InMotion vs. 1&1 (2023)

Written by: PJ Fancher

Edited by: Lillian Guevara-Castro

Updated: October 8, 2022

PJ Fancher Hosting Expert

“We tested InMotion & 1&1 IONOS — The winner is InMotion!”

These catch-all web hosts deliver an impressive breadth of services, such as website builders, domains, and shared, VPS, dedicated server, and WordPress hosting. InMotion and 1&1 may be equally matched in terms of services offered but have key differences in price, disk space, and speed. Determining the best hosting provider isn’t as straightforward as it seems, but we’ve broken down each host’s features, services, and price points to determine which is the better bet for your website.

Overall Rating

4.9/5.0 ★★★★★

"Launch" Plan: $3.99/month »
"Power" Plan: $5.99/month »
"Pro" Plan: $13.99/month »

Visit InMotion »

Overall Rating

4.9/5.0 ★★★★★

"Business" Plan: $1.00/month »
"Pro" Plan: $1.00/month »
"Expert" Plan: $1.00/month »

Visit 1&1 IONOS »

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Overall Hosting Comparison

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

Offering a wider range of services than most — including shared, dedicated, VPS, and even WordPress-specific plans — InMotion Hosting features a great combination of industry-leading hardware, always-there support, and mass scalability for all hosting needs. InMotion Hosting has nice SSD drives on its shared plans, which give an added speed boost to your site. The company's customer service and reputation are excellent in the shared space, though InMotion tends to be a bit higher priced than some competitors. If a little extra speed is worth a few dollars more a month, then InMotion is a good choice for you. In testing InMotion servers and account backends ourselves, there are a few things InMotion does that we especially appreciate. First and foremost, we like to see free and automated backups included with each plan, as data security is vitally important. The company also offers zero-downtime site transfers, which makes switching to InMotion or between its hosting plans a breeze. Finally, multiple datacenters and the ability to choose which will house your site appeals to speed freaks like us. Regardless of your hosting needs, InMotion seems to have your bases covered. If you value great hardware and support, all at a reasonable price, we highly recommend InMotion as your next host.

FREE SSD drives included with all hosting plans
Zero-downtime website transfers and migrations
FREE data backups, SSL certificate, and DDoS protection
Choice of East Coast or West Coast datacenter
Multi-language support, including PHP, Ruby, and Perl
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

unlimited

Domain Name

new or transfer

Best Overall Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

Born in 1988 — at least a decade before many competitors — 1&1 IONOS has maintained its dedication to making technology easy to understand and use. The company got its starts in Europe but has since expanded to serve more than 8 million global customers and host more than 12 million domain names. Part of the United Internet group, 1&1 IONOS relaunched in 2018 after merging with the successful ProfitBricks cloud infrastructure service. The end result is a web hosting company that's perfectly poised to serve everyone from first-time site owners and small businesses to rapidly-scaling corporations in need of powerful virtual and dedicated server options. Web hosting beginners will especially appreciate the company's dedication to a comprehensive user experience. In addition to affordable shared and WordPress hosting, 1&1 IONOS customers can quickly deploy the company's custom drag-and-drop site builder or ecommerce store creator. Marketing tools abound to grow your presence, including for a local business listing on online directories, Google Adwords management, email marketing, and search engine optimization. More experienced customers will find a comfortable hosting home in the various 1&1 IONOS cloud solutions. In addition to somewhat-more-obscure services like S3 object storage, Kubernetes-as-a-Service, or specialized cloud app configurations, the company offers the cloud in managed or unmanaged varieties, plus enterprise-grade Platform-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service options. Whichever level of hosting you choose, 1&1 IONOS provides you with a personal consultant — a central point of contact available directly by phone, email, or chat who understands your needs. Be sure to consider 1&1 IONOS for your hosting needs.

