If you came here looking for 1&1 hosting reviews, and are confused about the “IONOS” term that you might notice floating around, rest assured - it’s the same company.
1&1 has simply rebranded, and is now called IONOS - while the name might have changed, the services offered by the company remain the same. Whether it be shared hosting, WordPress-specific hosting, or any other, you will be able to access the same deals with IONOS hosting as you would have with 1&1.
For the sake of consistency, and in order to avoid possible confusion, we’ll be using both names to reference the company throughout the entirety of this article.
Now, with that out of the way, let’s move on to the actual 1&1 web hosting reviews, and discuss the benefits and shortcomings of this hosting provider.
TL;DR: IONOS is a popular choice when it comes to site hosting. The company offers multiple hosting-related services to its customers, has great uptime and site speed stats, and some additional free features, too. Probably the biggest issue with 1&1 is the fact that it’s only available within a few set countries.
Pros
- Great uptime
- Fast side loading speeds
- Multiple hosting options
- Free SSL, domain name, email
Cons
- Not available in some countries
- Might not be suitable for beginners
- No free site transfer
Table of Contents
- 1. 1&1 Hosting Reviews: PROS
- 1.1. Consistent Uptime Statistics
- 1.2. Decent Site Loading Speeds
- 1.3. Multiple Hosting Options
- 1.4. Multiple Different Features - For Free!
- 2. 1&1 Hosting Reviews: CONS
- 2.1. You Can’t Transfer a Website for Free
- 2.2. Not Available in Multiple Countries
- 2.3. Not Ideal for Beginners
- 3. Price
- 4. Conclusions
1&1 Hosting Reviews: PROS
These days, choosing a reliable hosting service can prove to be tricky. Not because there’s a lack of high-level options, though - on the contrary! There are multiple great options on the market, and picking out the best one for yourself isn’t always going to be easy!
The best way to go about it, however, is to read through some of the main pros and cons of each of these aforementioned providers - user 1&1 hosting reviews tend to agree with this notion, too.
With that said, let’s move on to the actual benefits of this hosting provider, first.
Consistent Uptime Statistics
Starting off with a bang, huh?
That’s right - let’s not waste any time, and move straight to the most important features of IONOS hosting. At the top of the list, naturally, you’re going to have uptime.
The term “uptime” refers to a period of time during which your website is online. Sounds rather simple, right? Well, yes, but what does “online” mean, exactly?
Simply put, it means that your site is available to be reached by any and all potential visitors - it’s live, up and running, and is facing no connection or downtime issues.
“Downtime” is another term that you’ll find mentioned among user 1&1 hosting reviews rather often. As you can probably guess, it’s the opposite of uptime - probably the worst-case scenario for any website manager, webmaster, or owner.
Uptime isn’t considered to be the most important feature when looking for a reliable website hosting service without a good reason, either. Think about it for yourself - if you own a website - say, an online business -, would you care about things such as an SSL certificate or domain name registrations when your website is down and unreachable?
No, you probably wouldn’t - the only matter of importance in that situation is to get the site back up! Thus, if a hosting service lacks proper uptime stats, it’s simply not worth investigating, in the first place.
User 1&1 hosting reviews mention uptime quite often - thankfully, in a very positive manner!
While reports vary, users claim that you can expect IONOS uptime to linger around 99,96 - 99,98%. Those are some amazing numbers!
On our website, we have a special uptime calculator. It’s used in order to better understand what certain percentages mean in regards to the uptime offered by various hosting providers. So, let’s check it out - here’s what an uptime of 99,96% would grant you:
34 seconds of daily downtime, which comes out to be 3-and-a-half hours per year. That’s actually really good - anything below a minute of downtime per day can be considered amazing! Now, 99,98% looks quite a bit different, though:
17 seconds of daily downtime, and 1 hour 45 minutes per year - awesome! Obviously, do keep in mind that these numbers are just estimates of certain averages - some user 1&1 hosting reviews will tell you that you can go for days without encountering downtime, or experience more downtime on certain days, too.
All of that being said, if the average uptime offered by IONOS lingers at around the same mark, it’s truly some amazing news for any potential users of the hosting service!
