Strato and Ionos are two awesome hosting providers, so you may be wondering which of them is better for your website. After reviewing each host, Ionos came out on top and is better than Strato. Read on to see why and what makes each host stand out.

Overall Comparison Strato vs Ionos

Winner: Ionos

Overall, if you want more versatile hosting plans, support, and a wider server footprint, Ionos is the winner but Strato has its strong points too. Read more to see what makes each host stand out.

About Strato and Ionos

	Strato AG is a hosting provider founded in 1997 and headquartered in Germany. The company currently provides hosting services to over 4 million domains and has over 70,000 servers in German cities, Berlin and Karlsruhe. Strato provides shared hosting, VPS, cloud, and dedicated hosting packages to its customers.
	Ionos, formerly 1 & 1 Internet, is a hosting provider/domain registrar founded in 1988, and also headquartered in Germany. The company currently serves over 12 million domains powered by over 90,000 servers distributed in 9 countries in the U.S.A and Europe. IONOS offers shared hosting, VPS hosting, Windows, dedicated, and agency hosting plans to its customers.

Round 1: Hosting features – Key Hosting Features and Services

Key Strato Features

Strato provides a free domain and unmetered bandwidth (traffic cap) on all its hosting plans, and up to 1TB storage capacity on its dedicated hosting package. On your servers, you get to enjoy high-performance SSD and HDD, and free daily backups and restore on every plan. Plus, if you have a WordPress website, the WordPress plans are just for you.

You can also migrate your existing website for free to Strato and if you don’t have one yet, you can build a simple blog quickly using the EasyBlog builder that comes with the basic plan.

Key Ionos Features

Ionos also offers unmetered bandwidth on all its plans, up to 800 GB SSD storage on its dedicated hosting plan, and unlimited storage on its agency plans. You get all the goodies on its most basic plan like free backups and restore and free WordPress installation.

With Ionos you get a free domain and SSL, and free migration too. However, you don’t get a free website builder.

And the winner is… Strato

In the first Strato vs Ionos round, Strato wins with more storage and an out-of-the-box blog builder.

Round 2:  Prices & Plans

Strato Pricing Plans

Strato offers just four hosting plans – one for each category. They are:

• Shared hosting plan – This entry-level plan is best for basic websites with one or few pages
• VPS hosting plan – This plan is great for small businesses that need a bit more power
• Cloud hosting – This plan helps business scale their resources quickly, as needed
• Dedicated hosting – Strato’s highest-level plan provides dedicated resources and storage for large corporations.

Apparently, Strato also offers WordPress hosting but I couldn’t find any information on their website.

Ionos Pricing Plans

Ionos offers three shared hosting plans, 13 VPS plans, 8 dedicated hosting plans, 3 WordPress plans, and 3 agency hosting plans.

• Shared hosting plans – Entry-level plans in three tiers suited to new and small business websites
• VPS hosting plans – 13-tier VPS plans that give incredible flexibility to mid-sized business websites
• Dedicated hosting plans – Three-tiered plans for corporations that need the most power and dedicated resources
• WordPress plans – Plans designed with WordPress websites in mind
• Agency hosting plans – Plans suited to agencies and freelancers

And the Winner Is… Ionos

Ionos offers far more hosting options as well as a specialized agency plan. Strato offers just four hosting plans that you’d have a hard time finding info on.

Round 3: Website performance (Uptime & Speed)

Your hosting provider’s uptime is basically how consistently their servers are ‘up and running’. Your website speed is how quickly users get the info they want after they click a page and this directly depends on your host’s server speed. Higher uptime and server speeds mean your website experiences no downtime and your web pages load quickly, minimizing bounce rate and increasing conversions.

Strato Uptime & Speed

To measure Strato server speeds, I ran the host’s domain through GTMetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights – two popular testing tools. See the results:

On GTMetrix, Strato server speed (Time to First Byte) was 503 ms and had a good performance of 84%:

Running Strato’s domain through PageSpeed Insights yielded:

A TTFB of 400 ms and an overall 74% performance:

Ionos Uptime & Speed

To measure Ionos server speed, we ran the host’s domain through two testing tools – GTMetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights. See the results below:

On GTMetrix, Ionos server speed (Time to First Byte) was 970 ms and had a low performance of 61%:

Running Ionos through PageSpeed Insights yielded even poorer results of TTFB values of 1.9 s and an overall performance of 29%:

Note that these values can vary wildly depending on the test location and physical distance between the servers and where the query was made.

And the Winner Is… Strato

I myself wasn’t expecting this, but Strato outperformed Ionos in both tests. Do note that these values are only relative and depend on where you’re located.

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

Strato customer Support

Strato offers limited support options when compared to most hosting providers on the market.

You get 24/7 support and live chat that seems to have been down for quite a while. I couldn’t find any way to chat with an agent live but they do offer a knowledgebase that’s still ‘okay’ at best:

Most topics are limited and I felt there should have been far more information in the knowledgebase considering they’ve been in the game for a while.

You can also contact and write Strato via an email contact form:

That automatically opens a support ticket. To enjoy Strato’s full support options conveniently, you’ll have to be a customer.

