A leader in the online world, IONOS was founded in Germany in 1988. It provides services to several countries, including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. This web hosting giant has over 7,000 employees and hosts 12 million websites.
It has an extensive product offering: you can purchase domain names, website builders, dedicated servers, and much more. But in this review we’ll just focus on WordPress hosting, one of its star products.
IONOS claims that its web hosting is fast, reliable, and trustworthy. But is this true? Let’s have a look.
Table of Contents
Screenshots of IONOS Hosting Service
Check out how IONOS’ backend works with these screenshots:
IONOS Hosting Prices
This review focuses on the IONOS WordPress hosting services, so the prices below refer to these hosting plans.
Essential: 4€/month for 25 GB of storage and 2 databases.
Business: 7€/month for 100 GB of storage and up to 10 databases.
Unlimited: 18€/month for unlimited storage and databases.
Please note that the above prices reference the monthly cost of annual plans, be aware that the full amount needs to be paid in advanced.
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
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What is IONOS suitable for?
You could consider using IONOS if you’re planning to host a small or medium-sized website and don’t expect to receive many visitors. Performance wise, it’s unlikely to impress the most demanding webmasters as its uptime leaves a lot to be desired.
It’s suitable for traditional websites (e.g. a bakery or restaurant), portfolio sites and other personal web projects (not professional projects).
When is IONOS not the best choice?
If you have a professional, moderately large web project and you need the best performance – e.g. to compete organically on Google – then I don’t think IONOS is the best choice.
If you have an e-commerce business, a blog, or similar, that receives a lot of visitors, have a look at other services like SiteGround, Cloudways and GreenGeeks.
IONOS Hosting Specifications
| criterion | rating | comments |
|---|---|---|
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Ease of Use |
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IONOS has its own control panel for hosting management, but it’s not very intuitive. It also lacks certain features that experts will miss (e.g. it has limited database options). And we had problems installing WordPress — the installation didn’t finish so we had to contact support to sort it out. |
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Domain Names |
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Includes a free domain name for the first year. You have to pay for it after that. You can add additional domains and subdomains. The subdomains are almost unlimited, since you can have up to 10,000 of them. |
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Email Rating |
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All IONOS packages allow you to create just one email account, which cannot use more than 2 GB of space. |
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Databases |
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The IONOS Essential package allows you to create up to 2 databases. You can create up to 10 with the Business package and as many as you want with the Unlimited package. The databases cannot be larger than 2 GB each. |
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Applications |
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N/A. This is a WordPress focused hosting package, therefore only WordPress can be installed and used. If you need to use another CMS, IONOS provides hosting plans that you can use (e.g. IONOS Web Hosting). |
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Webspace Limit |
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IONOS hosting packages include very generous web space. The Essential package comes with 25 GB, the Business package with 100 GB, and you get unlimited space with the Unlimited package. It has a policy that you can’t have more than 262,144 files in your hosting account, but that should be enough for most people. |
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Monthly Data Transfer Limit |
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IONOS hosting has no monthly traffic limit. |
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FTP Accounts and Secure FTP |
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You can create as many SFTP (secure FTP) logins as you like. You can also set up SSH access and a GIT repository to enable version control on the IONOS hosting platform. |
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Server Location |
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The servers are located in the United States for customers in the Americas, but you could also have the server in Europe if you prefer. |
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Security Features |
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All packages include an SSL certificate for a single domain or subdomain. The Unlimited package includes an option for scanning and removing malware from your website. The other packages only include a site scan, so you would have to resolve the malware problem yourself if detected. |
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Server Speed |
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In our tests, IONOS proved to be a fairly fast provider, but not among the best. |
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Uptime |
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Unfortunately, IONOS hosting scored very poorly for availability in our tests (see below). |
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Backups |
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IONOS hosting includes daily backups, and they claim to store them for up to 20 days. However, when you try to retrieve files from its control panel, it only shows the last 6 days. They don’t seem to have a system for creating on-demand backups either. |
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CDN |
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IONOS includes a CDN in its Unlimited package. |
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Server Features |
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On Linux servers they offer PHP 7.3, 7.4 and 8, and MySQL 5 databases. If you purchase a hosting package that is not optimized for WordPress, you can choose either a Linux or Windows server. You can also use Perl, Python or Ruby. |
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Refunds and Guarantees |
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You can try its services free of charge for 30 days. |
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Assistance and Support |
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They have 24-hour support via email, chat and phone, but it’s not easy to get hold of them. |
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Overall Rating |
3.3/5 |
Our review of IONOS is not that positive. We liked its speed and generous web space, but its system is not intuitive and availability is very poor. And it would be nice to see more options for creating backups. |
Conclusion
Our final impression of IONOS web hosting (for WordPress) service is a mixed bag. We were pleasantly surprised by some aspects, while not so impressed by others.
