IONOS vs. Hostinger: Which is the Best Web Host?

IONOS is slightly better than Hostinger, offering a variety of low-cost plans with unlimited bandwidth, monthly visits, and storage. This is great for large websites with a lot of traffic; your site can grow exponentially without your costs rising in kind.

Hostinger is still a quality web host, and its primary appeal is for first-time website creators, as its tools are highly intuitive. Hostinger provides guided WordPress tools and access to its website builder on most plans, while IONOS limits its comparable tools to designated plans.

In this IONOS vs Hostinger guide, our hands-on tests will highlight the differences between the two.

IONOS vs. Hostinger review at a glance

• IONOS: Best for large websites
• Hostinger: Best for beginners

	Our Pick
Star rating	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.	4.9 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 $3.20/mo	Starts at $1.95/mo
Money-back guarantee	Yes, 30 days	Yes, 30 days
Uptime guarantee	99.99%	99.9%
Monthly visits	Unlimited	25K - 200K
Number of websites	1 - unlimited	3 - 100
Storage	10 GB - unlimited	20 GB – 100 GB
Free SSL certificate	On all plans	On all plans
Free domain for a year	On all plans	On all plans
Learn more	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review	Get Hostinger Read Hostinger Review

IONOS pros and cons

IONOS offers deeply affordable shared hosting plans with unlimited monthly visits, and storage limits ranging from decent to excellent. You’ll also get robust security features, including DDoS protection, a malware scanner, and PCI compliance.

The real star, however, is IONOS’s WordPress hosting plans. These plans provide an AI website builder and a WordPress Cockpit with a checklist and links to help you perform basic tasks. Unfortunately, you won’t get these WordPress tools on IONOS’s standard shared hosting plans.

IONOS's main downside is the lack of customer service support tickets. You also won’t get LiteSpeed-enhanced servers or CDN integration, though our speed tests showed that IONOS is still fast enough to satisfy most users.

Hostinger pros and cons

Hostinger provides a seamless modern interface with intuitive tools for domain, account, and server management. Hostinger offers a lot of beginner-friendly support with a website builder and guided WordPress installation. There’s also a built-in site assistant on all Hostinger WordPress installs, with similar functionality to the IONOS WordPress Cockpit.

You’ll want a 4-year plan to get Hostinger’s best introductory discount, which can be a downside if you’re not certain you’ll want to keep your site that long. However, this means you get the discount for 4 years, longer than IONOS's 1-year introductory discount.

Unfortunately, Hostinger provides only basic security. Automated backups are weekly rather than daily on the lowest-tier plan, and the servers aren’t PCI compliant, which can be problematic if you want to process payments.

Which web hosting service has the best core features?

IONOS and Hostinger provide similar features, with the best option based on your site’s purpose. IONOS just barely wins this section, as it offers unlimited storage and visits on its higher-tiered plans.

	Our Pick
Number of contributors	1	1
Websites per account	1 - unlimited	3 - 100
Storage available	10 GB - unlimited	20 GB - 100 GB
Bandwidth	Unlimited	Unlimited
Monthly visits	Unlimited	25K – 200K
Staging environment	Only on managed WordPress hosting	Starting with Business plan
Migration assistance	Separate paid service	On all plans
Email	Starting with one inbox with 2 GB storage	2-10 inboxes for one year
Control panel	Proprietary control panel on all plans	Proprietary control panel (hPanel) on all plans
Website builder	Available only on specialized plans	Included with most plans
Hosting types available	Shared, WordPress, WooCommerce, website builder, VPS, dedicated	Shared, WordPress, WooCommerce, website builder, cloud
Learn more	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review	Get Hostinger Read Hostinger Review

The first major difference is storage: Hostinger’s lowest-cost plan offers twice as much as the comparable IONOS plan. However, the tables turn when you consider higher-tier plans, with IONOS’s more expensive plans offering unlimited storage.

Similarly, Hostinger offers high monthly visits for many sites, but it can’t beat IONOS’s unlimited monthly visits. This makes IONOS better for websites expecting significant traffic or growth, while Hostinger is more appropriate for smaller niche sites.

Hostinger has a significant advantage with its Hostinger website builder and guided WordPress tools included on most plans. Combined with the ability to create multiple websites, this gives you full control over how you build every site.

IONOS has excellent WordPress tools, but these are available only through specialized WordPress hosting. The IONOS website builder is also restricted to (more expensive) designated hosting plans.

Which web host has the best performance and reliability?

IONOS provides better performance and reliability than Hostinger, with an above-average uptime guarantee of 99.99%, meaning your site won’t go down for more than 2 minutes per week.

Hostinger offers only the industry-standard uptime guarantee of 99.9%, allowing up to 10 minutes of downtime per week. However, during our tests, Hostinger provided the same 100% uptime as IONOS.

IONOS and Hostinger both had great site speed as well, though IONOS did prove slightly faster.

	Our Pick
Uptime guarantee	99.99%	99.9%
Tested uptime	100%	100%
Average performance score	99.6	97.3
Average FCP	0.46 s	0.8 s
Average LCP	0.53 s	1.1 s
Stress test	Pass	Pass
HTTP failures	0	0
Learn more	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review	Get Hostinger Read Hostinger Review

Which web host is the better value?

