Bluehost vs. IONOS 2025: Which Is The Best For Your Website?

In this Bluehost vs. IONOS comparison, IONOS wins across all categories. That doesn’t make Bluehost bad, but IONOS is out there punching way above its weight when it comes to the features and service it offers for the price.

But IONOS is by no means flawless, and Bluehost has its share of satisfied customers in the general hosting space. IONOS, while it does offer some great options for beginners, is a little more enterprise-oriented in its high-end offerings. Let’s find out which one is right for you.

Bluehost vs. IONOS review at a glance

• Bluehost: Best for most websites
• IONOS: Best for businesses on a budget

		Our Pick
Star rating	4.8 AllAboutCookies writers and editors score products based on a number of objective features as well as our expert editorial assessment. Our partners do not influence how we rate products.	4.7 AllAboutCookies writers and editors score products based on a number of objective features as well as our expert editorial assessment. Our partners do not influence how we rate products.
Starting price	Starts at $2.99/mo	Starts at $5.00/mo
Money-back guarantee	Yes — 30 days	Yes — 30 days
Uptime guarantee	99.99%	99.99%
Monthly visits	15K - 200K	Unlimited
Storage	10 GB - 100 GB	10 GB - unlimited
Free SSL certificate	On all plans	On all plans
Free domain for a year	On all plans	On all plans, except VPS and dedicated hosting
Learn more	Get Bluehost Read Bluehost Review	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review

Bluehost pros and cons

Bluehost offers your usual general hosting options: shared hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, and managed WordPress hosting. Bluehost’s user experience is fairly beginner-friendly, its plans are affordable, and it comes with a pretty good site builder.

However, in our Bluehost review, the performance testing didn’t go as well as it could have, and the servers were a little unreliable during the testing period. Your mileage may vary on that score, but it’s something to keep in mind.

IONOS pros and cons

IONOS has a very similar feature set to Bluehost: shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers, as well as a couple of extra options like dedicated Jamstack and ASP.NET hosting.

It’s all pretty easy to use, and there’s even a site builder option. As you move up the tiers to more expensive plans, IONOS adds enterprise features as well. The two minor drawbacks are lack of CDN integration and no email or ticket support system, which is problematic for users who don’t have time to wait on hold.

Which web hosting service has the best core features?

IONOS has the better core experience overall. It offers more resources for the price and has more options for different types of web hosting.

		Our Pick
Storage available	10 GB - 100 GB	10 GB - unlimited
Bandwidth	Unmetered	Unmetered
Monthly visits	15K - 200K	Unlimited
Staging environment	On all plans	Can be done manually
Migration assistance		Separate purchase
Control panel	On all plans	On all plans
Website builder	On all plans	On all plans
Hosting types available	Shared / WordPress / VPS / cloud / dedicated	Shared / ASP.NET / VPS / Jamstack / WordPress / dedicated
Learn more	Get Bluehost Read Bluehost Review	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review

IONOS offers a little bit more for a little bit less money. This is true for customers at pretty much every level, from beginners who just want to get a business brochure site up to massive corporations. The unlimited storage and unmetered bandwidth options are great when compared to any service that measures maximum traffic in visits.

Modern web developers will certainly appreciate the attention paid to hosting options for Jamstack sites, which are built with static site generators and code frameworks like React/Vue. That being said, your average site builder or WordPress customer won’t see too much difference in the features, and Bluehost isn’t lagging far behind.

Which web host has the best performance and reliability?

IONOS wins, but just barely. Note: FCP (First Contentful Paint) is the time it takes for bits of the page to start showing up on your screen. LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is the time it takes to finish loading.

		Our Pick
Uptime guarantee	99.99%	99.99%
Tested uptime	100%	100%
Average performance score	100	99.6
Average FCP	0.43 s	0.46 s
Average LCP	0.63 s	0.56 s
Stress test	Pass	Pass
HTTP failures	0	0
Learn more	Get Bluehost Read Bluehost Review	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review

So, the “performance” score can be affected by how the test site was built, and the results for FCP and LCP are within the margin of error. I’m usually more concerned by the reliability of the servers, and during the stress test, IONOS performed better with a maximum server response time of 702 ms, while Bluehost peaked at 6,587 ms, which isn’t great.

But outside of under-load conditions, the performance is almost identical, and both scored very well for uptime. IONOS takes the lead by virtue of handling the stress test better.

Which web host is the better value?

Again, IONOS takes the win here with slightly cheaper plans, at post-renewal prices. Its perfectly serviceable Essential plan renews at only $6/mo, where Bluehost’s Starter plan renews at $9.99/mo, for much the same feature set.

