Liquid Web vs IONOS
Liquid Web and IONOS compared on measured uptime, response time, pricing and features from our own tests. Liquid Web scores higher overall.
By Jennifer T. · Updated
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Verdict
7.7 out of 10
Liquid WebWins overall
Lansing's managed host since 1997: WordPress plans from $9 with Cloudflare edge CDN and a 100% network SLA, no refunds
7.1 out of 10
The former 1&1: unlimited sites and traffic from $8 a month at renewal, with a free domain and wildcard SSL
Liquid Web wins 5 of the six sub-scores and comes out ahead overall (7.7 vs 7.1).
How do the scores compare?
Liquid Web leads on 5 sub-scores, IONOS on 1. Higher is better.
| Liquid Web | IONOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 7.5 (better) | 6.5 |
| Uptime | 8.0 (better) | 7.5 |
| Support | 8.0 (better) | 6.5 |
| Features | 8.5 (better) | 7.5 |
| Value | 7.0 | 7.5 (better) |
| Ease of use | 7.5 (better) | 7.0 |
Which one is faster and more reliable?
| Liquid Web | IONOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 7.7 (better) | 7.1 |
| Uptime (published)HostingStep 365 d vs Cybernews 14 d; methods differ | 99.99% | 100.00% (better) |
| Response time (published)HostingStep vs Cybernews; methods differ | 496 ms (better) | 1749 ms |
Which one costs less?
On renewal, Liquid Web is cheaper ($9.00/mo vs $14.00/mo). Intro prices need the listed term.
| Liquid Web | IONOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | Essentials WordPress | Plus |
| Intro price | $9.00/mo | $1.00/mo (better) |
| Renewal price | $9.00/mo (better) | $14.00/mo |
| Required term | 1 months (better) | 12 months |
| Websites | 1 | unlimited |
| Storage | 15 GB | 350 GB |
| Money back | 0 days | 30 days (better) |
What does each include?
| Liquid Web | IONOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Free domain | No | One domain free for the first year on every plan: .us, .ca, .com, .net, .org, .info, .me, .biz or .online |
| Free SSL | Free SSL certificates on the WordPress plans | One DV wildcard certificate on Essential, Starter and Plus; unlimited wildcard certificates on Ultimate |
| Backups | Daily backups kept 7, 14 or 30 days by tier; Acronis backup storage on managed VPS | Daily backup of storage and databases with data recovery, every plan |
| Free migration | A self-serve migration tool and migration by a person on every WordPress plan | No |
| Free CDN | Edge CDN powered by Cloudflare on every WordPress plan; CDN overage is usage-billed | Starter, Plus and Ultimate; not on Essential |
| Caching | Object Cache Pro on every WordPress plan | Server compression and HTTP/2 listed; no caching layer named on the plan page |
| Staging | Staging sites with visual comparison on Pro and Elite; not on Essentials | No |
| Security | DDoS protection, WAF, Kadence Security Pro and daily malware scans on every plan; Patchstack virtual patching on Elite | Daily malware scanning (basic, or advanced with automatic removal on Ultimate), DDoS protection, geo-redundancy |
| Resource limits | WordPress plans are sized by visitors (50,000 a month on the entry tiers), shared storage and bandwidth; managed VPS plans state vCPU, RAM, SSD and bandwidth | CPU priority 1x, 3x, 5x and 10x by plan; 262,144 inodes on every plan; cron jobs 10, 25, 50 and 100 |
| Data center choice | Lansing, Phoenix, Ashburn and Amsterdam, selected on the purchase screen where a plan offers it | No |
| Uptime guarantee | 100% network uptime in the SLA with credits up to the monthly charge, claimed within days of an outage; the managed VPS page states 99.9% server uptime | 99.99% in the general terms, with a credit for the month proportional to the downtime, on request and at IONOS's discretion |
| Managed VPS | Fully managed from $72 a month for 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD and 3 TB; cPanel, InterWorx or Plesk; Windows available | Not stated |
| Phone support | 24/7 by phone, chat and ticket | 24/7, with a personal consultant |
| Windows hosting | On VPS and dedicated servers | No |
| SSH, SFTP, WP-CLI and Git | Not stated | Every plan, with 200 SFTP accounts, Perl and Python |
| PHP versions | Not stated | 8.4, 8.3 and 8.2, with paid extended support for 5.6 and later |
| Websites and traffic | Not stated | Unlimited websites and unlimited traffic on every plan; 5,000 subdomains |
| Not stated | 1, 2, 4 or 5 accounts of 2 GB by plan, with forwarding, webmail and anti-spam |
Company facts
| Liquid Web | IONOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Control panel | Liquid Web's own platform for WordPress plans; cPanel, InterWorx or Plesk on VPS | IONOS's own control panel (no cPanel) |
| Data centers | 4 (better) | 2 |
| Support channels | chat, phone, ticket, knowledge-base | chat, phone, email, knowledge-base |
| Founded | 1997 | 2018 |