IONOS offers better value, with its lowest introductory rate for Plus at $1.00/mo. While Plus rises to $14/mo on renewal — more than the $10.99/mo renewal rate of Hostinger’s base plan — this is an incredibly low price for the unlimited storage and monthly views.

The Essential IONOS plan has a higher introductory cost of $3.20/mo, but its $8/mo renewal rate makes it ideal for long-term savings.

	Our Pick
Price range	$1.00-$5.33/mo	$1.95-$7.99/mo
Best value plan	Plus for $1.00/mo	Premium for $1.95/mo
Money-back guarantee	Yes, 30 days	Yes, 30 days
Free domain for a year	On all plans	On all plans
Free CDN		On all plans
Free SSL	On all plans	On all plans
Learn more	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review	Get Hostinger Read Hostinger Review

IONOS plans

IONOS offers four shared hosting plans, all backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee:

• Essential: Essential includes 10 GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. You’ll also get the ability to create 10 mailing lists.
• Starter: Starter provides 100 GB of storage and up to 10 websites, plus unlimited bandwidth. You’ll also get the option to create 10 mailing lists.
• Plus: Plus includes unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited websites. You’ll also get 25 mailing lists.
• Ultimate: Ultimate features unlimited storage, bandwidth, and websites, plus 100 mailing lists.

IONOS also provides high-value WordPress hosting with additional site-building tools.

Hostinger plans

Hostinger offers a variety of web hosting plans, all covered by its 30-day money-back guarantee.

• Premium: Premium provides 20 GB of storage and enough resources (like CPU power) to handle 25K monthly visitors, with the option to split these resources between three websites.
• Business: Business includes 50 GB of storage and enough resources to handle up to 100K monthly visitors, plus 50 websites.
• Cloud Startup: Cloud Startup features 100 GB of storage and 100 websites, with enough resources to handle up to 200,000 monthly visitors.

Which web host has the best security features?

IONOS offers stronger security than Hostinger, including PCI compliance and daily backups across all plans.

	Our Pick
Malware scanning
Firewall protection
DDoS protection
Backup frequency	Daily	Weekly or daily
Other	PCI compliant	Not PCI compliant
Learn more	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review	Get Hostinger Read Hostinger Review

Both IONOS and Hostinger include all the essential security software and protocols to protect your website from threats such as viruses, malware, and DDoS attacks. They both also offer backups, but Hostinger limits them to weekly backups on its lowest-tier plan, while IONOS provides daily backups across all plans.

The other difference is PCI compliance — something only IONOS provides. PCI compliance is legally required for ecommerce sites in many countries. However, this difference may not matter if you’re not planning to process payments.

If you do want to use Hostinger to host your ecommerce store, you will need a secure third-party payment processor like Stripe or PayPal to process financial transactions.

Which web host has the best support and reputation?

While IONOS and Hostinger have similar support options and reputations, IONOS has a slight edge by making it easier to speak with a human customer service representative.

	Our Pick
24/7 customer support
Support options	Live chat, phone, online guides in knowledge base	Live chat, email (that is difficult to find), online guides in knowledge base
Trustpilot score	4.7	4.7
G2 rating	4.3	4.4
Capterra rating	N/A	4.5
Learn more	Get IONOS Read IONOS Review	Get Hostinger Read Hostinger Review

IONOS has an easily accessible support team with live chat and phone support, plus an extensive knowledge base. Hostinger’s knowledge base is comparable to IONOS’s in quality, but the AI-focused live chat makes it difficult to reach a person. Moreover, Hostinger’s email support is difficult to find.

Top alternatives

If you’re not fully sold on IONOS or Hostinger, you can consider the following alternatives:

Bluehost

Bluehost provides great WordPress tools, including a guided setup process and a site assistant. Bluehost’s plans start at just $2.99/mo.

Read our Bluehost review

DreamHost

DreamHost uses the Liftoff site builder to streamline site creation and a custom control panel to simplify site management. DreamHost plans start at $2.89/mo.

Read our DreamHost review

SiteGround

SiteGround offers a guided WordPress installation process, automated WordPress updates, and fast, reliable customer support from WordPress experts. However, SiteGround’s significant renewal price increase — rising from $2.99/mo to $17.99/mo — means it’s a viable choice only for business websites.

Read our SiteGround review

IONOS vs. Hostinger: Which is better?

IONOS is the better web host, with a slight edge across all categories:

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

IONOS’s plans offer deep affordability for sites of all shapes and sizes, with access to unlimited bandwidth, monthly views, and storage on its higher-tier shared hosting plans. We also enjoyed IONOS’s impressive server performance and appreciated its inclusion of several security measures, including PCI compliance.

Hostinger offers reasonably low-cost plans for smaller sites, with access to high-quality site-building tools available on most plans. Combined with solid server performance and decent security, this makes Hostinger ideal for beginners looking to build simple sites like professional portfolios. However, these plans don’t provide as much support for larger websites or ecommerce stores.

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