1 and 1 Web Hosting Review
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1 and 1
Pros: Reliable, Fast, Good customer support, free SSL. Excellent for dynamic websites, WordPress, Drupal and other CMS.
Cons:Poor Support, no cPanel
I’ve been using 1 and 1 host since long time and have never been disappointed by them. They have been highly reliable all the time. I’ve never faced any downtime issues and their customer support has always ok if not the best.
The best hosting features of 1 and 1 are their server speed, database reliability and bulk emailing.
1&1 is ideal for mySQL based web sites e.g. Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, phpBB3, or any custom CMS development using PHP and mySQL.
I’ve tried plenty of other webhosts for hosting dynamic websites but none has proven to be better than 1 and 1 in terms of server speed and reliability. In fact I’m so much impressed with their server speed and reliability that I host all of my dynamic websites on 1 and 1.
The webhosting manager is not based on cpanel but it is their own and quite good though navigating around it can be little tricky.
1&1 offers unlimited e-mails and a webmail interface which allows you to check e-mail from anywhere. This webmail is unique and I think it is their own proprietary software which is quite good.
1 and 1 also offers webmail which I find quite useful and have been using since long time even though it is not the fastest webmail. Sometimes the webmail interface can be slow but more or less it is ok.
Bulk Emailing
1 and 1is the only web hosting provider, AFAIK, which offers unlimited (well almost) bulk emailing. Which means that you don’t need to subscribe to emailing services to send out bulk email or newsletters.
However don’t assume that you can send out spam emails. If you are caught spamming then they might deactivate your account.
Database
The only downside of 1 and 1 is that they offer limited mySQL databases. With a beginner Business package they offer 2 mySQL databases each of 100 MB. However given the fact that the database is reliable ande 100 MB can be more than sufficient for smaller dynamic websites it is worth. After all there is no such thing as free lunch.
And guess what this website itself is hosted on 1 and 1. :)
Comments: 9
David - Feb 4, 2009
Reply1&1 hosting customer support is terrible.
I opened an account with them and selected Paypal as payment method. I’ve setup limit as per their instructions.
I got a written notice from 1and1 that the paypal balance is not sufficient and payment was declined and they instructed to setup limit again by logging into account.
I did the same, however the payment was again declined.
I did same 3rd time but again it was declined.
I couldn’t understand what is going on. When any payment is made via paypal, it deductes the balance from the alternative payment method if the balance is insufficient so I would have expected that the same will be the case with 1and1 hosting.
However they couldn’t help out and they SLAPPED me a NOTICE from their Solicitor.
After that I made payment from my Credit Card which went thru however THEY LOCEKED my account and I LOST my hosting account and MONEY.
When I phoned them they replied they are helpless and matter will be sorted out their Solicitors.
I never saw such UNPROFESSIONAL business in my life, that too in UK.
Till date they keep on sending notices.
They are completely NIGHTMARE when it comes to customer support.
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Ajay Singh Reply:
March 20th, 2011 at 3:16 am
Remember the simple rule, if you don’t pay up on time any host will block account and some even wipe out all your data as well. Web Hosting companies are notorious when it comes to terminate account when something goes wrong. The only way to avoid trouble is to pay them on time.
Even I’ve been victim of their account termination policy when my paypal payment didn’t go through for some reason which I never found out.
1&1 customer support is absolutely rubbish which I’ve acknowledge many times on this review site as well as on my personal blog.
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Jack - Jan 11, 2010
ReplyI sent e-mail to 1&1 support asking for some information on their Dedicated Hosting package and I haven’t heard from them.
If they don’t reply for sales queries then one can guess what would be their after sales support.
Can anyone tell how is their Dedicated Hosting?
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Ajay Singh Reply:
March 20th, 2011 at 3:18 am
You better don’t try 1& 1 dedicated hosting. I got burnt. 1 and 1 dedicated hosting is absolutely rubbish. They use some out of date hardware to same money which keep crashing. Support is outsourced to Philippines so you get trapped when something goes wrong with dedicated server.
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Lisa - May 24, 2010
ReplyI have built up a website for 9months, painfully downloading and adding information to keep people up to date with progress and programme of a project. All this work suddenly disappeared!! For this to be done by myself I would need to go in an individually remove each item.
I have sent numerous emails, asked IT specialist from another company to help and after spending on and off over a week dealing with this have finally accepted the data cannot be retrieved. I requested a back up restored file for April (only one month of work in would be lost instead of 9months). 1&1 say they can only restore for 24-48hrs.
Do not use 1&1 unless you have time to waste and aren’t concerned about loosing your information. This could have cost me a customer. I already have numerous contacts who viewed regularly for news. Hours and days of non paid overtime down the pan. STAY AWAY from this provider
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Ajay Singh Reply:
March 20th, 2011 at 3:20 am
As far as backups are concerned no hosting company will ever guarantee you 100% backup. Just go through their small print and you will find that they have protected themselves very well.
You should always backup your data on regular basis.
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Jason - Sep 26, 2010
Reply1&1 are the greatest suckers on the Earth. How on the Earth they claim to be the biggest Web Hosting Provider with such crap services.
I’ve been using 1&1 shared hosting for quite sometimes and it seems to work well untill all the hell break loose. And once trouble starts 1and1 starts sucking.
Customer services are crap. Sitting somewhere in some 3rd world country (Phillipines) these dumbs have no idea how to answer or reply to the e-mails.
It takes ages to solve a simple problem.
Once they disabled my database by giving reason, lame, that I’m running some script which is overloading their server. All I’ve been running was a simple wordpress based blog.
STAY AWAY FROM 1&1 they suck!!!
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Ghanshyam - Dec 1, 2010
ReplyI was the customer of names.co.uk ,it become a head ache for me..every time the server is down and it is not solved for 2 weeks,then i moved to unlimitedgb.com there server is very good and appreciative.
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Ajay Singh Reply:
March 20th, 2011 at 3:21 am
Nice try ;)
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