Are you confused between Ionos and OVH? Worry no more, because we’ve got everything you need in this article! Ionos is slightly better when it comes to pricing, ease-of-use, and security so it comes out on top in this comparison. However, OVH is still a good option if performance is important to you!
Learn all about the features of these two most popular hosting platforms & pick a winner for yourself – let’s begin!
Overall Comparison Ionos vs OVH
| Ionos | OVH | |
| Features | Shared; VPS; Dedicated Free domain & SSL Unmetered traffic 5/5 | Shared, VPS, Dedicated Free domain & SSL Unlimited traffic 5/5 |
| Pricing | Starts with $4/month; 30-day money back guarantee 5/5 | Starts at $3.99/month; no refund policy 4/5 |
| Performance | 99.99% uptime 5/5 | 99.99% uptime 5/5 |
| Support | 24/7 Phone, ticket, Live chat, forum, knowledgebase 5/5 | 24/7 Phone, 1-on-1 support, Email, Live chat, knowledgebase 4.5/5 |
| Ease of use | Custom dashboard Automatic WordPress setup Website builder (paid) 4.5/5 | OVH Cloud Management Panel Plesk 1-click WordPress 4/5 |
| Security | Free SSL, DDoS Backups & Site monitoring ModSecurity 5/5 | Free SSL, DDoS Backups Spam and Malware detection tools 4.5/5 |
| Server Location | North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania 5/5 | USA, Europe 4/5 |
Winner: Ionos
If you’re in the market for top-notch performance and amazing pricing plans, head over to Ionos. Take a plunge into our comparison between two hosts – who knows? You may just find that OVH is tailor-made for your needs!
About Ionos and OVH
 | With servers distributed across the USA and Europe – powering more than 12 million domains – Ionos has been headquartered in Germany since 1998. They offer a wide range of hosting solutions including shared plans, VPS options, and dedicated server packages to suit any website’s needs! Ionos can provide everything your business needs for effortless website execution. |
 | Founded nearly two decades ago, one year after Ionos, OVH is a French-based company that has been providing cutting-edge hosting services with data centers spread across the U.S.A and Europe. OVH is revolutionizing the cloud industry by offering public and private clouds, shared hosting solutions as well as dedicated servers. |
Round 1: Hosting features – Key Hosting Features and Services
| Hosting Feature | Ionos | OVH |
| Disk space and bandwidth | Shared Hosting – Unmetered bandwidth; 50-500 GB HDD diskspace VPS hosting – Unmetered bandwidth; 10-240 GB SSD diskspace Dedicated Hosting – Unmetered bandwidth; Up to 2TB HDD and 800 GB SSD WordPress Hosting – Unlimited traffic, 125 – GB SSD diskspace Agency Hosting – Unmetered bandwidth; 10-Unlimited storage | Shared Hosting – Unlimited traffic; 100 – 500 GB disk space
VPS hosting – 100 Mbps – 2Gbps; 20-640 GB SSD diskspace Dedicated Hosting – 500 Mbit/s to 50 Gbit/s bandwidth; 128 GB – 2TB diskspace WordPress Hosting – Unlimited traffic, 100 -500 GB diskspace |
| high-performance SSD storage | 800 GB on dedicated hosting plan | 2 x 1.2 TB on dedicated hosting plan |
| Free daily backups and restore | Yes; daily backups on all plans | Yes |
| Free WordPress installation | Yes | Yes |
| Free site migration | Yes | Yes |
| Free website builder | No; MyWebsite builder plan starts at $1/month | No |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes |
Key Ionos Features
Ionos provides unmetered bandwidth and enough storage for any user, whether they need 800 GB SSD storage or unlimited agency plans. You get all the essential security features on the basic plans. Timely backups are created and WordPress is easy to install. You just have to pay for the site builder and you’ll be good to go!
Key OVH Features
OVH does not have a ready-made plan for agency owners. Their WordPress and dedicated plans, however, come with an incredible range of features. Unfortunately, OVH doesn’t have a site builder and their control panel is a little bit confusing but they provide the most value for money on their dedicated plans.
And the winner is… Ionos
Ionos is a clear winner with its additional agency plan and unmetered bandwidth on all packages.
