Ionos Review: The Best Web Host We’ve Tested So Far

However, if you click Create a Website, Ionos takes you to a page listing various hosting plans. The Continue buttons don’t mention payment, but when you click on one, you’ll see that you’re only getting a free trial — Ionos will automatically charge you for this plan as an add-on after the first month.

To create a website without making additional purchases, I had to return to the original Websites & Stores page and click Create a WordPress Project. This led to yet another upsell — for managed WordPress hosting — but I did find a button saying Manage WordPress Yourself underneath. This whole process was rather shocking, as I’ve never encountered such aggressive upsells when trying to perform initial site setup on other hosts.

The WordPress installation process itself was partially guided, offering some preselected themes for me to choose from based on the purpose of my site — blogging — and plugins to optimize the theme. The only hiccup was the lack of automatic SSL certification, an issue I fixed with two more quick clicks.

The WordPress install is pretty standard, without additional tools like the A2 Hosting Site Assistant. This isn’t a big deal for most users, as the WordPress dashboard is fairly simple to navigate and there are thousands of tutorials to help you. However, you might want to consider A2 Hosting if you want your web host to hold your hand through site creation.

The one additional tool Ionos offers for WordPress users is Ionos Performance, a plugin that lets you control various site settings to improve speed.

Server management

Ionos uses a proprietary system for server management instead of the industry-standard cPanel. Clicking on the Hosting button in the account dashboard takes you to a page where you can view different aspects of this system, including Webspace — a dedicated area for storage information — Databases and PHP management.

Everything is clearly labeled and the individual areas are intuitive to navigate. In fact, I found the user interface for Ionos’s hosting management system easier to navigate than cPanel — and I’m an experienced cPanel user.

Despite the simplicity of this system, it can be a drawback if you’re already used to cPanel and you don’t want to switch to something else. Ionos’s proprietary system can also complicate transferring your site to a new host later on, as many free web-hosting transfer services transfer the cPanel from one host to another and aren’t trained to deal with other systems. Similarly, most tutorials for manually transferring your site to a new host focus on how to transfer a cPanel site.

Overall ease of use

The unwieldy purchase process and the aggressive attempts to upsell higher-tier plans when I was trying to install WordPress made it incredibly frustrating to get started with Ionos. Things got easier once I had WordPress set up, and I’m a big fan of how simple the hosting management tools are, but I’m still only giving Ionos a 6.5/10 ranking for ease of use. This is one of the lowest ease-of-use rankings of any hosting company I’ve tested so far; only DreamHost scored lower, with a ranking of 4/10.

Ionos performance: Excellent uptime, mediocre speed

The next thing I considered for my Ionos review is how well the servers perform in two areas: uptime, the percentage of time sites are accessible online for; and site speed, how quickly a site loads. I also took a quick look at the performance tools offered by Ionos.

Performance tools

Ionos doesn’t list any performance tools on the page for shared hosting plans, but when I booted up WordPress, I found a preinstalled Ionos Performance Plugin. This plugin lets you enable things like file compression to improve site speeds.

Ionos Performance automatically enables basic caching, a specialized storage protocol that increases your site speed by reducing the amount of data visitors’ browsers have to pull from your host server.

Uptime

Uptime matters because users who can’t access your site will often go elsewhere, which can result in lost traffic and income. Most hosting companies guarantee 99.9% uptime, meaning that server issues won’t shut down your site for more than 10 minutes per week. Ionos goes beyond this with a 99.99% guarantee, so your site won’t experience more than two minutes of server-related downtime per week.

I monitored my Ionos site with BetterStack for one week to see how it lived up to this guarantee — and I’m pleased to report that my site experienced no downtime at all, earning Ionos a 10/10 uptime ranking. This uptime ranking is on par with what I’ve experienced with other top web hosts I’ve reviewed, like A2 Hosting and GoDaddy, and miles ahead of the spotty uptime of InMotion Hosting.

Site speed

Site speed, a measurement of how many seconds your site takes to load, is essential because many people will leave your site if it doesn’t load fast enough. In fact, bounce rate, the percentage of people who leave your website after viewing only one page, increases by 32% when site load time goes from one to three seconds. Many experts recommend keeping your site speed to less than three seconds for this reason.

