IONOS Hosting vs. Microsoft 365

I run five websites off of 1&1 for different outshoots of the company. For our web needs it works perfectly. We have a midgrade hosting package and it works perfectly. I know if issues arose from traffic or storage space 1&1 would have a solution for us.

Incentivized

Office everyday things since time immemorial. It's hard for Google Suite or any other to compete with Microsoft. They have everything, and it all works great, with incredible tools and capabilities. The new integrations work seamlessly most of the time, such as embedding a Power BI in a PPT. Expecting too much AI, like note taking, or LLM-based PPT, is not available in my tier at least, so depending on the budget, you won't get all you may expect from an AI leader. For diagramming and process maps, you're better off with other tools like those above.

Incentivized

• Private registration: 1&1 offers free private registration which makes them an automatic favorite.
• Reliable customer service: always someone available when I call in and I have never had my issue not get resolved.
• Easy to use dashboard: domains in one place with DNS settings and other things that can be tweaked. It's easy to add an SSL certificate to domains as well.

Incentivized

• It allows us to keep our email organized. I like the fact that I can create folders in Outlook, and they replicate on my mail server.
• Excellent for drafting and saving those documents as PDFs without needing PDF editing software.
• Spreadsheets - what more is there to say?

• From my experience, customer services does not know how to address issues in an understandable language
• I feel that they arbitrarily overcharge w/o any explanation
• In my opinion it is really pricey

• Microsoft 365 really needs to work on protection part. In complex environment it is not reliable as compared to its competitors like Proofpoint. There are many instances where it fails to perform effectively.
• In SharePoint Online the versioning feature of the document needs to be improved by Microsoft. Sometimes when we have to roll back to the previous version it does not work as expected.
• In Teams messaging and app permission policies can be improved. There are some settings where we have to add a lot of things manually.

There are many features of Office that we cannot replicate in any other tool. Plus people know it already. It's not going away anytime soon.

Incentivized

It being the default office suite means it's user experience and idioms are things that everyone is generally very used to and fluent with.

The sharing is relatively simple, being directly hooked into Entra AD, and expiry being a first class concern.

It's usability decreases at scale, with multiple people simultaneously making edits can make documents unusable.

In over 8 years of operations, we have not had a single outage that affected us.

Incentivized

The email system has not impeded out mail flow in any way, and we do not notice the delays we sometimes see with other systems that include spam/junk mail filtering.

Incentivized

Over the past 8 years of using Microsoft 365, I have noticed that they change vendors often. This always leads to a poor experience in the beginning, then levels out after some time for the company to get things worked out. As a customer, it is really frustrating because I don't have time when something isn't working to have them "look into my issue" and get back with me. They have even closed a ticket I specifically told them to keep open. Your applications are only as good as the support.

Incentivized

Everything works and I use it all the time.

Incentivized

Rackspace I find to be too pricey for the service they offer. Pagely is very much WordPress oriented. I've had downtime with both that I haven't experienced with 1&1.

Incentivized

Its very user-friendly, collaborative and efficient that boosts productivity using cloud tools. their security is strong and it provides data protection. There are regular updates that shields us from attackers too. It offers a wealth of learning resources, including tutorials, help articles and video guide to help users make the most of the application and personally upgrade their skills.

The scalability of the email solution far exceeds our needs and would be suitable for organizations not looking for an enterprise sized multipurpose solution (O365, Google Workspace, etc).

Incentivized

• 1&1 host our email and domains adequately. We can easily add and remove emails as needed.
• 1&1 also works with our website platform, Memberclicks.

Incentivized

• It has helped keep the high-energy culture my company has since it allows easy communication and calls.
• Positively impacts responses from clients, since we can see how many times they have been contacted. (the more someone is contacted, the less likely they are to respond. Microsoft helps make sure we all know who and who not to contact)
• positively impacts my ability to focus, since you can mute notifications. Since I look at my computer all day, it is helpful to lock in and not get distracted by the many emails I receive a day. You can also change preferences, so emails with high urgency are still seen.