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Decent Site Loading Speeds
While some user 1&1 hosting reviews do admit that uptime is surely the most crucial feature to look into when searching for the best website hosting service, it’s not the only one! Usually, you’ll see it paired together with site loading speed.
This feature is, admittedly, rather self-explanatory. It refers to the period of time that it takes for your website visitors to reach your site, after they enter it into their search bars, or click a link that leads to it.
So, why is website speed as important as it’s made out to be? Well, whether you’re looking for 1&1 WordPress hosting, or any other type of hosting service, you are probably aware of the fact that, in order to retain site visitors and customers, you need that website to load FAST.
It would seem that every single online blog and guide concerning website improvements aims to drive this point home like no other. And they should! Whether it be user convenience or SEO, the point remains the same - site (page) loading speed is extremely important!
Right, with that said, what’s the situation with IONOS hosting in this regard? Well, granted that we’re still in the “PRO” section of the review, you can probably imagine the answer!
User 1&1 hosting reviews state that the average site loading speed of IONOS ranges at around the 600-800ms mark. What this means is that it may take up to 800ms for your website to load fully whenever a user tries to access it.
That’s a great benchmark! Sure, there are hosting services out there that offer faster website loading speeds, but anything below a second is still considered to be very good.
Put frankly, if you’re looking for a reliable hosting service, and site loading speed is your main criterion, IONOS should suit you quite well!
Multiple Hosting Options
Earlier on in the article, you might recall me mentioning 1&1 WordPress hosting. This is but a single option of hosting that is available with IONOS - the company offers alternative options, too!
Quite a few of them, as well. Naturally, at the forefront, you have shared hosting - the most popular version of website hosting services on the market.
Shared hosting, as the name suggests, is when you share a certain portion of a single server with other shared hosting users, and receive resources depending on the plan of your choice. Most 1&1 hosting reviews that you will come across online reference this specific type of hosting.
Then, as mentioned above there’s WordPress hosting (either the “simple” version, or WordPress Pro). This type of hosting is aimed at people who are fans of WordPress - the content management system upon which the bigger part of the internet is built upon.
Next, VPS and dedicated hosting options. These types of hosting are most sought-after by larger businesses and corporate entities, or any individual website creators who are planning to launch a high-end eCommerce store. The plans are better-optimized for these specific needs, and come with larger pools of resources.
There are other hosting plans available, too, but these are the main options that you can expect to find, and some of the main ones mentioned among user 1&1 hosting reviews.
The simple fact that IONOS hosting has different types of hosting, in the first place, is great news! What it means is that both anyone is going to be able to find what it is that they need, and also, if you’re going to create a site with 1&1, and will want to upgrade later on, you won’t have to change providers in order to do so!
Naturally, though, it’s worth acknowledging that this isn’t a feature that would be unique to IONOS, since the majority of the high-end hosting providers on the market do offer multiple hosting options to their customers. However, it doesn’t take anything away from the main point, either - if you’re not sure about the type of hosting that you need, IONOS might be the right choice for you!
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Now that we’ve gotten all of the main features discussed and evaluated, it’s worth mentioning that user 1&1 hosting reviews do also note that there are multiple additional benefits available to any and all customers of IONOS. Let’s take a look at these smaller benefits, shall we? Quick side note, though - they all concern the shared hosting plans of 1&1.
First of all - a free SSL certificate.
SSL certificates are one of the core security features that all reliable websites should possess. What these certificates do is they protect the connection between your website and the visitor of the site, and thus, prevent any sensitive data from leaking - data that the individual visitor might be inputting into your site.
If it’s a comment under your blog post, it might not seem like too big of a deal. If it’s the person’s bank login information that they’re using to purchase something from your site, it’s a tragedy.
SSL certificates are at the frontline of the prevention of such leaks. Some hosting providers on the market will ask you to purchase them separately, in addition to your hosting plan - user 1&1 hosting reviews, however, will tell you that, with IONOS, an SSL comes free of charge.
This is extremely important, since SSLs are seen as ‘mandatory’ security features for your site, and without one, no individual is going to visit, let alone trust your website.