Ionos customer Support

Ionos offers the basic support goodies – 24/7 support, Phone support, Live chat, Email support, and Ticket support. Plus, a vast knowledgebase (The Ionos Help Center) with answers to every question you may have:

Ionos also boasts a unique ‘Personal Consultant’ where you get your to speak to an help agent one-on-one:

You can contact an Ionos agent anytime, through phone but to enjoy their other support options, you’d have to login as a customer:

And the Winner Is… Ionos

Ionos offers more support options out-of-the-box and I particularly like that you can contact via phone to solve urgent issues. But that’s it if you’re not yet a customer.

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

Strato Ease of use

Strato has a very straight-to-the-point user interface, in fact, one of the most straightforward dashboards I have ever seen. Right away, from the homepage, you can search for a domain, check out their hosting plans, and get more info on the company:

The Strato cpanel seems to be provided by their partner Plesk and looks intuitive enough:

Strato made all its navigation buttons as compact as possible which even though I think was for a good cause, just made it very hard to find all the info you’ll need.

The text is in smaller print and it’s easy to miss different features if you don’t look twice. Overall, the color theme and navigation are not the best, and other host’s provide much easier-to-use UIs.

Ionos Ease of use

On the other hand, Ionos provides a much more user-friendly interface and the right color combinations and design to make the important things you need to know stand out.

Navigation is super easy and their different features are easy to see. You can also expand the compressed features to see more detail on each plan tier.

The Ionos cPanel too is quite different from the traditional cPanel and is also intuitively designed:

From the main page, you can choose the product you want to use and start managing right away.

And the Winner Is… Ionos

In terms of ease-of-use and user interface, Ionos is the clear winner. Strato’s UI doesn’t look that great and they don’t clearly state the features they offer. Ionos makes it much easier and looks far better overall.

Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?

Strato Security

Strato doesn’t say exactly whether they offer free SSLs on their plans but apart from the basic plan, you get SSH access, MySQL backups, and a phishing filter out-of-the-box. You also get daily backups, and the Strato SiteGuard and an in-built antivirus scan your website for malware.

Strato is also SiteLock compatible and you can also install ModSecurity, a free WAF plugin for extra forte. Strato is said to be CloudFlare compatible but many users have reported that their websites broke when they tried to point to their servers.

Ionos Security

Ionos clearly states that they provide a free SSL, DDoS protection, and are CloudFlare compatible. You also get daily backups, automatic malware scans, and a paid SiteLock security option.

Ionos doesn’t come with a WAF but you can also install ModSecurity for free.

And the Winner Is… Ionos

Strato’s security features are blurry since they don’t clearly state them. Ionos is the winner here since it’s also easier to point to CloudFlare.

Round 7: Server locations

The server footprint of your host directly affects the speed of your website. The more distributed your host’s servers are, the better your website will perform to a worldwide audience.

Strato Server location

Strato has servers in Germany – in the cities of Berlin and Karlsruhe. The company keeps most of its server locations a secret as a security measure.

Ionos Server location

Ionos has servers located in the U.S.A – Las Vegas and Newark, and Europe – Frankfurt, London, Berlin, Logroño. Ionos also provides easy CloudFlare integration to expand your website’s footprint to several other continents:

And the Winner Is… Ionos

Ionos has a wider server footprint and more servers than Strato meaning your website is more likely to load faster on the former than the latter under ideal conditions.

Strato vs Ionos: final recommendations

When to Choose Strato?

Strato is overall a decent hosting provider that’s surprisingly quick for its smaller server footprint and straightforward to use. Go for Strato if:

• Most of your audience is based in Europe
• A straightforward dashboard
• You don’t want to have to choose between tiered plans
• You want the most storage for dedicated hosting

Go for Ionos if you:

Ionos wins this matchup for good reason. Choose Ionos if you:

• Want the best support
• Are an agency or freelancer
• You target a worldwide audience
• Want very flexible VPS plans optimized for storage and CPU
• Want an easy-to-use interface
• More security features out-of-the-box
• A free domain and SSL on every plan

The Bottom Line

In the seven-round Strato vs Ionos matchup, Ionos came out on top, but Strato was a strong Ionos competitor. Both hosts feature free domains on all plans and are easy to migrate existing websites to for free.

Ionos, however, also offers a free SSL on all plans, is far more intuitive to use, and provides very versatile hosting plans plus niche packages for different businesses. Both hosts were born in Germany and hold a special rivalry – one of Strato’s founders was a top executive at Ionos.

If you are a large corporation or business and most of your target audience is based in Europe, Strato is the host for you. However, if you’re targeting a more worldwide audience and need more flexibility, Ionos is the host you should go for.

FAQs

1. Is 1 & 1 now Ionos?

Ionos was formerly known as 1 & 1 when it was founded in 1988. After expanding its operations from Germany to the U.S., 1 & 1 became 1 & 1 Ionos in 2018. And then finally Ionos in 2020.

2. Is Ionos better than Strato?

Ionos is a better host and a solid Strato competitor because the company provides better support, a wider server footprint, an easier-to-use user interface, and cheaper hosting services.

3. Can I transfer my website to Ionos or Strato?

Yes, you can. You’ll have to sign up and become a customer on Ionos first though. After that, you’ll need to prepare your domain transfer and then use the auth code to initiate the transfer. The great thing about Ionos is the company retains your domain subscription period from your former host.

4. What are some great Strato and Ionos alternatives?

Some good Strato alternatives and Ionos alternatives are GoDaddy, Bluehost, Namecheap, Hostinger, and Hostgator.