Contabo is a budget-friendly German hosting company that specializes in Cloud, VPS, and Dedicated hosting. Their cloud hosting solutions are great, but depending on your needs, they might not be the best for you. If you’re on the lookout for other good and reliable Contabo alternatives then this article is for you.
I reviewed 5 awesome Contabo alternatives and TMDHosting came out the overall winner. However, one of the other four hosts might be a better choice for you depending on your needs, so read on to decide for yourself.
Here Are the Top 5 Contabo Alternatives Hosting Providers
Why Look for Contabo Alternatives?
Though not as popular as Bluehost and co, Contabo is a very good hosting provider known for providing “German quality” cloud, VPS, and dedicated hosting to SME enterprises. However, the hosting providers we’ll be reviewing in the rest of this article outperform Contabo in several areas.
For example, Contabo performs relatively poorly than its peers in terms of support; they do not support live chat and a lot of reviews say that it takes quite a long time to get a response from them.
Contabo is also not the most affordable host, especially when compared to Ionos which offers web hosting at a starting price of just $1 per month. We want to give you as many excellent options as possible so you can make the perfect decision in the end.
What to look for in the Contabo alternatives?
When you’re looking to choose a Contabo alternative, there are certain criteria and features to look out for. They are:
| Free Domain: Having a free domain included as part of your hosting packages makes it easy for you to set up your site, so make sure your hosting provider includes it. Also, your host should have a domain registration portal so you don’t have to consult a third-party registrar. |
| SSL Certification: A website must have the HTTPS protocol to even be ranked by most search engines, e.g. Google. Therefore it’s very important to choose a hosting provider that includes a free SSL certificate on all hosting plans (including the lowest tier plans). |
| Security: If your website isn’t secure, then no one would trust it. You must ensure that your hosting provider includes the essential security features on all hosting plans E.g: DDoS protection, malware scanning, WAFs, and security plugins. |
| Speed: Does your host use fast, responsive servers? Keep in mind that responsive servers mean higher SEO rankings, less bounce rate, more conversions, and eventually more revenue for you. |
| Ease of Use/Quality of the cPanel: When choosing a host, you need to find out if they offer intuitive dashboards, customized or modern cPanels, and a well-organized UI. These elements make it super easy to manage your website’s backend. |
| Ease of Transferring From Another Host: Does the host provide a smooth process for migrating your site hosted on another provider to the new hosting provider? Ideally, it should be free and done for you. |
| Pre-Installed WordPress: WordPress is still the most widely-used CMS in the world. Therefore, your host should not only have WordPress-specific plans but also make it possible to install WordPress with 1 click. |
| Customer Service: There are going to be times when you need answers and help with your hosting, and your host should always be available to answer them. A great host should have many support portals, including live chat, knowledgebase, phone, email, ticket, video guides, and a community. Also, their support agents should be polite and knowledgeable. |
The Best Contabo Alternative Services of 2023 (Bought and Tested):
We recommend TMDHosting ahead of the other Contabo alternatives for good reason. TMDHosting is a very popular hosting choice for small, medium, and large enterprises thanks to its excellent hosting packages and services.
TMDHosting offers a wide variety of hosting categories, including web hosting, cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and reseller hosting, as well as open-source hosting options such as Joomla, Drupal, and WooCommerce.
Their plans are also well-priced, meaning you get the best value for your money. They provide 24/7/365 dedicated support with various channels including live chat. You get a free domain and SSL certificates on every plan as well as their free website builder. In all, the platform is excellent for your hosting needs.
Ratings:
- Overall score – 4.9
- Features – 5.0
- Support – 5.0
- User Friendliness – 5.0
- Pricing – 4.5
- Reliability – 5.0
Why is it better than Contabo?
TMDHosting is a better host than Contabo because:
- TMDHosting has a wider server footprint than Contabo
- They offer a wider variety of hosting categories
- The host is faster and performs better
- Support team responds quicker
- They provide more security features overall
- TMDHosting’s custom cPanel is easier to navigate
When Don’t You Need to Move to TMDHosting?
We can’t think of any obvious reason not to use TMDHosting. Perhaps the only reason to choose Contabo over TMDHosting would be if your target audience is based in Germany. Otherwise, TMDHosting is a better choice.
TMDHosting’s Features and The ‘why’ Behind The Scores
Features: On all of TMDHosting’s plans, you get a free SSL certificate, free domain, 1-click installs, and SSD storage. They also provide you with their free drag-and-drop builder plus unmetered bandwidth on all web hosting plans.
Support: You can reach TMDHosting’s support team at any time via email, phone, live chat, and socials. They also provide a knowledgebase and a YouTube channel to help you find answers to your questions. I tested their live chat and their agents are superb!
User Friendliness: TMDHosting’s interface is quite user-friendly and their custom cPanel and account management dashboard are both designed to be very easy to understand and navigate.