		Our Pick
Price range	$2.99-$9.99/mo	$1.00-$15.00/mo
Best value plan	Starter for $2.99/mo	Starter for $5.00/mo
Money-back guarantee	Yes — 30 days	Yes — 30 days
Free domain for a year	On all plans	On all plans
Free SSL	On all plans	On all plans
Learn more	Get Bluehost Read Bluehost Review	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review

Bluehost plans

Bluehost’s plans are your classic fare in that the pricier options offer increased system resources and features that the cheaper ones don’t have. This includes features like specialized commerce tools, some of which you could likely install yourself without paying extra for them in the site builder. Every plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

• Starter: 10 websites, 10 GB storage, 40K visits per month, site builder tools, free domain for 1 year, free SSL, free CDN, chat support, WordPress optimizations, WP-CLI, SSH, email marketing features, and weekly backups
• Business: 50 websites, 50 GB storage, 200K visits per month, adds domain privacy, and Malware Detection/Removal (on top of the regular malware scans)
• eCommerce essentials: 100 websites, 100 GB storage, 400K visits per month, and adds commerce tools, including WooCommerce Auto-Install*

IONOS plans

IONOS’ plans are mostly designed around selling you on faster hosting rather than more features. In fact, IONOS’ shared hosting plans mostly have the same features, which include but are not limited to: SSH/SFTP & WP-CLI access, free domain for 1 year, free Wildcard SSL certificate, email, unmetered bandwidth,1-click installs for WordPress and many other CMS options, a complete website builder, and daily backup and recovery.

Every plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

• Essential: 1 website, 10 databases, 10 GB storage, low-end CPU and RAM resources (100 visitors per minute, in theory)
• Starter: 10 websites, 10 databases, 100 GB storage, better CPU and RAM resources (100 visitors per minute, with more storage)
• Plus: Unlimited websites, unlimited databases, unlimited storage, enhanced CPU and RAM resources (200 visitors per minute, in theory)
• Ultimate: Unlimited websites, unlimited databases, unlimited storage, maximum CPU and RAM resources (500 visitors per minute, in theory)

Note that the WordPress-specific plans, which differ from the ones above, include additional WordPress integration and AI features.

Which web host has the best security features?

This is a very close matchup, to be fair, but IONOS ekes out another win by having a better backup policy.

		Our Pick
Malware scanning
Firewall protection
DDoS protection
Backup frequency	Weekly	Daily
Learn more	Get Bluehost Read Bluehost Review	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review

Both services offer malware scanning to make sure nothing nasty gets uploaded to your servers or stays on them for long. They’ve both got firewalls to reduce the risk of your site being hacked, DDoS protection to keep your site from getting taken down by bots, and backups so you can easily restore your website if necessary.

They both have extra security tools for WordPress.

But the backup policies are where they differ, with Bluehost offering only weekly backups with its shared hosting plans. Weekly backups aren’t enough. Daily backups are better for preventing (too much) data loss. Of course, if you have a website that’s updated by its users every minute, you might want a third-party backup solution.

Which web host has the best support and reputation?

IONOS wins by a technicality, as it has higher scores on common review platforms:

		Our Pick
24/7 customer support
Support options	Chat, phone, knowledge base	Chat, AI chatbot, phone, knowledge base
Trustpilot score	4.6	4.7
G2 rating	3.4	3.5
Capterra rating	3.6	4.2, but it’s listed as a marketing platform
Learn more	Get Bluehost Read Bluehost Review	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review

Both services offer 24/7 customer support with live chat and phone options. There are also knowledge bases with helpful guides for those DIY types like myself. It’s worth noting, though, that we found IONOS’ AI chatbot to be particularly unhelpful.

While the overall ratings of both services are largely positive on Trustpilot and more mixed on G2 and Capterra, reviews of both services on Reddit tend to be pretty negative. It’s worth noting that people are more likely to post about services like these on Reddit when they’ve had a negative experience. Even so, they’ve reported problems with customer service, upselling, and extra fees on both hosts.

Top alternatives

Hostinger is probably the best alternative to both services, with a solid reputation — even on Reddit — and pretty much all the hosting features that IONOS has. Its post-renewal prices, however, are more comparable to Bluehost. It’s still pretty affordable, though.

If you’re looking for something in the enterprise space and IONOS isn’t for you, SiteGround is expensive but very well regarded.

If you want something affordable with reasonably advanced features and don’t mind figuring some things out yourself, Liquid Web is a solid option, too.

Bluehost vs. IONOS: Which is better?

IONOS is better, though not by the widest of margins. It mostly does everything that Bluehost does, but a little bit better.

		Our Pick
Value
Core features
Performance and reliability
Security
Support and reputation
Learn more	Get Bluehost Read Bluehost Review	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review

IONOS has extra hosting types, a more generous allocation of server resources, and better long-term pricing. The only real downside is the lack of CDN integration and no email or ticket support system, which could be an issue if you’re too busy for live chat or phone support. However, Bluehost doesn’t offer email support either.

Again, this doesn’t make Bluehost bad. If you need features like easy WordPress staging environments, the slightly higher prices might be worth it for you. It all depends on exactly what you need.

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