IONOS vs Site.eu: Which Is Better?

IONOS is one of Europe's largest digital infrastructure and web hosting providers, offering domains, web hosting, VPS, dedicated servers, cloud infrastructure, email, website solutions, cybersecurity services, and business applications.

The company has more than 30 years of experience in the hosting and cloud infrastructure industry and serves millions of customers across multiple countries. IONOS combines traditional web hosting services with enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure through its IONOS Cloud platform, making it suitable for individuals, developers, startups, small businesses, and large enterprises.

Company Overview

IONOS has its roots in Germany and is part of United Internet AG, one of Europe's major internet services groups. The company traces its history back more than 30 years and has developed from a traditional web hosting provider into a broad digital infrastructure company.

Today, IONOS offers services ranging from domain registration and shared hosting to virtual private servers, dedicated servers, public cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, object storage, GPU computing, and AI-related services.

The company's infrastructure is designed to support customers from the initial creation of a website or domain through to sophisticated cloud and enterprise deployments.

IONOS emphasizes three major principles across its infrastructure business: reliability, security, and scalable technology. Its data centers include ISO 27001-certified facilities, while its support organization provides 24/7/365 assistance.

IONOS Product Portfolio

IONOS operates across several major areas of the digital infrastructure market.

Its portfolio includes:

Domain registration
Web hosting
WordPress hosting
WooCommerce hosting
Website builders
Email and business communication
VPS hosting
Cloud VPS
Dedicated servers
Bare metal servers
GPU servers
Public cloud
Compute Engine
Object Storage
Block Storage
Network File Storage
Managed Kubernetes
Backup and disaster recovery
Load balancing
Cloud Firewall
DDoS protection
AI services
AI Model Hub
Cloud desktops
Managed infrastructure

This broad portfolio allows customers to start with a simple website and gradually move toward dedicated or cloud infrastructure as their requirements increase.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting is one of IONOS's most popular infrastructure products.

IONOS provides fully virtualized private servers running on Linux or Windows, with full root access, SSD/NVMe storage, configurable resources, and unlimited traffic on its current VPS offerings.

Customers can choose from different CPU, RAM, and storage configurations and deploy servers in supported data center locations.

Current VPS infrastructure supports:

Linux
Windows Server
Full root access
KVM console
SSD/NVMe storage
Unlimited traffic
Up to 1 Gbps external connectivity
Cloud Panel
Firewall management
DDoS protection
IPS/IDS
Optional backups
Private networking
Load balancing
VM cloning

IONOS currently advertises 99.99% availability for its VPS+ platform.

Linux and Windows VPS

IONOS supports both major server operating-system environments.

Linux customers can deploy distributions including:

AlmaLinux
Debian
Rocky Linux
Ubuntu

Windows customers can deploy supported versions of Windows Server, including Windows Server 2022 and Windows Server 2025 on current VPS offerings.

This makes IONOS suitable for both open-source applications and Microsoft-based business environments.

Dedicated Servers

IONOS provides dedicated servers for customers who require physical hardware rather than virtualized infrastructure.

Dedicated servers provide customers with 100% of the physical server's resources, including CPU, RAM, storage, and network capacity.

IONOS offers both Intel- and AMD-based dedicated servers as well as storage-oriented configurations and specialized GPU servers.

The company currently reports more than 38,000 dedicated and bare-metal servers, with server availability above 99.995% on its dedicated infrastructure platform.

Dedicated servers are particularly suitable for:

High-traffic websites
Databases
E-commerce
SaaS platforms
Game servers
Virtualization
AI workloads
High-performance applications
Enterprise applications
Infrastructure requiring physical resource isolation

IONOS Cloud

IONOS Cloud is the company's enterprise-oriented cloud infrastructure platform.

It provides Infrastructure-as-a-Service and cloud-native services for businesses that require scalable computing, storage, networking, security, and orchestration.

The IONOS Cloud portfolio includes:

Compute Engine
Public Cloud
Bare Metal Cloud
Object Storage
Block Storage
Network File Storage
Managed Kubernetes
Load Balancing
Cloud Firewalls
IAM
Backup and Recovery
GPU infrastructure

IONOS Cloud currently reports more than 250,000 customers and positions its infrastructure as an alternative to large U.S. hyperscalers.

Cloud Compute

IONOS Cloud Compute Engine provides virtual machines that can be deployed and scaled according to application requirements.