FREE domain and SSL, plus daily backups
Drag-and-drop site builder and starter kit
Gain exposure with $100-worth of ad credits
Packages cater to businesses & personal use
FREE custom SEO and marketing tools
Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

100 GB - 500 GB

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Cheap Hosting Comparison

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 4.6/5.0

#6 out of 9 in Cheap Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting offers an excellent business-class shared hosting plan. While carrying a higher price tag than some other cheap hosts, it has a very nice list of features to help justify the extra cost. For the IT crowd in the audience, you’ll appreciate SSH access, as well as support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, Python, WP-CLI, and other popular languages. You’ll also appreciate the 20-times faster speed, which comes from all-SSD storage and your choice of datacenter locations. You needn’t worry about data security, as InMotion plans include automatic data backups. For the rest of us, we can appreciate the convenience of the free website transfers and 24/7 US-based support. A free domain registration and WordPress website builder with eCommerce support are also appealing. The overall package and business-class hardware make InMotion’s shared hosting a great choice for businesses or those looking for a little higher-end hardware. And, as one of the few remaining independently owned hosting providers left on the market, InMotion has taken every effort to remain cost-competitive.

FREE BoldGrid site builder and templates
FREE website, domain, and cPanel migrations
SSD storage makes your site load up to 20x faster
Security suite includes SSL and hack protection
Unlimited bandwidth and email accounts
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

100 GB SSD - unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Cheap Rating

★★★★★ 5.0/5.0

If budget is the main factor on your mind when searching for your next web host, search no more. 1&1 IONOS has an impressive range of robust web hosting and website building packages for what may be the best price we've ever seen in the world of hosting. Even better, there are no hidden fees or upsells at checkout — finally, a place in the web hosting world where "what you see is what you get" doesn't apply to just site builders. All 1&1 IONOS plans come with a free domain name registration, or existing site transfer, with permissions to use (essentially) as much storage space and databases as you need. While some hosting shoppers may view the lack of "truly" unlimited features to be a knock on 1&1 IONOS, we actually prefer that the host is upfront about exactly what resources are available — and, trust us, you'll have plenty of resources to work with. Starting a 1&1 IONOS website from scratch is simple. With the 1&1 IONOS MyWebsite Builder and ecommerce store creator, you can easily choose a template, drag and drop various elements of your site, and customize it to your brand or personal preference. For a bit more control, the company gives you more than 70 cloud applications that can be installed with just one click. For cost-conscious customers, whether you're looking for a website builder, WordPress host, or a place to launch your online store, you can't go wrong with one of the 1&1 IONOS budget-friendly plans. The company includes all of the web hosting essentials and makes it simple to upgrade at any time, with expert support available to help at every step along the way.

$1/month for six or 12 months
No hidden costs - pay just $6 or $12 at checkout
Easy setup and 24/7 expert support
FREE domain or transfer, plus FREE SSL certificate
Unlimited storage and databases with most plans
Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

10 GB - Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Dedicated Hosting Comparison

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.5/5.0

#7 out of 9 in Dedicated Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting offers amazingly fast and reliable dedicated hosting on market-leading hardware — making it an easy choice for anyone seeking a premium dedicated server host. From free SSDs to a fanatical support team, InMotion has all the bases covered for both small-scale and large-scale operations. Unlike some hosts, InMotion gives SSH and root access to its servers. Each plan is fully managed and comes with between two and four hours of dedicated time with a system administrator, which is an excellent help in getting your site configured to meet your needs. Each server is also set up with free cPanel and WHM for easy management. Plenty of CPU power, RAM, and storage come with each plan, as well as lots of dedicated IP addresses. Perhaps our favorite feature of InMotion is the company's zero-downtime, rebootless kernel updates, which are partially the reason for InMotion's superb 99.999% uptime. InMotion has a 30-day money-back guarantee on their dedicated plans, which is fairly rare and just another reason you can’t go wrong selecting the company as your dedicated host.