I created a test page simulating a simple homepage with two images and two text boxes and ran speed tests on WebPageTest at different times of day over the course of five days. I also tested from devices in several locations, allowing me to simulate how international users may experience Ionos sites.

Through these tests, I came up with the following average site speeds (remember, lower numbers are better):

Based on these numbers, the average site speeds are:

• An average mobile site speed of 3.63 seconds.
• An average desktop site speed of 2.31 seconds.

This equals out to an overall average of 2.97 seconds. While this does fall under the recommended maximum of three seconds of loading time, it’s not great, especially when compared to GoDaddy’s 2.29 second average or HostGator’s 2.41 second average. The only hosting company I’ve experienced worse loading speeds with was InMotion Hosting, which had an abysmal average loading speed of 3.84 seconds.

Loading speed will vary for users based on their location, internet plan and the device they’re using, but my tests provide a good representation of the average user’s experience, giving me the confidence to grant Ionos a 7.5/10 speed ranking. This ranking is disappointing, especially considering that I left Ionos Performance on during my speed tests, but it’s not bad enough for me to suggest avoiding Ionos altogether. You can always improve site speed with a caching plugin other than Ionos Performance, many of which are free.

Overall performance

Ionos has excellent server uptime, on par with what I experienced with other CNET-recommended hosting companies like A2 Hosting and GoDaddy — and better than some hosts, like HostGator. The site speed isn’t so great. My Ionos site experienced the second-highest loading time of any test site I’ve created so far, but it’s still reasonable, leading Ionos to earn an 8.75/10 performance ranking.

Ionos security: Better than many rivals

Ionos provides the following security protocols for all customers:

• Secure socket layer (SSL) certification: A security protocol that encrypts data sent to and from your website, protecting sensitive information like email addresses submitted through a contact form. SSL certification also signals that your site is safe; some VPNs and browsers won’t even let users open a site without it. Moreover, Google may penalize sites without SSL certification, making it harder for your site to rank well.
• Firewall: Software that scans all data attempting to enter your site, preventing malware and other threats from harming it. No firewall is perfect (there’s always a chance something will get through), but a good one will protect your site from most malware.
• Malware scanning: A daily scan of your website to discover any malware that makes it through the firewall. You’ll be immediately notified of any threats discovered. Customer service can then walk you through the process of removing them.
• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection: A DDoS attack involves malicious traffic flooding your site in an attempt to overwhelm the server, causing it to shut down. Ionos offers comprehensive protection against these attacks to keep your site running continuously.
• Automated backups: Ionos creates daily backup copies of your site that are stored in a separate server for six days. If your site goes down, you can recover it using one of these backups.

This is one of the most comprehensive security packages I’ve seen for shared hosting users, with the automated backups being especially notable. Even A2 Hosting, which offers multilayered malware protection, doesn’t offer automated backup on its lowest-tier plan.

Ionos customer support: The best in the biz

If something goes wrong with your site, you want to be able to reach customer service quickly and get helpful answers to your questions. Ionos promises 24/7 customer service via live chat and phone, plus a personal consultant who Ionos claims will provide personalized advice on improving your site. There’s also a knowledge base you can use to figure out basic problems on your own. I tested all of these customer support avenues to determine if Ionos lives up to its promises.

Knowledge base

The Ionos knowledge base is called the Help Center and provides answers for performing many basic web-hosting tasks, including domain transfers, site setup and SSL certification. There’s a search bar at the top, plus buttons leading to sections related to various website management tasks.

Each button leads to an area where you can quickly view basic answers and find links to articles about performing more complex tasks. I especially like the accordion-style content blocks that minimize information you’re not likely to need, so you’re not overwhelmed when you open the page.

The articles themselves are clearly laid out, with step-by-step instructions and images showing how to perform each step. However, none of the articles I looked at included video tutorials, which could be an obstacle for users who prefer learning through video. This leads to the Ionos Help Center earning a 9/10 ranking.

