Hosting Reviews on September 25, 2021 by Manoling Martinez

Are you on the hunt for a high-quality web host for your website in 2023? IONOS is a popular choice among many — but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best option for you. 

If you’re curious to see what IONOS has to offer your website, this IONOS review is the perfect place to find answers.
Cell
Cell

Owner

United Internet

Basic Plan

Essential

Price

$4/mo

Free Domain?

Yes

Average Uptime

99.99% (August 2023)

Average Speed

604 ms (August 2023)

One-Click WordPress Installation?

Yes

Free SSL?

Yes

Number of Sites

1

Free Email?

Yes

Free Backup?

Yes

Moneyback Guarantee

30 days

Support Channels

Live chat, phone, and email

Control Panel

1&1 Control Panel

Space

10 GB

Free CDN?

Yes

Migration Services

No

Overall Rating

Get Hosting

Other Plans

Dedicated Hosting ($45), VPS Hosting ($2)

Best Alternative

Cell
Cell

Down below I’ve reviewed IONOS’s pros, cons, and features to hopefully help you in your journey to find the best web hosting for your needs.

Let’s get started.

Introducing IONOS

IONOS Review 2021 The Hosting Provider For You IONOS

IONOS, one of the largest European-based web-hosting providers, has grown to host over 12 million domains across the US and EU over their 30 years of experience.

With 15 ISO 27001 certified data centers located in over 9 countries around the world and over 2,000 employees, IONOS boasts a strong presence in the industry promising excellent support for businesses and sites no matter how big or small they may be.

Pros

$1 for the first 12 months

IONOS offers you an exceptional deal with their shared hosting business packages, offering a full year of hosting at just $0.08 or $1!

This is a great deal considering the unlimited storage, site, and bandwidth on the shared hosting option, well worth the $10 a month price tag after the first year.

The offer still holds for their managed business WordPress package too, supporting 1 site and 100 GB of storage space, with an $8 a month price tag after the first year.

Free domain registration and transfers

With every IONOS package, you’ll get a free domain name for the first year, even on the dollar yearly promotional plans!

This saves you up to $15 dollars a year and gives you virtually free web hosting for the first year if you opt for their managed business WordPress or shared business plan.

Already have a domain name that you want to bring over from a previous website? No sweat — IONOS also offers a snazzy free domain migration service that’s easy and convenient. Simply contact their customer support team about your concerns and they’ll walk you through the entire process of the transfer. 

High uptime

IONOS offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee that they stick to, with an average uptime of 99.99% (August 2023) that ensures your site will stay up online no matter how much traffic IONOS’s servers are facing.

This exceptional reliability makes it perfect for businesses looking to minimize downtime to increase sales and offer their customers the ability to buy what they want when they want.

Free email

Most website owners overlook the importance of a personalized email address. Don’t be one of them! Having a personalized email can improve your brand image and make your website look and feel more professional. It also helps build the confidence and trust your audience has for your website. These factors are especially important if you’re running a business website. 

Cons

No free website migrations

Unfortunately, IONOS doesn’t provide any free site migration services — unlike other similar web hosts. This might pose an issue for newbies or businesses who aren’t looking to get into the technicalities of doing things manually.

Fortunately, the company does offer free server migration services. Transfer your website data safely and securely with the help of their attentive customer support team. 

However, IONOS does have a few guides to help you throughout the process.

Custom cPanel

If you’re accustomed to the traditional cPanel used extensively by other web hosts, you may find it difficult to adjust to IONOS’s own custom control panel.

You’ll probably have to go through a learning curve here and while their custom cPanel isn’t bad, it isn’t as easy to use as the traditional cPanel so it may take a bit more time for newbies to get used to.

HDD on shared packages

If you’ve come to expect SSD storage on all hosting services then you may be a bit let down with IONO’s shared hosting packages that only provide HDD storage space.

This can negatively impact your loading speed considering traditional HDD is over 20X slower than SSD storage.

Performance and Uptime

While IONOS has excellent above-average uptime, when it comes to speed you won’t get anything special here, with a roughly 604 ms (August 2023) loading speed time, it’s pretty average when compared to other leading competitors in the industry.

However, you do get over 15 data center locations to choose from, but sadly they’re mostly located in Europe and the US so if you’re trying to appeal to an eastern market or the international market in general, you’ll find that your customer may have to wait a few seconds.

However, you do get lightning-quick SSD storage on IONOS’s WordPress plans which can help speed up content load times.

