1&1 Ionos Review: Modern WordPress Hosting at a Tiny Price

I first noticed Ionos when I noticed how much WordPress hosting has been specialized at the provider. For example, MariaDB is used instead of MySQL, which is supposed to bring great advantages in terms of performance when combined with WordPress. Today, we’ll find out together if that’s the case.

1&1 Ionos is one of the largest hosting providers offering its services worldwide. It operates several data centers in Germany alone. The provider has a wide range of services for individuals and companies. WordPress hosting is also offered at very reasonable prices.

Together with you, I will now look at the hoster Ionos and primarily take a closer look at the WordPress hosting. I am mainly interested in the question of how strong the hosting is compared to the competitors. This is also highly interesting because Ionos offers real competitive prices. More about this now in the article.

Who or what is actually behind Ionos?

In short, Ionos belongs to 1&1, which is why it is officially called 1&1 Ionos or Ionos by 1&1. If I understood correctly at the time, 1&1 completely outsourced their hosting business, which is why Ionos was created. However, since there have been so many takeovers and changes here, I don’t really remember all of this off the top of my head.

While searching for information for my Ionos review, I found out that they run a total of ten of their own data centers with about 90,000 servers. The company is headquartered in Montabaur, Germany. However, there are also branches in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Zweibrücken. There are also some international branches, but you are probably less interested in those.

In general, Ionos is an old hand as a hoster and is now specifically switching to offering special WordPress hosting for its customers. However, you can still get classic servers, cloud hosting or the well-known web space packages. The provider has almost everything in its program.

Ionos WordPress hosting rates at a glance

Now let’s get down to the hard facts. After this introduction, you want to know what exactly you can expect from Ionos in terms of WordPress hosting. This is actually the right time for that, because now we’ll take a look at the actual rates together.

To begin with, it’s worth mentioning that the hoster takes a different approach here than similar WordPress hosters. Thus, there is no classic limit of visitors, but only the indication of how many simultaneous calls are possible without the hosting breaking down. Also, there are many configuration options available, which is also not necessarily standard with WordPress hosting. But for now, a few details about the rates offered at Ionos.

Essential: Starting at just four euros a month, you get a WordPress installation with 25 gigabytes of disk space and matching MariaDB database. The system can handle up to 300 simultaneous visitors and provides 9 gigabytes of shared RAM.

Business: For seven euros a month, you get 100 gigabytes of storage space and 10 MariaDB databases. A domain is included and the whole package is designed for up to 500 simultaneous visitors. In addition, up to 19 gigabytes of shared RAM are promised.

Unlimited: If you’re willing to pay eighteen euros a month, Ionos grants you unlimited storage for your WordPress website, gives you three domains included and adds a CDN on top for best possible performance. There’s 19 gigabytes of shared RAM here, too, which ensures that up to 500 visitors can access your site at the same time.

WordPress Pro

If you need a bit more power for your WordPress blog, it’s worth taking a look at the WordPress Pro offer from IONOS. Managed WordPress hosting with assured resources, similar to a VPS. However, the price advantage is then also gone.

WordPress hosting from Ionos analyzed in more detail

WordPress hosting by Ionos has been interesting for me because it seems very strong and advanced. Usually, it is the case with large hosters that they do not work very agilely and tend to struggle with changes. So new features come late and often PHP versions are also longer in use than with small hosters. This is because switching to new technologies always involves a lot of work and risk, and must therefore be very well planned. The larger the hoster, the longer it often takes for updates to go live in the infrastructure.

However, Ionos has really stepped on the gas with WordPress hosting. On the one hand, with a switch to the mentioned MariaDB databases, which work more than well in conjunction with WordPress. On the other hand, the prices for WordPress hosting are simply right. But a little more about that in a moment in the detailed presentation of all tariffs.

I also find it interesting that Ionos doesn’t particularly throttle the rates. While they obviously have different performance features, on the whole they don’t differ much from each other. It’s only storage space and number of databases that end up making the difference.

Features: WordPress hosting from Ionos

A few extras didn’t make it into the review, but are still worth mentioning. Ionos calls the WordPress installations Managed WordPress projects. These are provided with patches via automatic update if desired. The same applies to software on the server, for example the latest PHP version.

Also included in all packages are one or more domains and SSL certificates. E-mail boxes are a matter of course. Less self-evident are the integrated site analytics from Ionos itself. In times of the DSGVO, alternatives to Google Analytics are always welcome.

Unfortunately, the CDN is only included in the Unlimited plan. But since it costs less than the Starter plan of other WordPress hosters, it’s a no-brainer if you ask me. So get the biggest package right away, because it’s future-proof and powerful.

What’s much more interesting, at least for me as a professional, is that not all options are automatically disabled. WordPress hosting is often aimed at beginners, which is why configuration options that are too complicated are often blocked or hidden from the start. With Ionos, I can at least use SSH or WP-CLI, depending on my needs. Also a custom .htaccess is easily possible, as well as Git, cronjobs and many other features that say little to the supposed beginner at first. So if you know your way around a bit better, you’ll be just as happy with Ionos.

Pros and cons

Ionos speed

The speed of 1&1 Ionos web hosting packages is okay, but it does not rank among the top WordPress hosts. Raidboxes, HostPress or Cloudways are much faster.

The best way to measure the load time of a server is by its response time, or “time to first byte” (short TTFB).

Time to first byte (TTFB) is a fundamental metric for measuring connection setup time and web server responsiveness both in the lab and in practice.

Ionos Time to First Byte: 0.32 – 0.46 seconds

Unfortunately, there are no meaningful reports from GTmetrix about the loading speed.

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Support

The IONOS Help Center is filled with helpful information. Videos have even been created as answers for many questions.

The customer service is available 24 hours, 7 days a week. You can use the contact service, which is like a ticket system, or the support by phone.

I had contact twice by email and could not complain. However, on other test portals I could also find very negative experiences, which does not necessarily speak for the provider.

Questions and answers

Conclusion about Ionos as a WordPress hoster

Personally, Ionos surprised me a lot during my review first and foremost. From a mainstream hoster and provider like 1&1 I expect first of all purely nothing. Mostly, I’m not the target group there and can therefore little inspire me for the hosting rates. With WordPress web hosting, however, this was and is surprisingly different.

This is because the packages with MariaDB etc. were at least once much better adapted than I am usually used to from large hosters. Even if this doesn’t yet come close to proprietary solutions like those from Raidboxes and co, it’s still a WordPress-focused hosting, which will certainly bring some corresponding advantages. Quite surprising, if you ask me.

What’s also surprising, by the way, is the price. WordPress hosting for under twenty euros and that even in the best tariff? In this I can even run several websites in parallel. Even if all this is not dedicated WordPress hosting, it will be more than enough for almost all bloggers. So my conclusion can only be that the provider comes along surprisingly strong. In advance, I would not have suspected this in any way. Especially for normal blogs, which do not have any special requirements and no too sophisticated additional features built in, the packages from Ionos are ideally suited and also very inexpensive to use. A great web hosting for beginners.

I hope you enjoyed my IONOS review.