Next up, reading through 1&1 web hosting reviews and purchasing one of the shared hosting plans, you will soon notice that you do also receive free domain name registration for one year. That’s awesome!
In many cases, with other hosting providers, you would basically have to pick and choose - either you get a free SSL certificate, or domain name registration. IONOS hosting, on the other hand, offers you both - this saves you a lot of money, and also allows you to start off by creating a professional-looking website, too!
Lastly, a free email address. Regarding user 1&1 hosting reviews, this is often left out, or mentioned in passing - however, it’s arguably as important as the two other features mentioned above!
This is especially true if you’re looking to create a business-oriented website. Any and all reputable online businesses have their own, designated email addresses - I mean, you probably wouldn’t want your customers writing emails to your own, personal email address, right?
A designated email address will help you both look professional, and also sort through the various website-related emails that you might receive. Business emails also aren’t cheap, either - if you were to need to purchase them separately, the costs would surely add up! Truth be told, this is true with all of the features mentioned above.
All in all, no matter which of the IONOS hosting plans it is that you would pick, you can be sure that you’ll receive a wide assortment of features, all free of charge!
1&1 Hosting Reviews: CONS
If you’ve read the article up to this point, you are probably well aware of the fact that IONOS does come with a wide assortment of benefits and features. It’s surely a sound website hosting service - good uptime, site speeds, multiple hosting options, and a lot of other features.
Even though that sounds great, though, it’s still worth mentioning some of the complaints that you’ll see popping up in various user 1&1 hosting reviews, too.
While no website hosting service out there is perfect, by addressing and discussing the main shortcomings of IONOS, we’ll be able to draw a clear picture of what you can expect from this particular company, and help you decide whether or not it’s the right option for you!
You Can’t Transfer a Website for Free
One of the main complaints that you will see mentioned in various IONOS reviews is the fact that you can’t actually transfer an existing website from a different provider to IONOS free of charge. Rather, this is a separate service that you will need to contact customer support in order to deal with it.
Interestingly enough, if you were to look for information regarding free or paid site transfers on the company’s official website, you wouldn’t find anything of value. It’s actually really confusing - you’ve got articles about domain transfers, but when clicking links that *should* lead to WordPress website transferring resources, you get redirected to the help center’s main page. Great.
Admittedly, this doesn’t really change the point - free website transfers aren’t included with the company’s shared hosting plans, and thus, it’s something that you will have to go out of your way and research separately.
This can act as a serious deterrent to any individuals who might already have a website hosted with another hosting provider, but are looking for “an upgrade”, if you will. No one wants to create another website from scratch - that can be completely detrimental to your business, and your online presence in general.
Now, sure - there are things such as redirects, and the transfer process might perfectly well be available as a paid service. However, most individuals aren’t going to want to go through the hassle of either of these two options, and will simply carry on looking for a hosting provider that offers free website transfers - those are actually more common than you might think!
Not Available in Multiple Countries
As you can probably tell, this is actually the biggest con of IONOS, by a significant margin.
While a surprisingly small number of user 1&1 hosting reviews mention this, IONOS is actually not available in quite a few different countries and regions around the world. These include European countries, China, Egypt, and so on.
You know what’s the worst part of this? Nowhere on the company’s official website will you find this mentioned, in any way, shape, or form. Instead, you have to go through the process of picking out a plan, going through the confirmation windows, and only then, at the very end, this will come up.
Obviously, I probably don’t need to “drive this point home” - the reason why it’s so disappointing is very self-evident. If you reside in one of the select countries, you won’t be able to use the services of IONOS.
From the company’s perspective, this is very detrimental to their business model. It limits the number of people that can use their hosting and website builder drastically, and drives individuals away to search for alternatives.
However, as much as it’s “detrimental” for the company, it’s probably much worse for any potential user who, after reading through the positive 1&1 hosting reviews, might have wanted to sign up to this service, only to find out that they can’t due to their geographical location.
Yet again, this drives potential customers away from the website hosting service, which, following that, eliminates the business from 1&1, too.
Not Ideal for Beginners
While reading through user 1&1 hosting reviews, this is actually a sentiment that you will likely notice expressed rather often.