Round 2: Prices & Plans
| Shared Hosting | Ionos | OVH |
| Entry Level plan | Essential $4 / month | Personal $3.99 / month |
| Middle plan | Business $1 / month | Professional $6.99 / month |
| Highest plan | Expert $8 / month | Performance $11.99 / month |
| VPS Hosting | Ionos | OVH |
| Entry Level plan | VPS S – $2 / month VPS M – $4 / month VPS L – $8 / month VPS XL – $2 / month VPS XXL – $18 / month | Starter $4.20 / month Value $6.44 / month |
| Middle plan | VPS vCore M – $6 / month VPS vCore L – $10 / month VPS vCore XL – $4 / month VPS vCore XXL – $20 / month | Essential $13.52 / month |
| Highest plan | VPS M RAM – $8 / month VPS L RAM – $12 / month VPS XL RAM – $2 / month VPS XXL RAM – $24 / month | Comfort $25.11 / month Elite $36.24 / month |
| Dedicated Hosting | Ionos | OVH |
| Entry Level plan | A8i SSD – $45 / month L4i HDD – $47 / month | Scale Dedicated servers – $62.43 / month |
| Middle plan | L-16 SSD – $70 / month L-16 HDD – $60 / month XL-32 SSD – $110 / month XL-32 HDD $90 / month | Advanced Dedicated servers – $96.62 / month |
| Highest plan | XL-64 SSD – $140 / month XL-64 HDD – $120 / month | Rise Dedicated servers – $449.55 / month High Grade Dedicated servers – $828.12 / month |
| WordPress Hosting | Ionos | OVH |
| Entry Level plan | Start $2 / month | Personal $4.39 / month |
| Middle plan | Grow $1 / month | Professional $7.69 / month |
| Highest plan | Boost $6 / month | Performance $13.19 / month |
| Specialized plans | Ionos (Agency Hosting) | OVH (Dedicated Hosting) |
| Entry Level plan | Essential $4 / month | N/A |
| Middle plan | Business $0.5 / month | Game Dedicated Servers $113.51 / month |
| Highest plan | Expert $8 / month | Storage Dedicated Servers $413.81 / month |
Ionos Pricing Plans
If you’re looking for affordable hosting, Ionos offers 13 VPS plans, 3 WordPress plans and 3 agency hosting plans. If price isn’t as big of a concern, they also have 8 dedicated server options.
- Shared Hosting Plans – 3 tiers of entry-level plans suitable for small businesses and personal websites.
- VPS Hosting Plans – 13-tier VPS plans that are best for small to mid-sized businesses.
- Dedicated Hosting Plans – 3-tier plans for businesses that need the best performance and dedicated resources
- WordPress Plans – plans designed for WordPress websites
- Specialized dedicated Hosting Plans – Plans for Agencies and Freelancers
OVH Pricing Plans
Like Ionos, OVH offers shared, VPS, dedicated, and WordPress hosting plans.
- Shared Hosting Plans – best for new blogging websites and personal portfolios.
- VPS Hosting Plans – secure hosting best for mid-sized businesses
- Dedicated Hosting Plans – ideal for resource-intensive businesses
- WordPress Plans – specially designed for all kinds of WordPress website owners
- Specialized Hosting Plans (Game Dedicated) – Plans for secure online gaming
And the Winner Is…Ionos
Ionos offers far more hosting options as well as a specialized agency plan. OVH has confusing pricing plans and they don’t offer agency plans.
Round 3: Website performance (Uptime & Speed)
Your hosting provider’s uptime refers to how often their servers are operational. Your website speed is determined by how fast users can access information on your site after clicking a page.
A high uptime and server speeds mean that your website will have little to no downtime and pages will load quickly; both of which lower bounce rate and increase conversions
| Test | Ionos | OVH |
| GT Metrix | 0.784 s | 0.439 s |
| PageSpeed Insights | 1.8 s | 0.3 s |
Ionos Uptime & Speed
Ionos didn’t perform up-to-the-mark on the speed tests. It took 0.784 seconds to load (TTFB) on GT Metrix and gave a performance score of 80%.
On PageSpeed Insights the speed was 1.8 s TTFB which is again not as good as expected.
OVH Uptime & Speed
The results of the GTmetrix and Pagespeed insights pages are as follows:
- TTFB for GTmetrix 0.439s
- TTFB for Pagespeed 0.3s
OVH gave an incredible score of 90% on PageSpeed Insights.
It performed really well on GTMetrix with a performance score of 92%.
And the Winner Is…OVH
On both GTMetrix and Ionos, OVH performed incredibly well whereas Ionos has satisfactory scores.
Round 4: Customer Support – Who Has the Best Support System?
| Type of Support | Ionos | OVH |
| 24/7 support | Yes | Yes |
| Phone Support | Yes | Yes |
| Live chat | Yes | Yes |
| Email Support | Yes | Yes |
| Ticket support | Yes | Yes |
| Forum Support | No | Yes |
| Video guides | No | No |
| Knowledgebase | Yes | Yes |
Ionos Customer Support
Ionos has all the basic support features that are required to run a business: phone, live chat, email and ticketing, and a huge knowledgebase. However, they don’t have a forum/video guides.
They have also provided numbers for different countries and phone support is available 24/7.
I tried reaching out to a live chat agent twice at different times but the feature was temporarily available.
OVH Customer Support
In addition to all the basic support features, OVH has a Twitter support option too. Their live chat is available at particular times which they have mentioned on their website.
I contacted a live chat agent and it took them 5 seconds to find an agent for me. I liked how quickly she responded and asked me relevant questions to help me out.
And the Winner Is…OVH
OVH has an incredible team of support and they have more support features than Ionos.
Round 5: Ease of use – Which Platform Is Easier to Use?
| Ionos | OVH | |
| Account management dashboard | Easy | Easy |
| Control panel | Easy | Medium |
| Setup process (Install OS) | Easy | Easy |
| Transfer an existing website | Easy | Easy |
| Easy creation of backups | Easy | Easy |
| Emails | Easy | Easy |
| Enable CloudFlare | Medium | Medium |
Ionos Ease of use
Their landing page is designed in a way that makes it easy to find what you’re looking for and contact customer support directly if needed. I find the color scheme on their website to be quite aesthetic, and the overall design comes across as professional.