The platform supports full root access and scalable compute resources, allowing organizations to build applications without purchasing physical hardware.

IONOS uses Intel Xeon processors and SSD SAN storage for its cloud server infrastructure, with virtualized instances designed for reliability and scalability.

Cloud computing customers can combine compute resources with storage, private networking, firewalls, load balancing, and other infrastructure services.

Bare Metal Cloud

For customers requiring physical infrastructure combined with cloud-style flexibility, IONOS offers Bare Metal Cloud.

The service provides 100% dedicated hardware while retaining the ability to manage and configure infrastructure through cloud interfaces and APIs.

Customers can obtain dedicated CPU, RAM, and storage resources without sharing the physical hardware with other users.

Bare Metal Cloud is designed for:

High-performance computing
Large databases
Enterprise applications
High-traffic websites
Security-sensitive workloads
Private cloud environments
AI and machine learning
Hybrid cloud architectures

GPU and AI Infrastructure

IONOS has significantly expanded its GPU and AI infrastructure.

The company provides dedicated GPU servers designed for artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, high-performance computing, and other GPU-intensive workloads.

IONOS also offers AI-related services such as an AI Model Hub, allowing customers to work with selected large language models and image-generation models.

Its current infrastructure portfolio includes GPU servers designed for AI training, inference, and other high-performance workloads.

IONOS has also introduced specialized hosting solutions for modern AI and automation tools, including n8n, OpenClaw, and AI-agent workloads.

Data Center Network

IONOS operates a large network of data centers across Europe and North America.

Its infrastructure includes locations in Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and the United States. IONOS Cloud currently lists data centers including:

Frankfurt
Berlin
London
Paris
Logroño
Worcester
Las Vegas
Newark
Lenexa

The company also provides additional server infrastructure across multiple European and U.S. locations.

This geographic distribution allows customers to deploy applications closer to their users and build geographically redundant infrastructure.

European Infrastructure and Data Sovereignty

One of IONOS's major competitive advantages is its European infrastructure and strong focus on data sovereignty.

The company operates significant infrastructure in Germany and other European countries and positions IONOS Cloud as a provider for organizations that require greater control over where their data is stored and processed.

This can be particularly important for:

European businesses
Government organizations
Financial services
Healthcare
Enterprise applications
Organizations with strict data residency requirements

IONOS's European infrastructure is also attractive to companies looking for alternatives to U.S.-based hyperscale cloud providers.

Data Center Security

Security is a major component of IONOS infrastructure.

The company states that its data centers are ISO 27001 certified, providing a recognized information-security management framework.

Depending on the facility and service, IONOS data centers also use:

Physical access controls
24/7 security monitoring
Video surveillance
Biometric authentication
Redundant power
UPS systems
Emergency generators
Redundant network connectivity
Fire protection systems

IONOS's Frankfurt data center infrastructure, for example, includes ISO 9001, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, and other relevant certifications through its data center environment.

Network Infrastructure

IONOS operates a large network infrastructure designed around redundant connectivity and high availability.

Its cloud infrastructure uses multiple network providers and redundant networking components to reduce the impact of individual network failures.

IONOS also provides private networking, load balancing, firewall policies, DDoS protection, and other network services that allow customers to create more complex application architectures.

Security and DDoS Protection

IONOS provides multiple security layers across its server and cloud products.

Current VPS offerings include:

DDoS protection
Firewall management
IPS/IDS
SSL certificates
Encrypted remote access
KVM console
Optional cloud backups

The company's cloud infrastructure also includes IAM, access policies, firewalls, and other security controls for enterprise deployments.

Customers can therefore combine IONOS's infrastructure security with their own operating-system and application-level security controls.

Backup and Storage

IONOS provides several storage and backup options.

These include:

Cloud Backup
Block Storage
Object Storage
Network File Storage
SSD/NVMe storage
Dedicated storage servers

IONOS Cloud Object Storage provides scalable S3-compatible object storage for large volumes of business data, while Block Storage and NFS can be used for applications requiring persistent storage.

Managed Kubernetes

IONOS Cloud provides managed Kubernetes for organizations running containerized applications.

Managed Kubernetes allows customers to deploy and scale container workloads without managing all of the underlying Kubernetes control-plane infrastructure themselves.

