During the winter of 2013, Contabo emerged from the ashes of the corporate referred to as Giga-International that was fashioned a decade earlier. To inform the reality, the corporate was good at doing enterprise in its personal proper, nevertheless, it was primarily targeted on the German market. Therefore, and with a little bit of a paradox, the corporate named Giga-International modified its title to Contabo in order to mark its transition from German to the worldwide market (since Giga-International didn’t sound worldwide sufficient).
Joke apart (and no matter its title), this firm has steadily grown from having a single information middle in Germany (in Munich, to be exact) to deploying greater than 10,000 servers at this very second. As a response to the demand for VPS and dedicated servers, Contabo launched its second information middle inside Germany (Nuremberg) in 2014 and added colocation internet hosting to their bag of tips.
Four years later they might open one other one, and for the primary time exterior the borders of Europe. Located within the USA (St. Louis), this information middle was meant to draw customers from the Americas, promising decrease latency, pace of sunshine and an distinctive degree of efficiency total. Nowadays they make use of 5 information facilities in whole: one within the USA, three in Germany and one in Singapore.
In addition to their eternal growth, Contabo likes to congratulate oneself on “quite a few” rewards it has (fairly rightly) acquired, equivalent to German Data Center Awards in 2017 and, the primary place on the CHIP Hotline Test and profitable a “Great Uptime Badge” on HostRecommendation.
Contabo’s essential web site takes benefit of up-to-date, clear-cut design in an effort to guarantee user-friendliness and simple exploration of the positioning’s content material. It is out there in German and English, and though the English translation is questionable at instances it shouldn’t current something however a slight grammatical and stylistic spot of trouble. The similar may very well be stated for Contabo’s official weblog which, though not avidly energetic, publishes new content material on a month-to-month foundation at a minimal.
If you are into social networking, you’ll be able to comply with them on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Plans and pricing
If you look intently sufficient, you’ll discover that Contabo’s provides a foreign money desire the place you’ll be able to choose between EUR and USD, which is good to see since more often than not you get both of them. Whichever you select, the pricing of all Contabo’s merchandise can be displayed in it. And when you determine to enroll with them, your account can be mounted to the foreign money you initially opted for.
Contabo supplies 4 shared hosting packages (merely titled as M, L, XL and XXL), 4 for VPS (all with SSD), 4 for VDS (digital devoted server), 4 for traditional devoted servers and (lastly) three for storage-optimized VPS. The pricing of all these plans is moderately affordable bearing in mind all the things they embody.
For occasion, the bottom priced shared internet hosting named M will give you as much as 50GB of cupboard space, 20 MySQL databases, 1000 e-mail addresses, one area title (which comes free-of-charge), industry-standard cPanel and greater than 300 accessible apps, and all for mere $3.99 per thirty days. However, there may be one catch, the minimal billing interval you’ll be able to select is for a whole 12 months.
Contabo provides neither money-back assure, nor a cancellation interval, which is more likely to delay numerous their potential customers.
If you wish to pay for Contabo’s companies in USD, you should utilize bank cards or PayPal. However, in case you are paying in EUR (which is definitely advisable), along with the above you’ll be able to pay by way of financial institution transfers or Skrill.
Ease of use
Those who searching for a beginner-friendly internet hosting provider that can spoil you with all of the little bits and items one can want for, would possibly wish to proceed their search. Contabo is not at all tight-fisted, however neither is it attempting to be an all-things-to-all-people sort of supplier. Some notably absent options one would in any other case count on to get with a widely known host are one-click installations, CDNs and a money-back assure.
On the intense aspect, establishing an account with Contabo is one thing anyone can do in about 5 minutes to the max. However, generally (and that is that point) being so simple as doable just isn’t notably useful to much less tech-savvy customers who’re more likely to be left in the dead of night on occasion due to the reliance on overly technical jargon. Thankfully, you’ll be able to all the time google it.
After choosing the most effective becoming internet hosting plan, you’ll be required to determine about a couple of issues: a domain name (you’ll be able to register a brand new or switch an current one), add-ons (for an extra payment), CGI help (enabling it can value you $1.29 per thirty days) and backups (you will get them for $2.59 per thirty days). It ought to be famous that domains are billed on a month-to-month foundation, so don’t be tricked by a small sum proven within the order abstract.
Following this, you’ll be required to offer a substantial quantity of private data together with your phone quantity (as defined, for the aim of password restoration). Here you would possibly discover that you simply don’t get to decide on your password immediately. It can be auto-generated and despatched to you e-mail deal with (along with all the data required to arrange your account), however you’ll get a possibility to vary it afterward.