Even though I don’t think the Dashboard design looks professional, its layout is easy to understand and follow. Despite the design being lousy – as long as I can find what I am looking for, it’s good to go!
With Ionos’ custom dashboard, even beginners can quickly master the control panel/dashboard. The interface isn’t well-designed but it does have a neat and intuitive layout that makes setup and management of your website simple! Reviews don’t lie – customers love Ionos’ straightforward approach to getting things done.
OVH Ease of use
The UI of their website is very flashy and the colors are too bright, which gives the website a less professional look. All the features are quite dispersed and it takes a while to get used to it.
Although OVHcloud offers several great features, it is not very user-friendly. The process of purchasing their plan is slightly technical and their OVH Cloud Management Panel is frustrating to use.
And the Winner Is…Ionos
Ionos provides comprehensive features on its dashboard that makes it beginner-friendly and intuitive for all users.
Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?
| Ionos | OVH | |
| Free SSL certificate | Yes | Yes |
| DDoS protection | Yes | Yes |
| CloudFlare | Yes | Yes |
| Daily backups | Yes | Yes |
| Malware scans | Yes | Yes |
| SiteLock Security | Yes | No |
| WAF (Web Application Firewall) | Yes | Yes |
| Security Features | Backups Site monitoring ModSecurity Domain validation | Site backup Spam detection, Firewalls Malware detection tools |
Ionos Security
IONOS uses state-of-the-art security measures to protect your account from attacks on the Internet. They can identify and block abusive login attempts. This platform will keep your website secure at all costs – that’s why every plan comes with a Wildcard SSL certificate, and Domain Guard or DNS Pro can be added on as an optional extra.
OVH Security
OVH uses LXC technology (Linux Containers), which are not very reliable. However, your data will be regularly backed up with OVHcloud. With the help of three powerful 160 Gbps Anti-DDoS infrastructures located in global data centers, OVH has your back with maximum protection from any type of DDoS attack. Cross your feet and let them host all your important information – guaranteeing safe access that’s only available to those you want!
And the Winner Is…Ionos
Ionos is a winner since they provide free SSL, DDoS protection, and CloudFlare compatibility. You also get daily backups, automatic malware scans, and the option to purchase a SiteLock security plan.
Round 7: Server locations
Your server’s physical location impacts your website’s loading speed. If your users are based in the same country as your servers, they will experience much faster data transfer than if your servers were located far away. This is due to site latency, which occurs when there is a delay in data transfer. Having multiple server locations around the world can help ensure fast loading times for your website.
Ionos Server location
Ionos has its data centers located in the following areas: :
- Las Vegas, NV
- Newark, NJ
- London, UK
- Frankfurt, Berlin (Germany)
- Logroño, Spain
OVH Server location
OVH has a worldwide customer base, and has 7 data centers located in different locations:
- Australia
- France
- Germany
- Poland
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Singapore
And the Winner Is…OVH
It’s a tough one but OVH wins this round since it has 2 more data centers than Ionos and they are spread across different locations.
Ionos vs OVH: final recommendations
When to Choose Ionos?
Ionos wins this matchup for good reason. Choose Ionos if you:
- You’re a beginner to the hosting world
- You’re working on a budget
- You want constant support to set up your website
- You’re an agency owner
- You want a free domain and necessary security features to start with
Go for OVH if you:
OVH has an incredible range of features and they have many data centers spread across the world. You should choose OVH if:
- You’re okay with more limited support
- You’re not looking to upgrade to an agency (no plans for this purpose)
- You want to have a wide range of pricing options
- You’re okay with not using cPanel or Plesk since some of their plans do not include both
- You know the technicalities of web hosting
The Bottom Line
After an intense 7-round matchup, it’s clear that the winner of the web hosting platform is – Ionos! Offering free domains with all plans plus additional benefits like free SSLs and very flexible packages to suit any business type or size made them stand out from their competition.
OVH performed a little better on our speed test but it’s not always the case. OVH is well suited for targeting audiences in Europe and USA since OVH performs better in these locations.
FAQs
1. Is 1 & 1 now Ionos?
Ionos was formerly called “1&1 Ionos” and “1&1 Internet” when it was founded in 1998. The name was changed to “1&1 Ionos” in 2018 and finally to “Ionos” in 2020.
2. Which hosting platform is more affordable: Ionos or OVH?
There’s not much difference in the pricing plans – but OVH is a bit cheaper and starts at $3.99 per month.
3. Can I transfer my website from OVH to Ionos?
Yes, you can transfer your website from OVH to Ionos. You have to sign up for Ionos and get ready for the move – you just need an authorization code. No worries about losing out on subscription time, because any remaining period will be carried over when transferring to Ionos.
4. What are some great OVH and Ionos alternatives?
Some of the best Ionos and OVH alternatives are GoDaddy, Bluehost, Namecheap, Hostinger, and Hostgator.
