Ionos and AWS – both have their strengths and weaknesses. However, when we are considering website hosting, Ionos offers much more comprehensive features, along with its easy-to-use & set-up UI for websites. All these features make it a better option than AWS for users who want to host websites and not web applications.

Still, depending on your needs, AWS may be a better option for you. Read on so you can decide.

Overall Comparison Ionos vs AWS

Winner: Ionos

Overall, Ionos provides much better features than AWS for website hosting. However, for more technical users with customized needs, AWS may be the best fit.

About Ionos and AWS

Ionos is a leading web hosting and domain registration company with a long history dating back to 1988. Founded in Germany, Ionos currently serves over 12 million domains and is powered by over 90,000 servers in various locations. Ionos offers a range of hosting plans to meet the needs of all types of customers. They offer shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a leading cloud computing platform and provider of a wide range of hosting and related services. Founded in 2006, AWS is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and operates globally with data centers in various countries worldwide. AWS offers various services to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes and industries. With AWS, customers can choose from various hosting options, including virtual private servers, dedicated servers, and cloud hosting.

Round 1: Hosting features – Key Hosting Features and Services

Key Ionos Features

Ionos offers Shared, VPS, Dedicated, WordPress and Agency hosting- and you get up to 800 GB SSS storage on its dedicated hosting packages, and unmetered storage on its agency plans. Free backups and restore, seamless WordPress installation, and all the other essentials also come with its basic plans.

While Ionos doesn’t have a free website builder, you get a free domain and SSL to get your website going too.

Key AWS Features

AWS, on the other hand, offers just VPS and cloud hosting and you get unmetered bandwidth plus up to 640 GB of storage. You get high-performance SSD storage, free daily backups and restore, and easy WordPress installation.

AWS doesn’t have a website builder but like Ionos, you get a free SSL too for the ‘https’ bragging rights.

And the winner is… Ionos

Ionos offers more hosting plans and overall features than AWS and therefore, wins this round.

Round 2:  Prices & Plans

Ionos Pricing Plans

Ionos provides the following types of hosting options:

• Shared Hosting: While shared hosting is generally suitable for smaller websites, it provides enough scalability and flexibility to cater to larger sites as well.
• VPS Hosting: Websites with high traffic and larger applications, such as eCommerce stores often benefit from VPS hosting, as they need higher levels of security and performance.
• Dedicated Hosting: This type of hosting provides dedicated resources and powerful hardware, ensuring increased speed, more secure data storage, and advanced software configurations.
• WordPress Hosting: Best for all kinds of WordPress blogs and websites.
• Agency Hosting: Suited for agency owners.

AWS Pricing Plans

AWS provides pricing plans for the following options:

• VPS Hosting: Best for companies with high website traffic or larger applications, such as online stores and databases that demand higher levels of security and performance.
• Cloud Hosting: Best for serverless platforms, containerization, DevOps automation tools, and more.

And the Winner Is… Ionos

Ionos offers a variety of affordable pricing options for all kinds of users to host their websites whereas AWS pricing is a little more complicated and difficult to understand.

Round 3: Website performance (Uptime & Speed)

Uptime refers to the time that a website or server is operational and available for use. A website’s speed and load time can affect both the user experience and search engine rankings.

A website that lags or is frequently down, creates frustration for users, which can drive them away and harm traffic and revenue. Conversely, a swift and dependable site elevates the user experience and boosts customer satisfaction – resulting in greater profits!

Ionos Uptime & Speed

Ionos load speed on GMetrix is 795 ms TTFB and a performance score of 75%.

On the other hand, PageSpeed Insights gave Ionos a performance score of 88% with 1.8 s TTFB.

AWS Uptime & Speed

AWS didn’t perform up to the mark on both speed tests.

On GTMetrix, the performance score was 60% with 108ms TTFB.

Despite the amazing load speed of 0.4 s TTFB, the overall score on PageSpeed Insights lags behind at 52%, which is slightly above the ‘poor score category’.

And the Winner Is…Ionos

None of them performed exceptionally well when we did the speed tests and checked the performance scores. However, Ionos still performed much better than AWS.

Round 4: Customer Support – Who Has the Best Support System?

Ionos customer Support

Ionos is committed to providing the best customer service experience – with 24/7 support through phone, live chat, email and ticket services.

The Ionos Help Center has answers to any question that you might have.

At Ionos, you benefit from a personalized service – their ‘Personal Consultant’ provides an unparalleled level of help by allowing you to speak one-on-one with an agent.