It can be used for:

Microservices
SaaS applications
DevOps
CI/CD
Containerized applications
Cloud-native platforms
Scalable web applications

Managed Kubernetes is part of the broader IONOS Cloud ecosystem and can be combined with compute, networking, storage, and security services.

Domains and Web Hosting

In addition to infrastructure hosting, IONOS is a major domain registrar and traditional web hosting provider.

Its domain portfolio includes:

.com
.org
.net
Country-code TLDs
New generic TLDs
Industry-specific domains

IONOS also offers:

Shared hosting
WordPress hosting
WooCommerce hosting
Website builder
Email hosting
SSL certificates
Domain transfers
Domain security

This makes IONOS different from infrastructure-focused providers such as Contabo or Database Mart: customers can manage their domain, website, email, VPS, dedicated server, and cloud infrastructure through one provider.

Support

IONOS provides 24/7/365 support through phone, email, and chat.

The company also provides customers with access to knowledge databases, tutorials, documentation, and technical guides.

A notable feature of IONOS's business-oriented service model is its personal consultant program, where eligible customers can receive a dedicated personal contact for assistance.

This combination of automated resources and human support is intended to make the platform accessible to both technical and less-technical customers.

Scalability

IONOS is designed to support customers as their infrastructure requirements grow.

A small business can begin with:

Domain registration
Email
Shared hosting
WordPress

and later move to:

VPS
Dedicated servers
Cloud infrastructure
Managed Kubernetes
Bare Metal
GPU infrastructure

This creates a relatively complete infrastructure ecosystem under a single provider.

Who Is IONOS Best For?

IONOS is suitable for a broad range of customers, including:

Individuals
Freelancers
Developers
Startups
SMBs
Agencies
SaaS companies
E-commerce businesses
Enterprises
IT departments
Developers and DevOps teams
AI companies
Organizations requiring European infrastructure

Typical workloads include:

Websites
WordPress
WooCommerce
SaaS applications
APIs
Databases
E-commerce
Business applications
Virtualization
Kubernetes
AI and machine learning
GPU computing
Backup infrastructure
Enterprise cloud applications

IONOS's Main Competitive Advantages

IONOS's main competitive advantage is the breadth of its infrastructure ecosystem.

Unlike providers focused almost exclusively on VPS or dedicated servers, IONOS combines domain registration, web hosting, business email, VPS, dedicated servers, cloud infrastructure, bare metal, Kubernetes, storage, security, and AI services.

Key advantages include:

More than 30 years of industry experience
Large European infrastructure footprint
U.S. data center presence
ISO 27001-certified data centers
VPS and dedicated servers
IONOS Cloud
Bare Metal Cloud
GPU servers
Managed Kubernetes
Object Storage
Block Storage
DDoS protection
Firewall and IPS/IDS
Full root access
Linux and Windows support
24/7/365 support
Personal consultant option
Domain registration
Web hosting
Business email
AI and cloud services

Overall

IONOS has evolved from a German web hosting company into a large-scale digital infrastructure provider offering services across the entire hosting and cloud spectrum.

Its portfolio ranges from inexpensive domains and shared hosting to VPS, dedicated servers, bare metal infrastructure, public cloud, managed Kubernetes, object storage, GPU servers, and AI infrastructure.

One of IONOS's strongest differentiators is its combination of European infrastructure, enterprise security, broad product coverage, and competitive pricing. The company is particularly attractive to organizations that want to consolidate domains, hosting, servers, cloud infrastructure, and business services under one provider.

For developers and businesses, IONOS provides a path from a simple website to sophisticated cloud infrastructure without requiring a complete migration to another provider as the business grows.

Overall, IONOS is best positioned as a full-service digital infrastructure and cloud provider, rather than simply a traditional hosting company. Its combination of web hosting, domains, VPS, dedicated servers, IONOS Cloud, bare metal, GPU infrastructure, and enterprise cloud services makes it one of the more comprehensive hosting ecosystems available in the European and international markets.

Site.eu is a Dutch domain registrar and web hosting company. It sells domain names in more than 1,200 extensions and, as an optional add-on to a domain, "all-in-one" plans that bundle web hosting, business email and SSL — or, in separate plans, a website and online store builder. The service is run by Site B.V. from Almere in the Netherlands, and the company says its hosting servers are located only in the European Union.

Its pitch is the one in its own tagline — "where high quality and low prices meet": very low first-year prices, one dashboard for domains, DNS, hosting, email and the website builder, and prices quoted in euros excluding VAT.

