Ionos Hosting Review
Ionos is a veteran in the hosting world with it being one of the first hosting companies ever created. Originally founded in Germany in 1988 under the name 1&1, Ionos is now serving over 8 million customers worldwide and more than 12 million domains. It became one of the first web hosting companies to offer affordable shared hosting plans to small businesses and individuals.
The company has overgone name several changes throughout the years. In the early 2000s Ionos changed its name to United Internet when it joined the group. In late 2018, it merged with ProfitBricks and was then known as 1&1 Ionos. Less than a year later they rebranded their legal name to IONOS Inc.
Over the years, Ionos has continued to innovate and offer a range of web hosting services, including shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, and cloud hosting. The company has also invested in developing its own data centres to provide reliable and high-performance hosting solutions to its customers.
Pros & Cons of Ionos Web Hosting
Pros
- Free domain & SSL with all packages
- Competitive Pricing
- 99.9% uptime
- Access to your own personal consultant
Cons
- No free site transfer
- Support responsive times are poor
Ease of Use (4.7/5)
If you’re not tech-savvy, website hosting can be daunting and confusing. Therefore, it’s crucial for a hosting provider to prioritise user-friendliness to make the experience easier for everyone. Hosting your own website is not something that everyone is an expert in.
Let’s explore how user-friendly the Ionos control panel is.
Back in 2022, it was apparent the Ionos control panel was becoming dated. Ionos differentiates itself from competitors like Bluehost, who use cPanel, by developing its own unique design for its control panel.
Recently, the Ionos control panel has had a rebrand. Icons have been made to look more modern and text has been boldened to stand out more. Although the layout remains unchanged, the interface is still straightforward and user-friendly.
The site can be managed through user-friendly buttons that clearly describe the actions that can be performed in each respective area.
You can build your website within the Ionos website builder and oversee a report of your site and important metrics all from one screen. We were impressed with the level of insight it provided and presented in a clear, easy-to-understand way.
With a fresh rebrand and a simple-to-use control panel, we score Ionos a 4.7/5 for ease of use. If you’re a complete novice to web hosting using Ionos will make you feel more confident.
Pricing & Packages (4.7/5)
If budget web hosting is what you are after, then look no further. Ionos offers packages starting from as little as $1 a month making them one of the cheapest options on the market. With hard-to-beat promotional prices, we score Ionos a 4.7/5 for pricing.
Be aware though, these lower prices are promotional prices for the first 12 months. Don’t get caught out however, the price will increase once the first 12 months are up.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is a type of web hosting service where multiple websites are hosted on a single physical server. In this hosting model, the server’s resources, such as CPU, memory, disk space, and bandwidth, are shared among all the websites hosted on the server. As you are sharing the resources with others, shared hosting is usually a budget-friendly option.
Usually, you’ll have no idea who you are sharing the server resources with. Ionos offers both web hosting and ASP.NET shared hosting.
Web Hosting
Ionos web hosting packages come in 4 different tiers, essential, starter, plus or ultimate.
Package | Cost (First 12 Months) | Cost After 12 Months |
Essential | $4 per month | $6 per month |
Starter | $6 per month | $8 per month |
Plus | $1 per month | $12 per month |
Ultimate | $10 per month | $16 per month |
The essential package is ideal if you only want to host one website or project. The starter package on the other hand can support up to ten websites or projects. If you want access to hosting for unlimited projects then the plus or ultimate packages are ideal.
All packages come with a free domain for the first year and SSL security.
ASP.NET Hosting
Windows hosting that is ideal for Windows devs. Ionos uses Windows Server 2022.
Package | Cost (First 12 Months) | Cost After 12 Months |
Business | $5 per month | $10 per month |
Pro | $6 per month | $12 per month |
Expert | $10 per month | $20 per month |
The business package is ideal for one website or project. The pro package is best for up to 5 websites or projects and the expert package is best for up to 50 sites.
Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is a type of web hosting service where a client leases an entire physical server from a hosting provider. This means that the client has exclusive use and control over the resources and capabilities of the server, without having to share them with any other users.
Dedicated hosting is typically used by larger businesses that require a high level of performance and a greater level of security. Clients can configure servers to meet their needs.
Dedicated Hardware Hosting
There are numerous dedicated hosting packages available from Ionos, including both SSD and HDD server options. However, dedicated hosting can be significantly more costly as it provides exclusive access to server resources without any sharing with other users.
You can get started from $70 a month for a whopping 16GB of RAM and 480GB of SSD space.
SSD Plans:
Package | Cost (First 3 Months) | Cost After 3 Months | RAM | Storage (SSD) |
L-16 SSD | $70 per month | $90 per month | 16 GB DDR4 | 480 GB |
XL-32 SSD | $110 per month | $130 per month | 32 GB DDR4 | 800 GB |
XL-64 SSD | $140 per month | $160 per month | 64 GB DDR4 | 800 GB |
Alternatively, if you have a lower budget you can opt into one of the HDD dedicated hardware hosting packages. Even though a hard disk drive (HDD) may offer a higher storage capacity, its read and write speeds are generally slower than those of a solid-state drive (SSD).