FREE server management and security updates
1-on-1 time with a server administrator
99.999% uptime via Smart Routing™ technology
Tier 1 network with redundant bandwidth
Up to 44% OFF for HostingAdvice readers
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

1 TB SSD - 2 TB NVMe

Domain Name

new or transfer

Dedicated Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

If you need blazing-fast speed, optimum uptime, top-notch flexibility, and full control over the fate of your website the dedicated servers from 1&1 IONOS have you covered. The company offers an assortment of entry-level, performance-focused, and business-class server options. 1&1 IONOS currently operates more than 90,000 servers within 10 geo-redundant datacenters, and the hardware features top-notch Intel Atom and Xeon processors. The company's hands-on approach to perfecting datacenters ensures high levels of uptime and supremely reliable server networks, boasting up to 1 Gbit/s connectivity, unlimited traffic, and HTTP/2 support. Although experienced dedicated server customers might prefer a large cloud environment with root access enabled, rookies and busy entrepreneurs who would prefer to spend their time elsewhere will appreciate the intuitive 1&1 IONOS control panel included with each machine; no server admin is required, meaning you can focus on your projects instead of monotonous maintenance. Users can monitor their dedicated server performance through a web browser, but we also love how 1&1 IONOS offers mobile access to the control panel via apps for both iOS and Android. Unlike many other dedicated server providers, 1&1 IONOS gives customers a free domain registration, unlimited traffic, malware protection, automatic backups, a content delivery network, and even a 30-day money-back guarantee — making the complex dedicated hosting experience as comfortable as shared hosting. Offering a wealth of dedicated server options to meet any budget or performance needs, 1&1 IONOS customers benefit from easy system management, and top-notch security, and personalized support — basically everything you can hope to get from a dedicated server provider.

Unlimited traffic and up to 1 Gbit/s network connectivity
Intuitive control panel that can be accessed from your mobile device
Automatic backups, DDoS protection, and RAID-1 mirrored storage
FREE Sitelock malware protection and Cloudflare Railgun CDN
Affordable Intel servers with a one-time $50 setup fee
Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

240 GB SSD - 2 TB HDD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

VPS Hosting Comparison

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

#3 out of 10 in VPS Hosting reviews

Boasting market-leading VPS hardware, slick management software, and free SSD drives and backups, InMotion Hosting competes to win when it comes to managed VPS hosting packages. The host initiates its VPS customer relationship with free website migrations and up to two hours of launch assistance from an experienced SysAdmin. Customers then enjoy highly available servers, seamless scalability options, and premium support — at a fair price. Enjoy SSD storage arranged in a RAID-6 array, DDoS attack prevention powered by Corero, and routine server snapshots and rollback options. Performance and security are clearly priorities for this hosting company. When it comes to bandwidth, disk space, and other usage allowances, we found these VPS packages to be competitive with other industry leaders. All plans run on the CentOS Linux operating system and feature a license for cPanel and WHM, making it super easy to resell some unused server resources, too. Ultimately, InMotion Hosting's reputation for uptime is second-to-none. With a solid track record as a large-scale host, the company's sweet spot is found in its virtual, cloud, and dedicated server offerings. Should you get stuck, the support team is available 24/7. Based on our experience, we'd highly recommend InMotion to those seeking flexible/easily configurable and cost-competitive virtual private servers backed by equally available support.

HostingAdvice readers get 73% off the first term
FREE site migrations and 2 hours of Launch Assist
2 - 3 dedicated IP address options
FREE cPanel/WHM licenses included
Highly available servers with real-time redundancy
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

45 GB SSD - 300 GB SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

VPS Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

For an all-star player in the game of web hosting flexibility, look no further than the low-cost options from 1&1 IONOS. The company's vServers are a powerful VPS option that includes dedicated resources and unlimited traffic. Customers will receive generous allotments of memory, computing cores, and high-speed SSD storage for rates much lower than many competitors. We appreciate the company's flexibility in offering a wide range of Linux and Windows operating systems, along with the root access to completely control applications and other configurations. Users can use the Plesk Onyx control panel to manage server operations securely and efficiently. The 1&1 IONOS VPS network is powered by VMware virtualization and redundant SAN storage, backed by Intel Xeon E5 processors and SSDs. For those looking for other virtualized hosting options, 1&1 IONOS boasts numerous managed and unmanaged cloud services. Ranging from object storage to container orchestration, we especially appreciate the pre-configured environments that are optimized to specific application performance needs. Want your WordPress or Magento site to fly? Look into 1&1 IONOS cloud hosting. Experienced developers comfortable with root access will enjoy hourly-billed IONOS Cloud environments, while cloud hosting newbies will prefer the managed, Platform-as-a-Service option. Large companies can build customized, future-proofed environments via the 1&1 IONOS Infrastructure-as-a-Service package. No matter your selection, 1&1 IONOS smooths the on-ramp for cloud services adoption, promising that servers will launch in just 55 seconds. In addition to the ridiculously low introductory prices, keep an eye out for additional discounts for your first month that enable you to sample upgraded tools without a long-term commitment.

