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About 1&1 IONOS
1&1 IONOS is a German web hosting company that was founded in Germany in 1988. They have two headquarters with their main headquarter located in Germany and they also have another headquarter in USA’s Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania. It is the largest hosting company in Europe and has more than 30 years of experience. After its growth in Europe, it expanded to the USA in 2003.
Today the company has more than 2000 employees working for them from 40 countries. It also hosts 12 million domains and has 8 million customer contracts worldwide. It also operates more than 90,000 servers with ten data centers that are georedundant ISO 27001 certified.
IONOS has lots of positive sides like strong uptime, and ease of use. Apart from these is there any other? Let’s have a look now.
The pros of IONOS:
Good uptime-
Uptime is one of the most important metrics in deciding on a good web host.
If uptime is poor for your site then you have chosen the wrong host provider.
The average uptime guarantee of IONOS is 99.98% over the past 6 months. 100% is never possible due to maintenance and natural disaster.
Money-back guarantee-
They offer 30-day money-back guarantee like most web host providers. So you can cancel anytime if you are unsatisfied with their service. So it is risk-free.
Free domain-
Who does not love extras? Most of the hosting companies offer a few extra features free of cost when you open an account with them for the first time.
Similarly, IONOS also offers these features. One of them is free domain registration. The 1-year domain is included for the initial purchase with the Essential, Business, and Expert Shared Hosting Plan.
Free email account–
Both the Linux and Windows packages offer professional email accounts with a 2GB mailbox in addition to already included storage. It also includes anti-phishing and anti-spam protection.
Free SSL–
For a web host, another important criterion is security. IONOS provides good security and does not lag behind.
GeoTrust Dedicated SSL Certificate and a Wildcard SSL certificate are used by IONOS. This provides advanced security when you are conducting business online as it encrypts your website.
To run any website an SSL certificate is a must. Else your site will be marked as unsecured by Google. Data that is exchanged between users and the website is also protected by an SSL certificate. As a result trust is built between you and customers which is very important in preserving the relationship in business.
IONOS offers a free SSL Wildcard Certificate with all its hosting plans.
Customer support–
24/7 customer support is provided through phone and email. Whenever you need they are ready to help you. They offer live chat too. They also have help centers where you can find instructions and information about their products and services.
If you can’t find what you are looking for you can type a keyword in the search box and the result will display your match. It’s in a question-and-answer manner with article type.
Affordable-
Their business plan is the most affordable at $0.50/month with a 12-month initial sign-up. This is by far the hugest introductory price that any web host is providing. It is even cheaper than ‘Essential’. This is in fact their cheapest plan that is suitable for larger web projects. With this price (of just $0.50/month) they provide unlimited website, storage and database, and many more features.
Easy to use-
Rather than using the traditionalcPanel, IONOS uses its own custom cPanel. Professional users might find this confusing in the beginning as they are used to the traditional one but with time they will be able to familiarize and find it easy to use.
Domain & SSL, Email, My account Website and stores, hosting, and security solutions can be seen in the dashboard and managed thereon.
IONOS also has a search bar where you can navigate and look up for features, domains and help. Overall, their interface is beginner-friendly and straightforward.
Automated backup–
Webspace and databases are offered with automated backup. Files can be recovered easily for 6 days everything is backed up automatically.
You can also manually back up with MySQL database backup if you need data backup for a longer period of time.
Security–
All the basic, as well as advanced security, is covered by IONOS. Apart from a free SSL certificate, IONOS also provides Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) which is activated by default. DDoS is an attack where the server gets a lot of traffic and the user’s site remains inaccessible.
It also provides Site Scan security that scans for malware. Not just malware, reputation monitoring, spam and blocklist monitoring, and platform scan for WordPress are also done by site scans.
Now let’s have a look at the cons.
The cons of 1&1 IONOS:
Customer support is limited–
They offer live chat only for registered users who have an account which feels like a big disadvantage since all other web host provider offers the same both to registered and non-registered users.
So even if you want to know any information you have to read their articles which are found in help centers.
Registration is limited to a few countries-
Registering an account with IONOS is limited only to a few countries including Germany, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK.
In many European countries also it is not available even though IONOS was founded in Germany. Their headquarters has not shifted and still is in Germany.
Few examples where you can’t sign up with IONOS:
IONOS cannot be signed up with these countries:
They are China, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Myanmar, Poland, Romania, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Czech Republic etc.
Site transfer is not free-
Unfortunately, IONOS does not provide free site transfer like other web host providers in the industry if you want to migrate your existing site to their site.
They charge $70 per hour if you want to mitigate your site to their host.
Overall review
There are some pleasant aspects as well as not so pleasing aspects. Their storage is quite ok and has no limit on monthly data transfer. Speed is average and prices are low and affordable.
There are a few drawbacks. They don’t provide account registration for all the countries. Once their ‘Business’ introductory price of $0.50/month gets over, the renewal price is $10/month which is high. Their live chat is not always available.
Do we recommend 1&1 IONOS?
Yes, we do.
Those who are beginners operate smaller websites, and those on a limited budget, for them we recommend1&1 IONOS.
Where are the servers of 1&1 IONOS located?
The servers of 1&1 IONOS are located in the US, UK, Germany, and Spain.
What are the other alternatives to 1&1 IONOS?
Hostinger and BlueHost are the other alternatives to 1&1 IONOS.
Hostinger because it’s affordable, its performance and speed are very good. Its interface is also easy to use and its customer service is remarkable.
BlueHost is good for WordPress and it’s known for that. It is good for both beginners as well as professionals as it provides well-rounded business tools and features and its plans are also affordable.
