A year after moving 12 domains to IONOS. Updated thoughts.
What worked
All 12 renewals went through automatically. No surprise renewal price hikes. No domain held hostage[1].
Email forwarding for hello@ addresses worked all year without issue.
DNS UI is still ugly but I am there once a quarter at most.
What did not
DNSSEC setup is technical-user-only. The IONOS panel exposes the DS records but the workflow assumes you know what you are doing. A friendlier wizard would help.
Two-factor authentication is not as good as Cloudflare's. The TOTP works but the recovery flow is fiddly.
Cost trajectory
UK .com renewal in 2025 was £11.20. In 2026 it is £12.40. A 10 percent rise across the year, in line with broader UK price inflation but not nothing.
I will still be on IONOS this time next year.
About the data
A note on what the numbers in this post represent so you can read them with the right confidence:
- "My own bench" rows are personal measurements on my own hardware. They are honest about my setup and reproducible there, but they should not be treated as universal benchmark scores.
- Benchmark numbers attributed to public sources (Geekbench Browser, DXOMARK, NotebookCheck, FIA timing) are illustrative, the trend is what matters, not the third decimal place. Cross-check against the source for anything you would act on financially.
- Client outcomes and ROI percentages in business-focused posts are anonymised composites drawn from my own consulting work. Real numbers, real direction, sanitised so individual clients are not identifiable.
- Foldable crease-depth and similar engineering measurements are estimates pulled from teardown reports and reviewer claims; manufacturers do not publish these directly.
- Forecasts and "what I bet" lines are exactly that, opinions, not predictions with a track record yet.
If you spot a number that contradicts a source you trust, tell me, I would rather correct it than be the chart that was off by 6 percent and pretended otherwise.