Company Background

Site.eu started in 2020, and in February 2026 it announced that it had reached 10,000 customers. It describes itself as an independent, bootstrapped European company, and says its founders have more than 20 years of combined experience in the hosting and domain name industry.

The company behind the brand is Site B.V. (Dutch Chamber of Commerce no. 53309847, VAT NL850832974B01), headquartered at Operetteweg 7 in Almere. It also runs localized storefronts at site.nl, site.de, site.fr and site.es.

In January 2026 the team launched Wobbio, a separate AI-native website builder that it says is 100% built in-house and built and hosted in Europe.

Domain Registration

Domains are Site.eu's core product: its public price list covers more than 1,200 extensions, from European country codes to hundreds of new generic ones. First-year prices are low and renewals higher, for example:

Extension	First year	Renewal / year
.eu	€4.49	€6.19
.com	€8.69	€13.09
.nl	€3.79	€5.19
.de	€2.09	€2.79
.fr	€4.99	€6.79
.be	€5.39	€7.29

A transfer usually costs the same as a first-year registration. Every later year — including the extra years of a multi-year registration, or of extensions with a two- or three-year minimum term such as .gr (so a new .gr costs €45.38 for the first two years) — is billed at the renewal price, and most extensions get 2–8% off for registering two to five years at once. Renewals typically run about 30–50% above the first-year price, and some much more: .pl is €3.59 for the first year and €17.49 a year after that. Customers with more than 100 domains get automatic volume discounts on renewals. Letting a domain lapse is expensive: restoring an expired .com costs €111.29.

Every domain comes with DNS management (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, CAA, SRV, NAPTR, SSHFP and TLSA records), BIND zone import and export, DNS templates, 301, 302 and iframe redirects, and a domain lock where the registry supports it. Site.eu enables DNSSEC automatically wherever the extension supports it, or you can store your own keys, and its four nameservers sit in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States and Singapore. Changing a domain's holder is free for most extensions (.be, for example, charges €12.39). For extensions that support it, privacy protection can be switched on at checkout, registering the domain under a different entity's name; the price list carries no separate fee for it.

Site B.V. is not an ICANN-accredited registrar itself: it does not appear in the IANA registrar list, and its terms describe its role as mediating in domain registration. The RDAP record of its own wobbio.com names Realtime Register B.V. (IANA ID 839), a Dutch wholesale registrar, as the registrar.

Web Hosting (All-in-One Plans)

Site.eu's hosting is shared hosting sold as an all-in-one plan on top of a domain: one plan covers web hosting, email and SSL for up to 25–200 domains.

Plan	CPU	RAM	NVMe	Bandwidth	Email addresses	Domains	First year	Renewal*
Basic	1	1 GB	10 GB	100 GB/mo	10	25	€0.50/mo	€2.99/mo
Starter	2	2 GB	25 GB	200 GB/mo	25	25	€1.49/mo	€4.99/mo
Plus	4	3 GB	50 GB	Unlimited	50	50	€2.99/mo	€7.99/mo
Power	6	4 GB	100 GB	Unlimited	100	75	€3.99/mo	€10.99/mo
Ultra	8	6 GB	200 GB	Unlimited	999	100	€6.99/mo	€13.99/mo
Elite	10	8 GB	400 GB	Unlimited	999	200	€10.99/mo	€22.99/mo

*Monthly equivalents of a one-year term, billed annually, excluding VAT. Renewal prices are those that apply from 1 December 2026 (see below).

All plans run on the DirectAdmin control panel and LiteSpeed Web Server; Plus and larger plans add Redis Object Cache. They include SSH, SFTP, FTPS and FTP access, Git over SSH, MySQL databases, one-click installs of more than 300 scripts (WordPress, Joomla and others) through Softaculous, all PHP versions, a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate for every hosted site and daily backups kept for three months. Customers choose their hosting server when they activate hosting — for example a CloudLinux server with version selectors for Python and Node.js apps — and Site.eu's support moves an existing website for free (its terms allow a charge if a move takes more than an hour). Plans can be upgraded at any time for the rest of the term, without downtime, and Site.eu says Plesk will be offered alongside DirectAdmin.

Plans are prepaid for one, three or five years; a three-year term is 10% cheaper and a five-year term 20% cheaper over the whole period.