A few of its strong points are that they have no limit on monthly data transfer and are very generous with web space. Speed is pretty decent too, and prices are very competitive.
However, there’s room for improvement in some areas. Its hosting management system is not the easiest to use; it’s not very intuitive and lacks many advanced options. Availability could be improved too, and the functions for managing and creating backups could be better.
IONOS Performance Test
Below are all the tests we carried out on IONOS hosting to give you an idea about its performance.
Loading Speed
Based on the results of our tests, IONOS hosting is quite fast, and it’s a reliable hosting provider.
| Provider | GTmetrix | Pingdom | Webpage test | Pagespeed insights | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SiteGround | 0.71 | 0.71 | 1.78 | 2.94 | 1.54 |
| GreenGeeks | 0.81 | 1.49 | 1.79 | 2.2 | 1.56 |
| Namecheap | 0.99 | 1.40 | 1.92 | 2.08 | 1.6 |
| Hostinger | 0.97 | 2.07 | 1.77 | 1.62 | 1.61 |
| WP Engine | 1 | 1.99 | 1.46 | 2.2 | 1.65 |
| Cloudways | 0.80 | 1.39 | 1.89 | 2.84 | 1.73 |
| Kinsta | 0.78 | 2.18 | 2.17 | 1.98 | 1.77 |
| DreamHost | 1.16 | 1.72 | 2.56 | 1.92 | 1.84 |
| GoDaddy | 1.14 | 2.27 | 2.23 | 2.1 | 1.94 |
| IONOS | 1.21 | 2.08 | 1.74 | 2.78 | 1.95 |
| A2 Hosting | 0.96 | 1.40 | 3.78 | 1.9 | 2.01 |
| InMotion | 2.02 | 2.86 | 2.61 | 3.52 | 2.75 |
| iPage | 1.76 | 2.82 | 2.73 | 3.74 | 2.76 |
| HostGator | 2.4 | 5.21 | 1.87 | 1.65 | 2.78 |
| Bluehost | 1.74 | 4.5 | 2.42 | 2.82 | 2.87 |
Results in seconds
To ensure the validity of our results, we conducted the tests using GTmetrix, Webpagetest.org, Pingdom and PageSpeed Insights (by Google).
For best speed, we recommend SiteGround and GreenGeeks (among others).
Uptime
As you can see from the results of our availability tests, IONOS has a lot of work to do in this area ‒ they had the worst results of all the hosting providers. Ideally, the uptime should be 99.95% or higher for serious online projects.
| Provider | 2019 Uptime | 2020 Uptime | 2021 Uptime | Starts at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kinsta | No data | 100% | 100% | $25/month |
| Cloudways | No data | 100% | 100% | $10/month |
| SiteGround | 99.98% | 99.97% | 100% | €12.99/month |
| Namecheap | No data | No data | 100% | $2.40/month |
| WP Engine | No data | 99.99% | 99.99% | €23.25/month |
| Bluehost | 99.98% | 99.96% | 99.99% | $9.99/month |
| HostGator | 99.94% | 99.91% | 99.99% | $8.95/month |
| A2 Hosting | 99.93% | 99.99% | 99.98% | $8.99/month |
| GreenGeeks | No data | 99.98% | 99.98% | $10.95/month |
| DreamHost | 100% | 99.99% | 99.96% | $6.99/month |
| GoDaddy | 99.97% | 99.9% | 99.96% | $8.99/month |
| InMotion | 99.97% | 99.73% | 99.95% | $11.99/month |
| IONOS | No data | No data | 99.93% | $4/month |
| Hostinger | 99.62% | 99.48% | 99.92% | $5.99/month |
| iPage | 99.66% | 98.45% | 99.85% | $8.99/month |
To monitor uptime, I use StatusCake, a tool that checks each website every 5 minutes.
So, if you have a project that needs a high availability rate, then IONOS hosting is not your best option. Other providers such as Kinsta, Cloudways and SiteGround give better results.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is IONOS web hosting suitable?
IONOS web hosting packages give you plenty of web space for your project. But keep in mind that availability is not so good, so make sure you do your homework before you decide. IONOS also offers hosting packages that run on Windows servers, so it’s particularly suitable for .NET web development. Also, if you’re thinking about using Python, Perl or Ruby, then IONOS is one of your best options.
When is IONOS web hosting not suitable?
It’s only interesting for small web projects, where your website is not a priority for your business. Also, we weren’t exactly enamored with its customer service. So, if you think you might need help on a regular basis, you’d be better off taking a look at other providers such as SiteGround or Dreamhost. You can also check out other cheap web hosting providers here.
Do they have a CDN?
Its Unlimited package gives you access to the IONOS CDN. You also have the option of adding an external CDN (some of which are free) if your package doesn’t include one.
IONOS Review Updates:
25 Jan 2022 – New rating for apps
10 Oct 2021 – Initial IONOS review