Nevertheless, If you’re looking for speed first and foremost, you may want to consider other hosting providers such as A2 Hosting.

Products and Features

On the basic WordPress plan, you’ll get support for one WordPress website along with 25GB of storage space suitable for small sites that aren’t looking to upload a lot of HD videos and content.

You’ll also get a single email account with 2GB of storage space that includes spam protection normally added as an extra feature by other hosting providers.

The basic shared hosting packages on the other hand offer you a bit less with only 10GB of storage, but the other higher-end packages offer unlimited traffic, storage, and SQL databases that can help improve loading speeds.

Sadly unlike other hosting providers that offer a free CDN in their basic plan, you’ll only get one on the premium expert package option.

However, the RailGun CDN is highly effective with over 150 data centers to distribute your data through to help improve loading speeds.

Cloud-based hosting in the form of WordPress Pro is also available allowing you to scale resources with one click of a button while also benefiting from the ease of managed WordPress.

VPS and Dedicated server solutions also provide you with heavy processing power for all your heavy-duty needs with customizable packages to suit your every requirement.

Check out this video on how to create a WordPress site with IONOS:


Site Experience

On the shared packages, while unmanaged, you’ll still be able to download plugins through simple 1 click installs including WordPress. However, you’ll get a more optimized and user-friendly experience if you opt for IONOS’s managed WordPress plans.

With over 55,000 plugins available you’ll have no problem adding functionality to your site no matter what you’re looking to do from eCommerce to picture and art galleries.

However as mentioned previously, the custom cPanel does make this a bit more difficult for beginners than your average web host as while the dashboard contains all the functionality you need, it is a bit less intuitive overall.

IONOS Packages and Pricing

Plan type

Pricing range per month*

Shared Hosting

$0.08-$8.00

WordPress Hosting

$0.08-$8.00

WordPress Pro Hosting

$18.00-$120.00

VPS Hosting

$15.00-$45.00

Dedicated Hosting

$45.00-$140.00

Reseller Hosting

$0.08-$8.00

The pricing above reflects the introductory pricing which takes into account the $1 for 12 months promotion they run on the Shared, WordPress, and Reseller Hosting packages.

On these packages, you can expect prices to double after the introductory periods (apart from the $1 package that goes up to $8-$10 a month).

With the dedicated and VPS solutions, you’ll be able to customize your package to suit your needs which will affect pricing.

However, apart from the basic dedicated hosting option, you’ll have to pay a $50 set up fee when you sign up to their program, however, it’s only a one-time payment. 

Security

IONOS provides a slew of different security features on all its packages.

You’ll get a high-end Wildcard SSL certificate that encrypts your users’ sensitive information, such as credit card details, safe. This is essential if you’re looking to start an online store and also can improve your SEO and increase your google results ranking.

Another great feature is daily backups provided on all packages, keeping your site’s last 6 days of the content safe at all times, which is a lifesaver if you ever suffer from data loss.

SiteScan constantly checks your page and the software you’ve installed to ensure that outdated programs are updated to prevent any malicious hackers from trying to take advantage of any loopholes. 

DDoS protection with IONOS’s firewall ensures that no hacker will be able to overload your site, a sight too common nowadays where bots flood server resources. 

Customer Support

When it comes to customer support IONOS gives all its users 24/7 customer support available through phone, email, and live chat.

This makes getting in touch super convenient with experienced customer service professionals that help guide you through issues regardless of their complexity.

Recently IONOS has even added one-to-one support giving you your own personal assistant that makes it so much easier for customer reps to understand your level of tech-savviness allowing them to tailor their guidance to your ability.

While IONOS does provide great customer support, the time it takes for you to get a response is pretty average so you shouldn’t expect too much when it comes to waiting times.

Wrap up 

All in all, IONOS is a great web host if you’re located in the EU or US with tons of packages and hosting options to choose from to give you scalable and flexible hosting solutions.

While you get plenty of features with their service, the starter packages are a bit lacking when it comes to storage and bandwidth and may not be the best bet for small sites looking for extreme value at a low price point.

Additionally, due to the lack of international data centers, IONOS’s service isn’t the best when it comes to satisfying a global user base.

So as long as you're a medium-scale site or business and are located in the Western hemisphere you’ll find IONOS a great web host that you won’t regret choosing.

Have we missed anything out?

Comment your thoughts down below,

And good luck with hosting your site!

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