With Ionos, you can always reach an agent through phone; however, to take advantage of their other support options, you’ll need to be a customer.

They have also provided several numbers on their website for different locations:

AWS customer Support

AWS has limited support options for non-users.

They have a wide range of video guides and FAQs on their website which is quite helpful for newbies. You can find solutions to almost any problem here.

Live chat is available for users only and they haven’t provided any number for phone support.

And the Winner Is…Ionos

Ionos offers a wide range of support features and their phone service for urgent matters is great. The only downside is that this feature isn’t available to non-customers yet.

Round 5: Ease of use – Which Platform Is Easier to Use?

Ionos Ease of use

Ionos provides a very user-friendly interface and an excellent theme with icons designed to highlight important features.

Making your way around the host’s website, dashboard and cPanel is super easy and everything is easy to see.

The Ionos cPanel too looks really good and different from the old-school cPanel and is designed for ease of use:

All you need to manage your backend is right there!

AWS Ease of use

The overall layout of the AWS website has been crafted to provide users with a simple and intuitive experience. Its clean and modern aesthetic is particularly striking, and gets straight to the point.

AWS offers an enormous range of features and customization options. For users who are not familiar with configuring and managing virtual servers, navigating the dashboard and cpanel can be quite tricky.

AWS provides manual configuration guidance for users that prefer to customize their set up settings. Overall, understanding the intricacies of AWS hosting may still be challenging for novice users.

And the Winner Is…Ionos

AWS hosting can be quite difficult to understand for non-technical people. You should stick to Ionos if you’re looking for a hassle-free, easy-to-use hosting platform.

Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?

Ionos Security

Ionos is committed to providing top-notch security that helps protect customers’ data and websites from malicious attacks. A Wildcard SSL certificate is included free of charge on every plan and additional optional features like Domain Guard or DNS Pro can be added on for extra protection.

Furthermore, Ionos also provides advanced DDoS protection, CloudFlare compatibility, and regularly scans for malware to make sure any threats are quickly dealt with. Daily backups are another security measure that adds further stability to websites hosted on Ionos.

AWS Security

AWS offers a suite of security features to ensure that the hosting experience is safe and secure for its users. AWS implements multilayered encryption with an extensive physical infrastructure, allowing customers to choose the protection they require and encrypt data, move it around, and manage retention as needed.

Data that passes across the AWS global network is automatically encrypted before leaving their secure environments.

And the Winner Is…AWS

AWS wins this round as it handles incredibly robust applications on its servers and hence provides top-notch security.

Round 7: Server locations

If you have a primarily local audience, it may be beneficial to choose a hosting platform with servers located in close proximity to your target audience. On the other hand, if your audience is worldwide, the location of the server may be less important.

Ionos Server location

Ionos has its servers in U.S.A and Europe in the following locations:

• Las Vegas, NV
• Newark, NJ
• London, UK
• Frankfurt, Berlin (Germany)
• Logroño, Spain

Ionos also expands your website’s reach across the globe with their easy CloudFlare integration.

AWS Server location

AWS has its servers located in the following locations:

United States:

• US East (Ohio)
• US West (Oregon)
• US West (Northern California)
• US East (Northern Virginia)

Middle East & Africa:

• Africa (Cape Town)
• Middle East (Bahrain)

Asia Pacific

• Hong Kong
• Jakarta
• Mumbai
• Osaka
• Seoul
• Singapore
• Sydney
• Tokyo
• China (Beijing and Ningxia)

And the Winner Is…AWS

When it comes to server locations, AWS wins the round as it has many data centers spread all over the world. Ionos, on the other hand, has a few server locations.

Ionos vs AWS: final recommendations

When to Choose Ionos?

Ionos hosting is a great choice for those wanting reliable in-person service and secure hosting services. Its technology architecture provides added scalability, stability, and improved performance, making it an ideal solution for businesses of all sizes.

Choose Ionos hosting if:

• Ease-of-use is your biggest concern and you don’t have a lot of technical people on the team
• You want competitive pricing.
• You want as much support as possible to help you figure things out.
• You want top-tier performance, support, and security.
• You don’t want to invest too much time into the setup process.

Ionos Hosting offers a comprehensive suite of services for any owner looking for a secure and reliable web presence.

Go for AWS  if you:

Choose AWS hosting:

• If you want a hosting service with scalable cloud computing options
• If you’re looking to host a web-based application
• If you have a lot of technical people on the team and you’re well-versed in cloud computing
• If you want to pay for what you use
• If server locations are your main concern (your audience is spread all over the world)