You can get started from $47 a month for 12GB of RAM and 1000GB of storage.
HDD Plans:
Package | Cost (First 3 Months) | Cost After 3 Months | RAM | Storage (SSD) |
L4i HDD | $47 per month | N/A | 12 GB DDR4 | 1000 GB |
L-16 HDD | $60 per month | $80 per month | 16 GB DDR4 | 1000 GB |
XL-32 HDD | $90 per month | $110 per month | 32 GB DDR4 | 2000 GB |
XL-64 HDD | $120 per month | $140 per month | 64 GB DDR4 | 2000 GB |
VPS Hosting
Standard Plans:
For those with a tighter budget, standard plans offer a good combination of CPU, memory, and storage, making them an excellent choice.
Package | Cost | CPU | RAM | Storage (SSD) |
VPS S | $2 per month (30 day risk free) | 1 vCore | 512 MB | 10 GB |
VPS M | $4 per month ($7 after 6 months) | 2 vCores | 2 GB | 80 GB |
VPS L | $8 per month ($16 after 6 months) | 2 vCores | 4 GB | 120 GB |
VPS XL | $2 per month ($25 after 6 months) | 4 vCores | 8 GB | 160 GB |
VPS XXL | $18 per month ($35 after 6 months) | 6 vCores | 12 GB | 240 GB |
Memory Optimised Plans:
If you’re in need of additional memory, memory-optimised plans could be an ideal match for your needs.
Package | Cost | CPU | RAM | Storage (SSD) |
VPS M RAM | $8 per month ($15 after 6 months) | 2 vCores | 6 GB | 80 GB |
VPS L RAM | $12 per month ($25 after 6 months) | 4 vCores | 12 GB | 120 GB |
VPS XL RAM | $2 per month ($35 after 6 months) | 6 vCores | 18 GB | 160 GB |
VPS XXL RAM | $24 per month ($45 after 6 months) | 8 vCores | 24 GB | 240 GB |
CPU Optimised Plans:
If you need increased CPU power, you might want to consider a CPU-optimised plan.
Package | Cost | CPU | RAM | Storage (SSD) |
VPS vCore M | $6 per month ($9 after 6 months) | 4 vCores | 2 GB | 80 GB |
VPS vCore L | $10 per month ($17 after 6 months) | 4 vCores | 4 GB | 120 GB |
VPS vCore XL | $4 per month ($27 after 6 months) | 6 vCores | 8 GB | 160 GB |
VPS vCore XXL | $20 per month ($37 after 6 months) | 8 vCores | 12 GB | 240 GB |
Reliability & Performance (4.9/5)
Reliability and performance is ever so important, especially if your entire business operations are conducted on your website. You need to find a provider that consistently runs smoothly and quickly whilst keeping operations running all the time.
Uptime Score
Website uptime refers to the duration during which a website remains operational, enabling visitors to access its content. It’s impossible to claim 100% uptime. Natural disasters and regular updating can be unavoidable. Nonetheless, achieving uptime as close to 100% as possible should be a top priority.
Ionos has a great uptime score. They boast a guaranteed uptime of 99.9% and according to user reviews and our own testing, they generally deliver on this promise.
Speed
Website speed is becoming more and more important. You want to make a good first impression to your audience. A slow website can potentially turn away prospects even before they get to see what you have to offer.
Ideally, you want a website to load between 2-3 seconds, or even less if you have an e-commerce website. 40% of consumers will wait no more than 3 seconds before abandoning a website.
When it comes to loading your website swiftly, Ionos is flawless in terms of speed. We ran an SEOptimer test on our own Comprehension Digital site as we use Ionos. Our overall load time was 2.5 seconds, with the server response speed being less than 100 milliseconds. The results speak for themselves. This indicates that the rendering of HTML from the Ionos servers is happening very quickly.
Support (2.5/5)
Having a reliable customer support system is crucial, particularly for hosting providers. With many businesses relying solely on their websites for commerce, fast resolution of any website-related issues is essential.
Ionos offers 24/7 phone support 365 days of the year, as well as a help centre where you can find frequently asked questions or support guides. In addition to this, once you have purchased a hosting package you have access to your very own personal consultant for no extra cost. You can contact your consultant via phone, email or chat.
Alternatively, you can use the live chat option for text-based conversations with an agent. However, from our own experience, this can be a lengthy process. It can take a while for an agent to be available, and even when you are connected, the response time per message can exceed 10 minutes. For this reason alone, we score Ionos a 2.5/5 for support.
Ionos removed the live chat feature a few years ago, but it was only recently reintroduced. However, it appears that not much has been invested in it as there is a noticeable shortage of available agents. Despite having 24/7 support readily available, it can still be unreliable, leaving you uncertain about the waiting time.
Summary: Ionos Hosting Review (4.2/5)
As one of the longest-serving, leading hosting providers on the market, it’s clear to see Ionos put a lot of time and resources into maintaining a fast and reliable hosting service. If you want an affordable, well-reputable company to grow your website with then look no further, Ionos is for you.
Check out our full list of hosting providers over at our resources page to see how other hosting providers compare to Ionos.
