IONOS Hosting Review: Can It Still Perform? [2024]

An All-Inclusive Host With Some Minor Cons

IONOS offers various hosting plans to suit everyone’s needs, including shared, dedicated, VPS, and cloud hosting. As such, it caters to a wide range of businesses and projects – from blogs to online storefronts, and from small and medium-sized businesses to enterprises.

Another pro of IONOS’ service is just how well it performs for such a low price. I can attest that IONOS’ uptime and site loading speeds are pretty good, and you can get many months’ worth of IONOS hosting for what other hosts typically charge for a single month – or less. So, what’s not to love?

Well, as with any service, there are always some cons. In the case of IONOS, you’re looking at less-than-impeccable customer support. Also those low discounted initial prices don’t last forever and the regular renewal fees can be quite high. Another issue is the limitation on emails. No matter the cost of the plan, you only get one email account. Additionally, there’s no free site migration so you’ll be doing that heavy lifting on your own.

That said, IONOS still measures up to the competition, ranking highly among the top hosts. Those looking for extra support will also be happy to know IONOS offers website design, as well as custom cloud computing (build-your-own virtual data center) services.

I’ve tested out IONOS’ most popular plan myself. Read my full review to see if this provider is a good fit for you.

Solid IONOS Hosting Features – Especially on Shared Web Hosting Plans

IONOS is suitable for beginners and first-time website owners who want a fairly wide range of features for a low starting price – you shouldn’t need to pay for any add-ons when you sign up for a plan. IONOS’ shared hosting plans include useful features, such as CDN integration, daily backups, and plenty of storage.

If you need better performance or additional resources, IONOS has various plan tiers to fit different needs. It also has more powerful types of hosting setups (dedicated, VPS, cloud) that offer better performance. With IONOS, you can change over, upgrade, or downgrade as needed.

Free Domain Name & SSL Certificate

With IONOS’ shared hosting, dedicated servers, Mail Business email hosting, and MyWebsite builder hosting plans, you get a free domain name for a year. This only includes .us, .ca, .com, .net, .org, .info, .me, .biz, and .online domain extensions. Typically, registering one could cost you the same as IONOS’ lowest annual introductory offer, so this feature adds significant value.

Domain privacy is also included, which hides your registration data from public records. Unfortunately, VPS and cloud-based hosting plans – that you’d likely be using to build multiple sites – don’t include free domain names. But IONOS offers fair pricing on domain name registration.

In addition, all IONOS plans come with free DigiCert Wildcard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates, which allow you to secure your primary domain name as well as any subdomains you set up – like “subdomain.maindomainname.com.”

Automatic Daily Backups

The majority of IONOS’ hosting plans (except cloud and VPS hosting) come with free automatic daily backups. In most cases, you don’t need to do anything to set these up either. As soon as there’s a site and data to back up, it will do so automatically. Backups are also kept for 6 days.

You can navigate to the Webspace Backup menu via the search bar in the IONOS dashboard menu to find your backup files. Higher-tier IONOS WordPress hosting plans (both managed and unmanaged) also come with 12 months of free daily Jetpack backups, which is normally a paid add-on when you use the free version of Jetpack.

Agency Partner Program

As an agency, you can sign up for IONOS’ Agency Partner Program for free to get access to various useful perks. Membership includes dashboard access from which to manage all of your client projects – from hosted sites to email accounts.

You’ll also get access to several benefits, including free software trials, product credits, expert support, and a verified listing on the IONOS Agency Partner Network.

IONOS Website Builder & Design Services

As an optional paid extra, you can either enlist IONOS’ design team or use its in-house MyWebsite Now to design your website. MyWebsite Now is an easy-to-use, no-code site builder similar to Wix or WordPress.

MyWebsite Now features responsive, industry-specific website templates, drag-and-drop elements, and thousands of free-to-use stock images. Alternatively, you can answer a few questions and get its AI website builder to generate a unique template tailored to your needs. You’ll also get built-in AI text and image generators to reduce your launch costs and time even further, ensuring you can hit publish ASAP.