Pricing: TMDHosting offers web, cloud, VPS, dedicated, reseller, and WordPress hosting. Web hosting starts at $2.95/month, cloud and WordPress hosting at $5.95/month, VPS at 19.97/month, and reseller at $29.95/month. All web hosting plans offer unlimited SSD space and unlimited bandwidth with 60-day money-back guarantee.
Reliability: Free SSL, unmetered bandwidth, DDoS protection plus a CDN for optimum website performance. TMDHosting also guarantees 99.99% website uptime in addition to other great security features.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- 24/7 support
- 20x faster SSD performance
- Intuitive UI and cPanel dashboard that’s easy to use
Cons
- Renewal prices are nearly double
TMDHosting is a fast, secure host for all kinds of sites, from brochure sites to WordPress sites to large eCommerce sites. You get all the features you’ll love in all plans. Check them out today!
Interserver was established in 1999, and it has since grown to become one of the most reliable and secure hosting platforms in the market, partly thanks to its Intershield security layer.
Interserver offers web hosting, cloud VPS hosting, and dedicated servers with all plans including ultra SSD storage, global content caching, and over 460 1-click install apps. You also get Sitepad website builder, free website migration, and Cloudflare.
Ratings:
- Overall score – 4.5
- Features – 4.7
- Support – 4.0
- User Friendliness – 4.5
- Pricing – 4.7
- Reliability – 5.0
Why is it better than Contabo?
Interserver is better than Contabo because:
- Interserver is more affordable
- Interserver has live chat support
- Interserver consistently shows higher server response time is higher than Contabo’s servers
When Don’t You Need to Move to Interserver?
Interserver is great but here’s when you may want to stick with Contabo or find another alternative:
- You want to serve a global audience (Contabo has more server locations)
- You want to manage your servers directly from the command line
Interserver’s Features and The ‘why’ Behind The Scores
Features: All Interserver’s hosting plans include free SSLs and domain, unlimited ULTRA SSD space, unlimited email accounts, free website builder and many other essential security features.
Support: Interserver’s professionals are always available 24/7 via live chat, email, telephone, contact form, knowledgebase, and tutorials. The live chat is available to everyone, not just customers.
User Friendliness: Interserver features a visually pleasing user interface and a customized cPanel that is easy for both newbies and hosting experts.
Pricing: Interserver’s web hosting starts at $2.50/month and their ASP.NET hosting goes to $8/month. Reseller hosting starts at $19.95/month and Windows VPS hosting goes for $8/month, which is relatively cheap. You also get essentials like SSD storage, SSL, and other security features.
Reliability: Ultra-fast web servers with a 99.95% uptime guarantee, weekly backups, caching, etc., so the host is very reliable.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Super affordable hosting packages
- Intuitive user interface and cPanel
- Top-notch security features
- Intershield protection
Cons
- Does not offer dedicated hosting
Want to join Interserver?
Interserver is a reliable hosting provider with customers globally. They offer everything you need to set up your website in minutes.
Ionos is not just the most affordable hosting provider in this Contabo alternative list but also one of the most budget-friendly hosts in the market.
They offer website hosting, eCommerce hosting, WordPress hosting, email hosting, and dedicated hosting to enterprises. All of their hosting plans include SSL certificates, free domain, data backups, DDoS protection and other awesome features.
Ionos cloud is tailored to scale during traffic spikes. They use high-end technology to achieve blazingly fast response times, even faster than renowned hosts like BlueHost.
Ratings:
- Overall score – 4.8
- Features – 4.8
- Support – 4.5
- User Friendliness – 4.8
- Pricing – 5.0
- Reliability – 5.0
Why is it better than Contabo?
- They offer free daily backups
- Superior speed and performance
- Their plans are much more affordable than that of Contabo
When Don’t You Need to Move to Ionos?
Though Ionos is great, stick with Contabo if you want to serve a global audience. This is because Contabo has more server locations than Ionos.
Ionos Features and The ‘why’ Behind The Scores
Features: Besides the cheapest web hosting plan, the other plans offer unlimited storage and website space. You also get a free domain for 1 year, SSL certificates, data and backup recovery, a professional email and many other awesome features.
Support: Ionos offers 24/7 support via email, telephone, live chat and an extensive knowledgebase. I tried using the live chat but the representatives were busy at the time.
User Friendliness: Ionos’ features an appealing and intuitive user interface. Their slightly customized cPanel is very powerful as you get a lot of options to customize your website.
Pricing: Ionos’ web hosting starts incredibly cheap at $1/month and the highest plan is just $8/month. VPS hosting starts at $2/month, WooCommerce starts at $8/month, and dedicated hosting starts at $45/month. Ionos gives you scalable hosting for very cheap prices.
Reliability: Scalable cloud servers, daily backups, caching, 99.90% uptime guarantee, etc. Ionos is very reliable.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Some of the cheapest prices on the market
- Highly scalable servers
- Wide variety of hosting categories
Cons
- Their customer support is limited
If you’re looking for a budget-friendly host then I highly recommend checking out Ionos. Get scalable hosting and a host of awesome security features at a bargain price.
