--- title: "Liquid Web vs IONOS: which is better in 2026?" url: "https://hostidea.com/compare/ionos-vs-liquidweb" canonical: "https://hostidea.com/compare/ionos-vs-liquidweb" author: "Jennifer T." generated: "2026-10-15" note: "Markdown twin generated at build time from the same content as the HTML page. The HTML page is canonical." --- # 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.](https://hostidea.com/authors/jennifer-t) ยท Updated Oct 14, 2026 We may earn a commission when you buy through our links. Rankings come from the published methodology and sourced data, not from commissions. [Disclosure](https://hostidea.com/disclosure). ## Verdict [7.7 out of 10](https://hostidea.com/methodology#scoring) [Liquid Web](https://hostidea.com/reviews/liquidweb)Wins 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](https://hostidea.com/methodology#scoring) [IONOS](https://hostidea.com/reviews/ionos) 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](https://hostidea.com/reviews/liquidweb) | [IONOS](https://hostidea.com/reviews/ionos) | | --- | --- | --- | | Performance | 7.5 | 6.5 | | Uptime | 8.0 | 7.5 | | Support | 8.0 | 6.5 | | Features | 8.5 | 7.5 | | Value | 7.0 | 7.5 | | Ease of use | 7.5 | 7.0 | ## Which one is faster and more reliable? | | [Liquid Web](https://hostidea.com/reviews/liquidweb) | [IONOS](https://hostidea.com/reviews/ionos) | | --- | --- | --- | | Overall score | 7.7 | 7.1 | | Uptime (published)HostingStep 365 d vs Cybernews 14 d; methods differ | 99.99% | 100.00% | | Response time (published)HostingStep vs Cybernews; methods differ | 496 ms | 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. Prices verified Oct 14, 2026 (Liquid Web) and Oct 14, 2026 (IONOS). USD. | | [Liquid Web](https://hostidea.com/reviews/liquidweb) | [IONOS](https://hostidea.com/reviews/ionos) | | --- | --- | --- | | Cheapest plan | Essentials WordPress | Plus | | Intro price | $9.00/mo | $1.00/mo | | Renewal price | $9.00/mo | $14.00/mo | | Required term | 1 months | 12 months | | Websites | 1 | unlimited | | Storage | 15 GB | 350 GB | | Money back | 0 days | 30 days | ## What does each include? | | [Liquid Web](https://hostidea.com/reviews/liquidweb) | [IONOS](https://hostidea.com/reviews/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 | | Email | Not stated | 1, 2, 4 or 5 accounts of 2 GB by plan, with forwarding, webmail and anti-spam | ## Company facts | | [Liquid Web](https://hostidea.com/reviews/liquidweb) | [IONOS](https://hostidea.com/reviews/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 | 2 | | Support channels | chat, phone, ticket, knowledge-base | chat, phone, email, knowledge-base | | Founded | 1997 | 2018 | Visit Liquid Web (affiliate link: /go/liquidweb)Visit IONOS (affiliate link: /go/ionos)