IONOS Features at a Glance

Anyone Can Launch With IONOS – Choosing a Plan Is the Hardest Part

Getting started with IONOS doesn’t take long – nor is the process particularly complex. Filling in your details, paying, and setting up a website afterward should only take around 30 minutes or less (depending on your design). You don’t need to be tech-savvy either, as both the IONOS control panel and supported content management system (CMS) platforms are easy to use and navigate.

Creating a New Account With IONOS

The IONOS hosting signup process is a 4-step affair. First, select your hosting type, then head to your cart, fill in your details, and pay. You can pay with PayPal and major cards, including American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover.

IONOS limits its upsells, except for recommending Domain Guard, rankingCoach, List Local service, and Managed WordPress hosting. None of these suggested add-ons – that come with 30-day free trials – were preselected.

Of course, I only tested the IONOS Plus shared web hosting plan, so the signup process may differ slightly on other plans. For example, selecting a domain from IONOS will add a few extra steps to the process.

However, I experienced a minor issue inputting my street address when asked to add my billing info. The form repeatedly cut off the end of my address and automatically substituted the wrong city name. Only clicking on the Choose another country button (which took me away from the page) mitigated this issue. If I hadn’t discovered this workaround, I wouldn’t have been able to proceed with payment at all.

After paying, IONOS automatically creates your account and guides you through the selection of a CMS or website builder.

Connecting a Domain and Installing WordPress

IONOS offers both unmanaged and managed WordPress hosting. Plus, even if you choose another hosting plan – such as the standard IONOS shared web hosting plan – you still get access to a single-click installation of WordPress among other less popular CMSs and builders.

When logging into your IONOS dashboard for the first time, you’ll be prompted to get your website set up. I chose a premium shared web hosting plan from IONOS, which allows you to install multiple CMSs, not just WordPress. As such, WordPress wasn’t automatically set up as it may be on a WordPress-specific plan from IONOS.

To install WordPress on my plan, I had to scroll down the list and click Start Now next to WordPress. Conveniently, your free IONOS domain name (included with most plans) is automatically linked to whichever CMS you choose. If you wish to add a third-party domain, you have to do this yourself by using the IONOS setup wizard. Or, you can ask the IONOS support team for help.

IONOS App Center

Aside from WordPress and the paid IONOS MyWebsite builder, you have the choice of other options. You can navigate to all the CMS options in the IONOS App Center. Here you can easily and quickly install TYPO3, Joomla, PrestaShop, Drupal, OpenCart, Contao, and more.

IONOS Dashboard Menu Search Bar

Navigating the IONOS dashboard is very easy, thanks to its intuitive search bar. Not only does it suggest related tools and settings pages, but it brings up the most relevant Help Center article as well. So you can access the right tools or help in one place in one go without fumbling around an unfamiliar dashboard menu, saving you time and unnecessary stress.

Expect Spotless Performance Thanks to IONOS’ Geo-Redundant Servers

IONOS-hosted sites outperform in terms of site loading times and uptime. Resilient geo-redundant servers, uninterruptible battery supply, and backup generators help to prevent instances of downtime.

During my tests (read about how we conduct tests here) our IONOS-hosted test site never went down and provided impeccable loading speeds. IONOS actually partners with various data centers in Germany, France, the UK, Spain, and the US. This network ensures its service delivery is almost spotlessly consistent – both locally and globally.

GTmetrix

IONOS scores highly for site loading speeds, as proved by these GTmetrix test results. We can’t really ask for more from the host regarding performance. You’ll also note our IONOS-hosted test site performed consistently across peak and non-peak periods, only deviating by half a second or so.

UptimeRobot

When monitoring our IONOS-hosted website, UptimeRobot reported no instances of downtime for the full week of tests. Plus, no negative events or incidents. Our site was stable, responsive, and consistently available to visitors throughout the week.

