1 and 1 Review

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Editor's Review

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Review written by Michael Lederstatter
Editor-In-Chief

Web-Professional since 1998. Specialist in Webhosting, Webdesign, PHP, SEO, CMS, Consulting. Any Questions? Drop me an email.

Latest update of this content was: Monday, Apr 4, 2011

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Editorial Ratings

Total rating:

90%

Price Value:

100%

Reliability:

90%

Performance:

90%

Control panel:

80%

Support:

90%

Feedback:

90%

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1 and 1 Company Overview

1&1 Hosting was founded in 1998 and grew as one of the largest hosting providers in europe. In the year 2003, 1&1 launched their business in the US with the goal to provide better service and faster connections to all north american customers. The company provides service to more than 10 million customers' websites, deploying 65,000 servers and is financially stable, profitable, and thus secure. Currently 1&1 is the 5th largest web hosting provider in the US.

1&1 offers shared Linux hosting and Windows hosting at the same price. Their feature-rich web hosting plans starts at $3.99. It offers a free domain name, 10 GB of storage (wich is huge) and unlimited bandwidth. The package includes $75 in marketing bonuses, e.g. for Google AdWords. It has a billing cycle of only 6 months, wich means the total cost to pay is only $23.94 (for 6 months), so very affordable. Addtionally to virtual hosting, 1&1 offers VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting as well.

US customers' websites are hosted by 1&1 at their state-of-the-art data center in Lenexa, Kansas. Their customer service is avaiable 24/7/365. 1&1 gives a 90-day-money-back guarantee, wich is a high standard compared with most other providers, that only give 30 day-guarantees, if any at all.

We reviewed and tested 1&1 to see, if they keep what they promise.

Price Value

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1&1's basic hosting package starts at $3.99 (if bought as a 6 months plan). That is a very good price and affordable, because the total cost per billing cycle (every 6 months) is less than $24. Many hosting providers take such low prices (if at all) only in connection with 36 months plans, so you need a lot more cash on hand to pre-finance this. This is especially important for individuals or small start-up-businesses, that need to take care of their cash flow.

This price offer is even greater, when it comes to Windows hosting. Most other hosting providers take much more for Windows hosting plans, than for Linux hosting. 1&1 offers all of their Linux and Windows hosting packages at the same prices.

The basic hosting plan for $3.99 /month includes a free domain, 10 GB of storage (that is more than enough for 95% of all websites today), unlimited bandwidth, 10 mySQL databases (100 MB each) and 600 email accounts. A website builder, a Blog application, an image gallery and a CGI Library are supported, as is PHP5. If more options, languages and applications are wanted (such as Perl, etc.) it is necessary to upgrade to a larger and more expensive hosting plan. However, most websites will come along well with the features included in the $3.99 plan.

Depending on the hosting plan customers choose, they can also obtain software bundles at a value of up to $900. A $75 marketing bonus is contained in the basic hosting plan, e.g. for Google advertising. Daily data backups are included for free. 1&1 promises a 90-day-money-back-guarantee and strives for 99.9% uptime.

All this is an extraordinary high money value. The features are professional, the capacity of this plan is huge and it is very affordable - especially, when it comes to Windows hosting.

Reliability and Performance

1&1 deploys 5 different locations, containing more than 65,000 servers and managing more than 10 million domains for their customers. Their data center in the US is located in Kansas. Due to their huge size, they operate with self-owned data centers, not as many other hosting providers, that only rent rack space at external facilities.

1&1 employs more than 250 developers and thus has cutting-edge technology. Such a large company can not be ignored by other big market players, and so 1&1 develops solutions in cooperation with experts from Google, Symantec, Plesk or Compaq. The 1&1 data centers provide high security levels (both physical and network-security) and are connected to the internet through multiple optical fibre cables for redundancy.

We tested the performance of 1&1 shared hosting packages and found it to be strong. Content loads lightning-fast and the connectivity is stable. We rate 1&1 data centers to be highly reliable.

Control Panel

1&1 developed their protrietary control panel software to empower customers to manage their web hosting account. We find it orderly and pretty complete in its functionality. Domain management, billing, email-management, databases - everything can be managed with ease. There is nothing special about it, however.

1&1's control panel is not as great as cPanel, but it's ok and does what it should.

Support

1&1 provides 24/7 customer support through a toll-free telephone number and by email. When we called support with a self-made issue, we were content with the response time, the friendlyness, professionality and competence of the staff member.

In addition to live support, 1&1 offers a giant FAQ section to empower customers to help themselves.

We were content with 1&1's customer support. It fulfilled our high expectations.

Conclusion

Being one of the largest players in the web hosting industry, 1&1 has a strong reputation and there are many reasons for that. With more than 10 million domains and +65,000 servers in 5 data centers, 1&1 became huge in both, Europe and the US.

Their basic package has a high value and is very affordable. Especially the Windows hosting packages are even stronger in their price value in comparison to other Windows-hosting providers.

Due to their sheer size, 1&1 operates in different ways than small web hosting companies could ever. They own their data centers and do not rent rack space at facilities, owned by other companies. Due to this, their own 5 state-of-the-art data centers and their 250+ development experts, they offer high performance and reliability.

1&1's control panel is middle-class though. However, it does what it should. 24/7 toll-free telephone and email support was responsive, competent and helpful.

1&1 also provides VPS hosting and dedicated servers. To make their offer complete, they provide many additional services, like webdesign, domain-only hosting, ecommerce solutions and search engine visibility services.

We see 1&1 as a professional and very affordable web hosting provider. When it comes to Windows hosting, their prices are hard to beat for the competition.

Pros:

Super-affordable Windows hosting with many features
VPS hosting and dedicated servers available
Huge, reliable, profitable company, thus secure
24/7 toll-free telephone support

Cons:

Not all features are included in the budget plan (e.g. no Perl, no SSH). If they are needed, it is necessary to upgrade to a more expensive plan (wich in comparison to other hosting providers is still a good price).

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