Ultahost, founded in 2019 by ScriptSun, is a hosting provider that focuses on providing fast and affordable web hosting solutions for personal websites and medium-sized businesses.
They offer a wide variety of hosting services, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting and Virtual dedicated hosting.
Ultahost also offers unlimited bandwidth, SSL certificates, free domain transfer, free daily backups and a 30-day money back guarantee on all hosting plans.
Ratings:
- Overall score – 4.9
- Features – 5.0
- Support – 5.0
- User Friendliness – 4.7
- Pricing – 4.2
- Reliability – 4.6
Why is it better than Contabo?
- They offer daily backups
- Has faster support response time than Contabo
- Their hosting plans are much more affordable than that of Contabo
- They offer more features on each of their hosting plan
When Don’t You Need to Move to Ultahost?
Ultahost offers everything that Contabo offers plus more for less price. If you want more hosting features and better support, I recommend moving to Ultahost.
Ultahost Features and The ‘why’ Behind The Scores
Features: Ultahost offers unlimited bandwidth, free domains, SSD storage, SSL certificates, free daily backups and domain transfer in all shared hosting plans. They also offer a free 30-day money back guarantee and a host of security features to secure your website.
Support: You can reach Ultahost’s support team anytime via email, telephone or live chat session, and you can learn more about their products and services from their knowledgebase. I chatted with one of the support reps and the experience was great (see image below)
User Friendliness: Ultahost’s user interface is quite user-friendly. They offer a custom cPanel that is quite intuitive to operate and their account management dashboard is not bad at all.
Pricing: Ultahost’s shared hosting starts at $3.29/month, WordPress hosting starts at $2.90/month, VPS hosting starts at $5.50/month and dedicated hosting at $129.90/month. All of their hosting plans include SSD & NVMe storage, free SSL and domain, automatic security updates and a ton of other awesome features.
Reliability: Features such as free daily backups, SSL certificates, DDoS protection, site caching, 99.9% uptime guarantee makes Ultahost a very reliable host.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Proactive server monitoring
- Built-in security updates
- Wider variety of hosting categories which includes CRM, Ecommerce and Social Network hosting
Cons
- Renewal rates are a bit high
The best thing about Ultahost is its amazing server speeds, which is partly due to its NVMe SSD storage technology. If you want a quality and affordable host then consider Ultahost.
Liquid Web is a private cloud platform by VMWare offering scalable enterprise hosting solutions to medium-sized to large businesses.
They offer customizable dedicated servers, lightning-fast VPS hosting and server clusters. They also offer a team of experts who can help you figure out the hosting solution that best suits your project needs.
Liquid Web currently has over 45,000 customers in 150+ countries, with 10 data centers located around the world.
Ratings:
- Overall score – 4.5
- Features – 4.3
- Support – 4.3
- User Friendliness – 4.8
- Pricing – 4.9
- Reliability – 5.0
Why is it better than Contabo?
- They provide a group of professionals to help figure out the best plan for you
- Wider variety of hosting solutions
- Much more scalable hosting solutions
- Easier to set up and use
When Don’t You Need to Move to Liquid Web?
We cannot see any obvious advantage of using Contabo over Liquid Web. If you’re comfortable with something simple, then there’s no need to migrate from Contabo to Liquid Web.
Liquid Web Features and The ‘why’ Behind The Scores
Features: Their managed dedicated server plans offer terabytes of bandwidth, multiple cores of CPU, SSD storage and many other awesome features. On all plans you also get SSL certificates, DDoS protection and other security features as part of the SecureServerPlus package.
Support: Liquid Web offers support via email, telephone, live chat, their blog and their vast knowlegebase. The following image shows a chat I had with one of their live agents.
User Friendliness: Liquid Web’s features a clean and intuitive user interface. For site administration, you can install either Interworx, Plesk web pro or cPanel pro in your account. Overall, Liquid Web is quite user-friendly.
Pricing: Liquid Web’s dedicated server hosting starts at $145.29/month, Cloud dedicated server from $149/month and server clusters from $743/month. All cloud solutions include huge bandwidths, DDoS attack protection and ServerSecure Advanced Security.
Reliability: Liquid Web’s hosting solutions all include free daily backups, instant provisioning, SSL encryption, DDoS protection, anti-malware, up to 100% uptime and many other cloud features.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Wide range of support channels and resource materials
- ServerSecure Advanced security
- Guidance from a team of professionals to help you choose the best plan
Cons
- Their hosting plans are quite pricey
If you’re a medium-sized or large enterprise looking for a quality cloud host for your growing website then Liquid Web is a perfect solution for you.
Best Contabo Alternatives: Final recommendations
In this article, we took a close look at five Contabo alternatives to see how each of them compared to Contabo. The Contabo alternatives were TMDHosting, Ionos, Liquid Web, Ultahost and Interserver.
In the end, TMDHosting came out on top as the overall winner due to their awesome hosting features and affordable plans. TMDHosting is the most complete host in this list; they offer different types of hosting and include the essential features on all plans.