Multiple users claim that using IONOS isn’t actually as intuitive as, say, one of the other modern website hosting platforms out there. Where does the “not as intuitive” part come in, though?
Two words - the cPanel.
A cPanel is a specific type of area within your hosting service account in which you manage all of your website hosting settings and configurations. Here, you will see all of the stats of your hosting plan, will be able to manage your subscriptions and domain names, access the WordPress admin area, and perform many other, similar tasks.
The majority of site hosting providers on the current market aim to make their cPanels accessible and modern, and most importantly - intuitive. IONOS, on the other hand, is a bit of a different case.
Some users claim that the navigation within the account interface of the hosting service can be a bit confusing, and simply unintuitive. If you’re looking for a simple, straightforward, and beginner-friendly experience, you might not necessarily find it with 1&1.
That’s the other thing, too - the hosting provider isn’t considered to be very beginner-oriented, and will instead be more fitting for advanced hosting users - people who have already hosted a website before, and know what it is that they want.
Now, obviously, this shouldn't be taken as a “golden rule” - simply because it’s not! There are various opinions lingering around on the internet, and even if you’re a complete beginner, you might still find this website hosting service provider to be simple and intuitive to use.
That said, this does not eliminate the fact that there are quite a few individual user 1&1 hosting reviews that claim the situation to be the opposite. Worth keeping in mind, whatever the case might be!
Price
Before I let you go, and we conclude our IONOS hosting review, we still need to look at and discuss the pricing options of the hosting service provider.
Note, though, that we’re not talking about 1&1 WordPress hosting, or some dedicated plans, either - instead, we are going to focus on the shared hosting offered by IONOS.
Why so? Well, simply because it’s the most popular hosting option, and our entire review up to this point was about this specific type of hosting!
So, the pricing options that you can expect are:
All of the prices mentioned above are so as of writing this article. For any updates, please visit the company’s official website, and double-check on the plans for yourself.
Furthermore, these prices are going to be such for the first 12 months of your subscription - after that, if you choose to continue working with IONOS hosting, they will increase.
The Essential plan grants you the ability to create a single website, with 10GB of storage and 2GB of SSD storage for 10 databases. You get a domain name, personal email, some basic resources, a free SSL certificate, 24/7 support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Moving on, the Business plan is marketed as the “best bet” - it has all of the aforementioned features of the entry-level plan, but also allows you to create an unlimited number of websites, with unlimited storage and unlimited databases, with some advanced resources. Judging by the user 1&1 hosting reviews, it’s the most-popular plan!
Finally, the Expert plan adds security features, a content delivery network (CDN), and a maximum amount of resources to your site. This plan is aimed at people who truly do already know what it is that they want, and are determined to create an amazing website(s).
The pricing options of IONOS shared hosting plans are actually rather decent! It’s not the most-affordable website hosting service (especially considering that the prices do increase over time), but it surely is up there (down there?)!
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Conclusions
After reading through this article and analyzing various user 1&1 hosting reviews, what’s the conclusion here - is IONOS worth it?
Yes - for some people.
IONOS does, admittedly, have all of the aspects of a reliable and high-end website hosting service covered and checked off. It offers great uptime and site speed (two of the most-important features, mind you!), has various additional benefits, multiple hosting options, and so on.
On the flip side, though, it’s only available in a limited number of locations around the world. If you reside in, say, a European country, you might not be able to host and create a website with IONOs - in a scenario like this, note that there are better options available to you, either way! Check out HostGator, or Hostinger - the two leading hosting providers within the current industry.
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Or, if you don’t really feel like hosting a website on your own, there is also an alternative approach that you could take, too - creating a website with one of the best website builders on the market, and leaving all of the hosting matter to the company behind the builder.
This way, you will save both time and money, and will also be able to worry exclusively about your website and its appearance. Sure, you miss out on the chance to “take matters into your own hands”, but it depends on your own, personal preferences!
With that, I thank you for reading, and wish you good luck with all of your site creation ventures to come!
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- + Great uptime
- + Fast side loading speeds
- + Multiple hosting options
- + Free SSL, domain name, email
- - Not available in some countries
- - Might not be suitable for beginners
- - No free site transfer
A high-end website hosting service, but not available in some countries.
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