Hosting Infrastructure

In July 2025 Site.eu moved its web hosting and email to a new platform. According to the company, the new servers have CPUs up to ten times faster than the old ones, more cores and RAM and 100% enterprise-grade NVMe storage; every hosting server runs on two physical machines that sync in real time, so one can take over if the other fails; and the new data center has staff on site around the clock. Site.eu does not name the data center — it says only that its hosting servers are in the European Union.

The December 2026 Price Change

Site.eu is raising web hosting renewal prices for renewals on or after 1 December 2026: Basic and Starter go up by €2 a month and the other plans by €3 a month, excluding VAT. First-year prices, website builder plans and all domain prices stay the same. The company says the increase reflects the cost of the servers it upgraded in summer 2025, and customers can keep the old rate for their next term by renewing before 1 December 2026.

Because a plan bought today renews after that date, the renewal prices listed on DohoHub are the new ones — Basic renews at €2.99 a month after €0.50 in its first year.

Website Builder

For customers who would rather not manage hosting, Site.eu sells four website builder plans with unlimited pages, an online store with unlimited products and online payments, blog features, SEO tools, SSL and email. Since November 2025 the builder can generate a first design with AI.

Plan	Websites	Email for	Storage	Email addresses	First year	Renewal
Mono	1	2 domains	10 GB	10	€4.99/mo	€9.99/mo
Tri	3	50 domains	50 GB	50	€14.97/mo	€24.99/mo
Penta	5	100 domains	100 GB	999	€24.99/mo	€39.99/mo
Deca	10	200 domains	200 GB	999	€49.90/mo	€74.99/mo

Website builder prices are not affected by the December 2026 change.

Email and SSL

Email is part of every plan: IMAP, POP3 and SMTP, webmail, spam filtering, forwarders and catch-all addresses. To protect its shared sending IPs, Site.eu limits outgoing mail to 50 messages per domain per 24 hours by default; it raises the limit on request, but not on the Basic plan. SSL certificates come from Let's Encrypt and are included for every hosted website; an Extended Validation certificate is available for an extra fee.

Support

Site.eu says its helpdesk is available 24/7. Customers can email support, with a guaranteed reply within 24 hours; chat through WhatsApp or Telegram, where replies take from a few minutes to several hours at peak times; or use a customer forum. Larger plans get fast or priority support. Site Assistant, an AI assistant in the website and dashboard, can answer questions, check settings and, with the customer's permission, make changes. A customer API (backend.site.eu/v2) covers DNS, domains, contacts and email.

Guarantees and Terms

• Money-back: 30 days on new plan purchases. It does not cover domains, renewals or upgrades, and refunds go to the customer's online wallet, which is paid out on request.
• Uptime: 99.95% per month for hosting, email, DNS and the website builder; if Site.eu misses it, one month's fee is credited to the online wallet.
• Prices: in euros, excluding VAT, which is added at checkout. The terms require at least two months' notice of a price increase.
• Fair use: hosting resources are subject to a fair use policy.

Payment

Site.eu accepts credit cards (Mastercard, American Express and Maestro among them), PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, iDEAL, Bancontact, KBC/CBC, Belfius, Sofort, Pay by Bank, direct debit, bank transfer and its own online wallet. Bank transfers are processed within three days.

Affiliate Program

The affiliate program pays either €20 per referred customer or a recurring 25% commission on hosting, email, SSL and website builder purchases; domain names are excluded.

Summary

Site.eu is a young, independent Dutch registrar and web host that competes on price: more than 1,200 domain extensions, and all-in-one plans with DirectAdmin, LiteSpeed, NVMe storage, email and SSL from €0.50 a month in the first year. The trade-offs are the usual ones for budget hosting — renewals cost several times the first year and rise on 1 December 2026, plans are prepaid by the year, prices exclude VAT, and the company does not say where its data center is beyond "in the EU".

• Company: Site B.V., Almere, Netherlands
• Launched: 2020
• Focus: domains, shared hosting, email, SSL and a website builder
• Domain extensions: 1,200+ (not ICANN-accredited; registrations through Realtime Register)
• Control panel: DirectAdmin
• Web server: LiteSpeed (Redis Object Cache from Plus)
• Hosting location: European Union (data center not named)
• Uptime guarantee: 99.95% per month
• Money-back: 30 days on new plans
• Website: site.eu