Now, let’s get on with the dangerous information so we will get to the nice one. Contabo’s person interface feels counterintuitive at instances, so in case you are not a UI veteran that has seen all of it, you’re more likely to really feel at loss now and again. The excellent news is that Contabo supplies an industry-standard, Linux-based and user-friendly cPanel as its management panel, and it’s as intuitive because it will get. In addition to cPanel, customers have an choice to make use of Plesk or Webmin, and the latter one is obtainable freed from cost.
Another factor you’ll get for nothing is Contabo’s personal easy-to-use website builder that comes with greater than sufficient mobile-responsive templates.
Speed and expertise
While exhibiting off, Contabo doesn’t fail to say it emerged as a winner within the “Speed” class as a part of the CHIP Hotline Test in 2015. However, since that occurred years in the past, we needed to verify how they’re holding at current by way of pace efficiency. After placing their essential web site to the check (by way of GTmetrix), we now have to say: magnificently. The time it took for the web page to fully load, whole web page requests and all of the core metrics associated to hurry have been properly above the common leading to an astonishing A (96%) as the final word grade.
As for uptime, in case you are questioning in the event that they managed to chorus from mentioning the badge they received for “Great Uptime” on HostRecommendation, you’ll be able to already guess your reply. That being stated, if we have been in place to present away badges for unlocking the identical achievement, (we should admit) one would go to Contabo, and UptimeRobotic (our uptime-testing device of alternative) would wholeheartedly agree with our resolution. After monitoring the uptime of Contabo’s essential web site for a interval of 1 month, we have been unable to seize a single second of downtime, which ought to be counseled.
Support
Being conversant in Contabo’s propensity to boast proudly and publicly, we weren’t stunned to see plenty of guarantees relating to their “first-class” buyer help whose high quality has been acknowledged “12 months after 12 months” by the aforementioned CHIP Hotline Test (a reputation that must encourage confidence, sure?). Despite our skepticism, our personal expertise with Contabo’s help group was a stunning shock, as was the agent we bought in contact with: fast to reply, well-informed and pleasant.
If you’re a do-it-yourself sort of individual, Contabo will give you an exhaustive FAQ part, a knowledgebase (titled as “Tutorials Overview”) and a server standing part (which incorporates newest updates about energy outages, interruptions and scheduled maintenances of their servers). While it didn’t age properly by way of its type, the knowledgebase is full of fairly detailed articles (all with footage) overlaying varied hosting-related points, and is more likely to show most helpful to most customers.
However, when you would like to take a serving to hand, Contabo’s help workers could be reached by way of phone quantity (from 8AM to 10PM CEST) and e-mail (throughout the identical hours) on workdays, weekends and holidays.
The competitors
The key distinction between Bluehost and Contabo is that one relies within the USA (as its information facilities are) and the opposite in Germany (with information facilities in Germany, Singapore and the USA). In phrases of internet hosting varieties and options they’re considerably comparable, nevertheless, Bluehost features a bit wider array of options at its marketed worth, whereas Contabo tends to cost additional money for these.
Much like Bluehost, HostGator is a US-based internet hosting supplier providing a broad vary of internet hosting choices, options and accessible apps at pocket-friendly pricing. One notable function that units them aside from Contabo is their refund coverage, the place Bluehost provides a extra customary 30-day one whereas with HostGator you’ll be getting a beneficiant 45-days money-back assure. On the opposite hand, Contabo supplies no refunds at this level.
Host Europe and Contabo are each Germany-based hosts, with Host Europe being the one which often will get extra consideration out of the 2. However, since Host Europe is (mockingly) extra geared in direction of German-speaking clients, with information facilities in Cologne (Germany) and Strasbourg (France), Contabo and its information facilities unfold throughout three continents are seemingly a more sensible choice for customers coming from the worldwide market.
Those who’re searching for an easygoing German host for a private weblog or a easy web site ought to take into account a Berlin-based Strato. Although it comes off as an unpolished gem compared with Contabo, Strato supplies some nice options equivalent to multiple-domain internet hosting with all plans, free SSL certificate with every plan, one-click installs for all the favored apps and 30-day money-back assure. That being stated, neither of those hosts is notably novice-friendly, so be sure you take into account all the things earlier than reaching a choice.
Final verdict
If you’re German, wish to strive shattering the parable concerning the German high quality, or are merely searching for a budget-friendly European host with an impressive price-to-performance ratio and curious indifference relating to a few of generally seen options (equivalent to money-back assure), give Contabo a shot.
However, in case you are searching for a Germany-based host offering a refund coverage, try 1&1 IONOS or Strato, since with each hosts you’ll get a normal 30-day money-back assure with all of their plans. And in case you are not strictly looking for an offshore host, each Bluehost and HostGator ought to be taken under consideration.