Direct communication

Ionos offers 24/7 customer service via live chat and phone, plus a personal consultant who can be contacted between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET. Your personal consultant can also be reached via both live chat and phone.

I tested the general live chat first and was connected to a customer support representative in under two minutes, a similar response time to what I’ve experienced with other web hosts like A2 Hosting and GoDaddy. They were polite and helpful, providing an immediate solution to my problem. This earns Ionos a live chat ranking of 10/10.

Next, I reached out via phone. A customer service agent responded almost immediately, transferring me to another department based on my questions. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself speaking to the new department in two minutes. This new department provided helpful answers and the entire conversation only took 14 minutes, a speed only matched by GoDaddy’s phone service. My only complaint is that they tried to sell me email hosting, reducing the rating from what would have been a 10/10 to a phone support ranking of 9.5/10.

Finally, I attempted to contact my personal support consultant. Reaching out via live chat got a near-instant response from a different support representative who said my agent was working on a different case and offered to answer my questions themselves in the meantime. They also told me a phone call might allow me to reach my personal consultant faster.

I called the number for my personal assistant and received the same answers: My personal consultant was unavailable, but the person who picked up would be happy to help. This leads me to believe that personal consultants are given a higher caseload than they can reasonably manage, forcing them to rely on other team members to assist everyone. 

The representative I spoke to also explained that they can help me with any technical issues I’m having but not provide advanced support on things like optimizing my site design, which is what I expected from a service claiming to provide “personalized advice.” I was somewhat disappointed by this because of Ionos’s marketing about personal consultants, but I’m still pleased with the fast, helpful service.

Overall customer service

Despite my inability to contact my personal consultant, I had an excellent experience with Ionos customer service on both live chat and phone. This earns Ionos a customer support ranking of 9.5/10, the best customer service ranking I’ve given any company so far. This is particularly impressive considering that most web hosts I’ve tested offered average or even abysmal customer service, with the second highest-ranking company, GoDaddy, earning only 8/10.

Reputation

Along with my own testing, I read other Ionos reviews to determine how other customers feel about the company. I was pleased to discover that Ionos has a ranking of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot, and the BBB page shows no outstanding complaints.

Ionos value

Now that we’ve established how well Ionos stands on its own, it’s time to ask the last big question: How does Ionos compare to other popular web hosts?

Here’s a quick look at the offerings from three of the most popular web-hosting companies:

Based on this data, we can come to the following conclusions:

• Ionos’s starting prices are average. The lowest starting price from Ionos, $1 a month, comes in below all of the introductory prices listed above. However, the Essentials plan — the plan most beginners will want — starts at $4 a month, a higher cost than the prices of comparable plans from GoDaddy, DreamHost and A2 Hosting.
• Ionos’s renewal prices are low. The Essentials plan only costs $6 per month on renewal, a price only matched by DreamHost. The Starter plan also comes in under $10 a month (specifically, $8 per month) on renewal, which is still less than the lowest-cost plans offered by HostGator and A2 Hosting.
• Ionos offers mediocre storage on the lowest-tier plan. The 10GB storage of the Essentials plan is matched by HostGator’s Hatchling plan and the A2 Hosting Ignite plan, but notably less than the 50GB of DreamHost’s Starter plan. However, 10GB is still enough for at least 100 web pages, and you can upgrade to the Starter plan for 100GB of storage for just $2 more per month.
• Ionos offers above-average security. All Ionos plans include 24/7 malware scanning, a feature not included in the lowest-tier plans from DreamHost or HostGator. A2 Hosting’s security suite — available for all users — does include 24/7 malware scanning, but daily backups — a feature built into every Ionos plan — aren’t included.
• Ionos’s WordPress tools are limited. Guided setup is offered for all Ionos WordPress users, but there’s no site assistant like the ones offered by HostGator and A2 Hosting. Ionos also doesn’t offer WordPress auto-updates, a feature included with the lowest-tier plans from both DreamHost and A2 Hosting, on its regular shared hosting plans.

In short, Ionos doesn’t offer the same level of features as other popular web hosts covered here, especially not for WordPress users, but the features it offers are excellent for the low long-term costs. This earns Ionos a value ranking of 9/10.