Intel Xeon E5 processors and 100% SSD storage
VMware virtualization and redundant SAN storage
Deploy in less than a minute from multiple datacenters
Windows or Linux environments via Plesk control panel
New domain registration costs $1 for the first year
Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

80 GB SSD - 240 GB SSD

Domain Name

New or Transfer

WordPress Hosting Comparison

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0

#5 out of 8 in WordPress Hosting reviews

InMotion Hosting, long known for affordable and high-performance shared hosting options, entered the WordPress space with a solid option built upon the company's reputation for great support and reliability. Costing a small premium over other budget-minded options, InMotion does include some nice features to help justify that cost difference. Build on an all-SSD infrastructure, the company's speeds are very good. We would have loved to see options like integrated staging included in order to help take full advantage of the nice, modern hardware, but ample server caching tools is still a good perk. The choice of datacenters (East or West) is nice, as well, as it allows you to target your local audience with better load times. InMotion offers three different levels to its WordPress hosting offerings, which allows you to tailor the hosting to your needs or budget. For those needing eCommerce support, the company's middle or top offerings have you covered, while all three include InMotion's drag-and-drop BoldGrid page editor. Each hosting package InMotion offers comes with a free domain, unlimited disk space, unlimited emails, and free data backups for data security. If you need it, each plan also has support for PHP, Ruby, Perl, and Python, and includes SSH access. InMotion Hosting has made a name for itself on support and reliability. While not the cheapest of the budget WordPress hosts out there, the packages offered are solid in performance and feature sets.

Up to 12x faster WordPress hosting
FREE SSL certificate and SSD storage
Automatic WordPress plugin, theme, and core updates
Features a FREE drag-and-drop WP page editor
Premium themes and plugin subscriptions
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

90 days

Disk Space

50 GB SSD - 200 GB SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

WordPress Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

You're not alone if you're looking for fine-tuned optimizations and security enhancements specifically tailored around WordPress. Hundreds of hosts are clamoring to offer the best services for the world's most popular content management system, and 1&1 IONOS is among the select group leading the way. The company offers all the essentials you would expect from a provider that emphasizes shared hosting simplicity, while still including the features that particularly resonate with more technical WordPress users. First, a setup assistant gets you started with just a few clicks, offering countless options to customize and grow your WordPress site through theme and plugin suggestions. From there, the company's powerful infrastructure — boasting NGINX web server, SSD storage, modern PHP, and 2GB of guaranteed memory — delivers your site with speed. 1&1 IONOS secures WordPress sites by automatically updating the CMS for you, along with providing DDoS protection and optional SiteLock security. The managed platform takes care of all tedious management tasks, and site owners will appreciate the personal consultant that is on standby to answer any WordPress questions via phone, email, or chat. All in all, starting and sustaining a WordPress site with 1&1 IONOS couldn't be easier. From a free domain and simple startup to the company's robust support systems, the company offers everything you need to launch a WordPress website with ease.

Just $1/month for 6-12 months with no hidden costs
Free domain registration and up to 500 email accounts
Setup wizard helps with installation, suggests themes, and installs plugins
FREE automatic WP updates and DDoS protection
SSD drives, NGINX, and guaranteed RAM for page load speed
Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