Sucuri Load Time Tester

You can’t actually select a specific server location for your hosting plan during or after sign-up. However, there’s probably no need to due to IONOS web hosting plans featuring geo-redundant server infrastructure. IONOS has data centers located on both the East and West Coast, so our IONOS website performed particularly well across the USA.

Our IONOS site also loaded satisfactorily in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Japan – which is rare. If you need to reach far-flung audiences, you can also activate the Cloudflare CDN to improve global performance. You can do so from the IONOS dashboard, along with adding the optional Railgun caching tool. All in all, IONOS does well even without these additional tools.

Unfortunately, IONOS’ Support Service Falls Flat

Like many other otherwise respectable hosting providers, IONOS disappoints in the customer support department. Its 24/7 phone support seems to be the only channel that works. It has live chat support, but it’s often unavailable, so I can’t offer up any insights into its quality. When logged into my account dashboard, I also couldn’t access any of the additional mysterious IONOS support channels hinted at.

With the local IONOS phone support lines in various countries, you can get help when you need it. Unfortunately, calling isn’t free – no toll-free lines here.

You’re given a phone PIN when creating your IONOS account. However, things weren’t off to a good start when I did call in, as my PIN wasn’t recognized by the agent.

Though friendly, the support agent seemed less than knowledgeable about my query. The call ended up with them finally suggesting they’d defer it to a manager and email me back (my suggestion, or I would have been on hold for a while).

On the plus side, the 24/7 IONOS phone support claim rang true, as the agent picked up 3 minutes after I dialed into the US line very late. For fun, I also decided to test another country’s IONOS support line (a 5-minute wait this time) to see if this line was also routed to the same support center. By the sound of it, yes, it appears to be – with the same issues. Difficulty recognizing my PIN and a lack of technical knowledge again resulted in me paying for extra call minutes.

A plus of IONOS support? You do get your own personal IONOS support consultant, but you have to activate this feature via the IONOS dashboard, and our team has found they can often be difficult to contact.

Alternatively, the Help Center is full of FAQs, articles, tutorials, and self-help guides to help you solve basic issues without needing to call in. However, the lack of IONOS ticket or live chat support are both let-downs – especially for the time-strapped or call-avoidant.

Competitively Priced Even at Full-Price Renewal Rates

I recommend the standard IONOS shared web hosting plans (the Plus tier, in particular). They’re priced almost the same as IONOS’ WordPress hosting plans – but with better specs and features. Since they’re still compatible with WordPress anyway (and other popular CMS and website builders), you’re not losing out on anything. If you want an advanced, easy-to-use website builder, you can also try out the IONOS MyWebsite builder plans.

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The only downside to IONOS’ amazing deals for new customers is the fact that you’ll eventually have to pay the regular price, which can be significantly more, but still offers good value on the higher-tier plans.

If you happen to be an agency or freelancer, the IONOS Agency Partner hosting plans are ideal. With an Agency Partner Program membership, you get invaluable access to all your sites in one place, as well as special benefits.

Of course, shared hosting may not cut it for all projects – in which case, you’ll probably need cloud, VPS, or dedicated servers, which IONOS also covers. Contrary to assumption, the savings don’t drop off when you ascend to premium IONOS hosting options, either.

In fact, cloud and VPS hosting from IONOS can cost as little as its shared hosting plans. If you opt for HDD storage, IONOS dedicated server plan pricing is also competitive. As IONOS advertises many of its top annual hosting plans at around a 10th of the price for half of the first year, they’re the best value. If you’re dissatisfied with the service for any reason, you can also ask for a refund within your first 30 days.

Though not technically part of its standard hosting plans, IONOS’ Cloud Computing services are well worth a mention. Designed to compete with the likes of Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud, these services allow you to build your own virtual cloud data center from scratch. You can trial this service free for 30 days.