Inside this Article
Plans and Pricing
Hostinger’s and IONOS’ Plans Are Cheap, But Time Is a Big Factor in How Cheap
Hostinger comes with competitive prices, although the cheapest it offers per plan requires an upfront payment for two years. On the flip side, IONOS offers month-to-month, no-contract plans. Hostinger also allows you to pay monthly, but it could cost you significantly more than the upfront two-year payment. Investing in a longer-term plan with Hostinger gives you better value, while IONOS costs you less in the short term. Hostinger offers three shared hosting plans: Premium, Business, and Cloud Startup. IONOS offers four: Essential, Starter, Plus, and Ultimate. The fairest comparison would be between IONOS’ Plus plan and Hostinger’s Business plan. Both offer daily backups, a free content delivery network (CDN), and unlimited bandwidth. Unless you can take advantage of one of IONOS’ many discounts, however, your Plus plan can cost you more than a Business plan would.Both Hostinger and IONOS provide a 30-day money-back guarantee. However, canceling and completely deleting your account with IONOS is not a walk in the park. You have to submit a written cancellation request at least three working days before your renewal date, and your cancellation won’t take effect until it’s confirmed in writing. Some users have even experienced lengthy delays in the confirmation process. And the champion here? It’s a close one, but we have to say IONOS for the simple reason that you have the option to pay monthly and not get bogged down with a long-term contract. If, on the other hand, you don’t mind the time commitment, Hostinger is such a close second. We can’t not recommend it for its prices, too.
Hostinger Web Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthFree SSLNumber of SitesPriceFree Months
More detailsA free domain name is included with some hosting plans from Hostinger
IONOS Web Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthFree SSLNumber of SitesPrice
More detailsA free domain name is included with some hosting plans from IONOS
Features
Hostinger Gives Much More for the Money
The old saying, “You get what you pay for” somewhat holds true for our two hosts, though not in the way one might think. When you compare the two cheapest plans, IONOS’ Essential plan can’t hold a candle to Hostinger’s Premium when it comes to features. In this case, “You get what you pay for” means that you have to pay IONOS more to get most of the features Hostinger gives you for much less. Now, IONOS does have some appealing features like a free domain for a year and a Wildcard SSL certificate, but then so does Hostinger. Hostinger also throws in additional perks that IONOS lacks. For instance, Hostinger includes a free website builder, while with IONOS, you’ll need to shell out extra for that. Hostinger also offers 100 email accounts, compared to IONOS’ one. Hostinger’s Premium also gives you 100 GB of SSD storage, while with IONOS’ Essential, you only get 10 GB of old, slow HDD storage. The only real advantages IONOS’ Essential plan has are its daily backups and the inclusion of free Cloudflare CDN. Hostinger’s Premium plan, on the other hand, only includes weekly backups and doesn’t provide access to a CDN. It’s easy to see why we prefer Hostinger over IONOS when it comes to comparing features. You can see for yourself in the handy table below.Hostinger | IONOS | |
Hosting types | Shared, managed WordPress, cloud, VPS | Shared, managed and unmanaged WordPress, WooCommerce, ASP.NET, VPS |
Free domain name | ✔ | ✔ |
Free SSL | ✔ | ✔ |
Number of websites | 100 – 300 | 1 – unlimited |
Storage | 100 GB SSD – 200 GB NVMe | 10 GB – unlimited HDD |
Bandwidth | Unlimited | unlimited |
Control panel | Custom hPanel | Custom IONOS control panel |
Free CDN | ✔ (except Premium) | ✔ |
Email accounts | 100 | 1 |
Money-back guarantee | 30 days | 30 days |
Performance
The Difference Is in the Details
When we test hosting provider performance, we use two main tools: GTmetrix and Uptime Robot. We monitor each host for at least a week, and then we look at the results. The results for both Hostinger- and IONOS-hosted websites were very good. At first glance, it may seem that IONOS did better than Hostinger. If you look at some important details, however, you’ll see that Hostinger did, in fact, outdo its competition.![GTmetrix A score for Hostinger](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hostinger-vs-ionos-imgs--1.png)
![GTmetrix A score for IONOS](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hostinger-vs-ionos-imgs--2.png)
![Hostinger's UpTime Robot 100% reliability report](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hostinger-vs-ionos-imgs--3.png)
![100% reliability report for IONOS from UpTime Robot](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hostinger-vs-ionos-imgs--4.png)
Security
IONOS Is Good, But Hostinger Is Better
When it comes to budget hosts, you often get the bargain-basement security features and little else. Hostinger breaks that mold by giving your site top-shelf security features, even on the entry-level plan. Hostinger provides a custom firewall, designed in-house just for Hostinger’s servers. Shared hosting users are also treated to the Immunify360 security suite, providing a web application firewall, antivirus and anti-malware protection, and WebShield software to identify online attackers. Hostinger has also deployed advanced PHP security modules, adding another layer of security to your site. And let’s not forget the free SSL you get with all plans. IONOS, by comparison, looks like pretty standard fare, offering DDoS protection, daily backups and site scanning. It does run its servers on the HTTP/2 network protocol, making it more secure than hosts still using the HTTP/1.1. Another plus in its favor is its SSL certificates feature 256-bit encryption instead of 128-bit. You can pay extra for SiteLock through your IONOS account, but overall,the free security measures IONOS offers just don’t hold up to Hostinger’s.Support
Hostinger Offers Live Chat Support, While IONOS Uses Phone Support
Both Hostinger and IONOS have 24/7 customer support, but you’ll have very different experiences with each of them. Ever since the merger of with IONOS, the company has introduced a service referred to as a “personal consultant.” This service aims to provide individualized, one-on-one customer support at your convenience. However, based on my experience, the customer support quality remains unchanged, and unfortunately, the live chat support option is still unavailable.![email response from IONOS support](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hostinger-vs-ionos-imgs--5.png)
![live chat conversation with Hostinger support](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hostinger-vs-ionos-imgs--6.png)
Hostinger Wins the Day
In all but price, Hostinger wins. And it even wins there, too, unless you can snag yourself one of IONOS’ good discounts. Hostinger simply offers better features, faster performance, more security, and even its somewhat mediocre support team can outdo IONOS. What surprised us was just how not close the competition really was between our two top hosts. We thought going in that surely IONOS would stand up better to Hostinger, but it just wasn’t so. That doesn’t mean that IONOS isn’t a good host, however. It is, after all, our number two choice. It may not be able to topple Hostinger from its throne, but it has a lot to offer the website owner with a bit more in their wallet.Hostinger
IONOS
Plans and Pricing
Cheaper than IONOS long term
Often discounted, but high renewal fees
Key Features
Unlimited bandwidth, 100 email accounts, free domain
Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited websites on most plans, 1 email account, free domain
Performance
LiteSpeed servers, SSD and NVMe storage, nine data centers
Apache and NGINX servers, HDD storage, 10 data centers
Security
Custom firewall, free SSL, free malware and antivirus protection, free weekly and daily backups
DDoS protection, free SSL, third-party firewall, daily backups
Support
24/7 support via live chat or email, extensive knowledge base
24/7 support via live chat or phone, knowledge base