoing emails (such as PHP mail() or PHPMailer).
Can I create cronjobs with my DreamPress user?
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By default, DreamPress users are created as SFTP users, which cannot run cron jobs. However, you can change your user to a Shell user, allowing your user to run cron jobs from the panel.
Can I use IonCube Loader with DreamPress?
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IonCube Loader is not supported with DreamPress. IonCube's website states the following:
ionCube PHP Encoder is the industry standard solution for PHP software protection, making it straightforward and easy to protect PHP source code from observation, theft, and change.
The ionCube Encoder compiles source code to bytecode, can obfuscate and encrypt compiled code if desired and has features to protect decryption keys in various ways, including a unique approach of algorithmic non-stored keys we call Dynamic Keys.
Since the WordPress software is open source, there is never a reason to use IonCube Loader to hide your code. If you absolutely require IonCube, the only option is to downgrade to a VPS or Shared Hosting plan.
Can I alter my PHP configuration for a DreamPress site?
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Yes. See this article for further details.
Security
Will I have root/sudo access on a DreamPress plan?
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No. root/sudo access is only available on Dedicated or DreamCompute plans.
Can I use SSL on DreamPress?
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All DreamPress sites come configured with a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate. It's installed along with DreamPress, so you do not need to configure it manually.
Can I create password-protected folders?
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Yes. However, please be aware that the DreamPress cache won't know to flush the cache for the folder if it's not powered by WordPress. You may have to manually flush the cache any time you update its contents.
Is HTTP/2 available for DreamPress?
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Yes. DreamPress servers come with HTTP/2 by default for SSL/TLS.
Caching
How does WordPress caching work on DreamPress?
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DreamPress comes with built-in server caching, which creates a static version of your site. This helps your server to use fewer resources, allowing your site to load faster while managing larger amounts of traffic.
Can I use other plugins besides the DreamPress cache plugin for caching?
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Since DreamPress comes with built-in caching, third-party caching plugins are not necessary and could even conflict with the built-in DreamPress cache.
For optimal performance, make sure the version of the Nginx Helper plugin is always up to date, as it provides helpful tools to manage your DreamPress site's cache.