25 GB SSD - 200 GB SSD

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

Site Builder Hosting Comparison

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

If you're aiming to build a dynamic, user-oriented website — an active blog, a photo gallery, an eCommerce store — check out InMotion Hosting. The InMotion team is extremely knowledgeable in the hosting industry, and they're attuned to the ever-evolving needs of the end-user — from the ultra-novice to the über-experienced. Evidence of the team's attention to user needs can be found in BoldGrid: the in-house-built website builder platform that was received so well by the market that InMotion decided to spin the web builder off into its own company. BoldGrid functions on top of WordPress, bringing intuitiveness and ease of use to a content management environment notorious for bringing beginners frustration. With hundreds of templates and a nice WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, getting started with a new site is a fairly quick and easy process. You can play around with the plethora of site templates, preview the site that could soon be yours, and get a feel for which look most closely matches your intended design or brand. Ready to start selling online? Stress-free integration with PayPal, Authorize.net, and 2Checkout makes starting that online store a simple endeavor. BoldGrid comes free on all of InMotion's shared hosting packages, which come with all the essential hosting goodies and some of the best support money can buy. Each plan offers powerful hardware, a free domain name, and free data backups — that last one being an extremely valuable feature. InMotion does have lengthy signup periods for their best deals, but they offer a 90-day money-back guarantee to help you feel confident that they are the right host for you.

FREE WYSIWYG builder: BoldGrid sits atop WordPress
FREE domain, with tons of options to customize and scale
500+ easy-to-edit blog, gallery, and eCommerce themes
Choice of WordPress, Joomla, or PrestaShop pre-installed
FREE SSL certificate
Get started on InMotion now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

unlimited

Domain Name

new or transfer

Website Builder Rating

★★★★★ 4.8/5.0

If you're in need of a one-stop shop for designing and launching a website, you should be pleased to hear that 1&1 IONOS offers its own custom website building tools for both desktop and mobile devices. In addition to a free domain and email address, along with unlimited storage space, the 1&1 IONOS MyWebsite platform includes all the essentials for starting a site from scratch. With MyWebsite packages, you can quickly and easily create a custom website — without any coding or programming knowledge. As if the low introductory rate wasn't impressive enough, 1&1 IONOS MyWebsite packages come with a free 30-day trial period so you can be certain that this easy-to-use solution is the right one for you. The company's drag-and-drop site editor features tons of high-quality, customizable templates. Your site will automatically be optimized for smartphones and tablets, and 1&1 IONOS offers apps to integrate interactive, professional elements into your site, including photo galleries, online scheduling, customer reviews, social media widgets, and maps. For those who are more pressed for time, you can quickly spin up a one-page website or employ 1&1 IONOS design experts to create up to five custom pages with images and SEO-optimized text. Somewhat interestingly, 1&1 IONOS redirects customers to a separate website builder if they're looking to sell products online. The company's ecommerce builder easily integrates with Amazon, eBay, and Google, covering a wide range of integrated payment and shipping methods. That being said, we are quite enamored with the comprehensive features included in these plans.

No coding skills necessary with MyWebsite Creator
Free domain name included or transfer your existing site
Social media and business widgets add functionality
Professional templates with pre-filled text and images
Multilingual support and tools for SEO and email marketing
Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.

Money Back Guarantee

30 days

Disk Space

Unlimited

Domain Name

FREE (1 year)

InMotion vs. 1&1 IONOS - Our Conclusion

PJ Fancher Hosting Expert

“We tested InMotion & 1&1 IONOS — The winner is InMotion!”

This was a tough comparison, but we have our winner. Though both hosts have comparable offerings at first glance, each host delivers unique features in each plan. InMotion’s BoldGrid website builder impresses with its intuitive, drag-and-drop platform to create fully functional sites. But it’s tough to beat 1&1’s low monthly cost. Even though we’ve named our top pick, you might find that your personal preferences warrant a second look. Check out our full reviews of each provider before you make a choice.

Overall Rating

4.9/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit InMotion »

Overall Rating

4.9/5.0 ★★★★★

Visit 1&1 IONOS »

About The Author

PJ Fancher is a professional web developer with more than 20 years of experience. His background began with writing small web applications using Perl, PHP, and MySQL in 1998. He has well-rounded experience with all aspects of web development, from server and database configuration to scripting, styling, design, and SEO. Today he brings his passion for web development to the team at Digital Brands Inc., helping to develop unique, high-quality, highly-optimized websites. He is ready to share his extensive knowledge and experience with the world of web hosting.