15 Best Hosting Platforms for the Germany Market

Choosing a local web hosting platform has significant benefits in terms of performance, support, and compliance. While global companies can have a German presence, most lack a truly native experience.

When you choose local web hosting solutions, you get fast response times through servers that are close to your target audience. They also ensure that your organization meets local data protection requirements.

These benefits help organizations gain the trust of local users. In the case of Germany, 54.7% of Germans show faith in companies that store their data on domestic servers.^[1]

In this post, I have researched and curated the best web hosts for businesses targeting the German market. Most of the discussed providers primarily have a German user base and regional support. And though not included here, opting for global hosts, such as AWS, Azure, GCP, DigitalOcean, and Linode, works fine for international users.

So, here are my top picks for German hosting platforms, based on user feedback, features, and data centers.

• 1. Hetzner – Offer Dedicated, Cloud, and Managed Servers
• 2. OVHcloud – Best for Global Enterprise
• 3. SiteGround – Powered by Google Cloud
• 4. FastComet – Best for Shared and WordPress Hosting
• 5. AccuWeb – Affordable Cloud Hosting
• 6. Cloudways – Best for Multi-Cloud Strategy
• 7. HostEurope – Best for WordPress and VPS
• 8. Contabo – Cheap Cloud VPS
• 9. Strato – 100% Green WordPress Hosting
• 10. Kamatera – Flexible Cloud Hosting for Growing Businesses
• 11. Timme Hosting – Best for Small Business
• 12. Profihost – Best to Host E-Commerce
• 13. Estugo – Best for Beginners
• 14. All-Inkl – Popular Local Choice
• 15. Domain Factory – German Headquarters and Worldwide Presence
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1. Hetzner

Hetzner has German servers and a decent hosting portfolio, covering shared hosting, managed servers, dedicated servers, object storage, load balancer, and colocation services.

Its shared hosting comes with unlimited traffic, NVMe SSDs, business email, encrypted FTP, SSL, daily backups, WordPress installer, and DDoS protection. Besides its multilingual (Deutsch and English) documentation, you can get assistance via email and phone calls. Shared hosting also offers a few addons, including additional disk space and a dedicated IPv4 address.

Hetzner’s managed servers are a step up from its regular shared hosting. These subscriptions allow for multiple accounts (5 to unlimited) for server administration. Moreover, you get 24/7 monitoring for server performance and security issues.

Its dedicated server subscription is best for heavy workloads. You can choose the appropriate server by sorting the options based on price, region, CPU (type, core, and frequency), RAM, and (number and type of) drives.

Hetzner also features cloud hosting, offering the goodness of automatic load balancing, firewalls, scalable storage, REST API, and more.

It has 6 datacenters, with locations in Germany (Nuremberg & Falkenstein), Finland, the US, and Singapore. However, its service-wise availability differs across locations, with maximum services dedicated to German users.

Hetzner Pricing

Hetzner offers the following pricing plans:

Service	Base Pricing
Shared Hosting	€1.76/month
Managed VPS	€34.00/month
Dedicated Servers	€39.00/month
Cloud Hosting	€3.79/month
Colocation	€100.00/month
Storage Share	€4.29/month

Try Hetzner

2. OVHcloud

OVHcloud is a French cloud hosting company with 40+ data centers in 18 locations across 9 countries, including Germany, France, Canada, the USA, the UK, Australia, and Singapore. Its full spectrum of web hosting services comprises VPS, public & private cloud, dedicated servers, email hosting, identity management, and more.

Its public cloud products include compute, storage, container orchestration, managed databases, analytics, etc. Private cloud, on the other hand, lets businesses deploy their VMware, Nutanix, or SAP HANA instances.

OVHcloud VPS has one of the most affordable plans I’ve seen in this industry. Plus, they feature the latest processors and NVMe SSDs. You also get the option to include additional IPs, load balancer, extra storage, and manual backup.

They have an interesting interface for selling hosting services. You go into their dedicated server section to find multiple configurations with different price tags. The dashboard allows sorting the options based on region, hardware, network, price, etc.

After selecting the desired server, you can configure it further for storage, RAM, bandwidth, and more. Still, not all the servers have this much flexibility; in some cases, you only get to tweak a single parameter.

I have tried selecting a few OVHcloud services and learned that not all have a German presence. For instance, its VPS doesn’t have a datacenter in Germany, unlike its bare metal and dedicated plans. Consequently, you can choose your desired subscription and check if they allow selecting datacenter locations or ask the support staff about hosting in any specific place.

OVHcloud Pricing

I’ve listed OVHcloud’s pricing plans below.

Service	Base Pricing*
VPS	€0.96/month
Dedicated Servers	€62.69/month
Eco-dedicated Servers	€5.99/month

Note: Cost is time-sensitive.

Try OVHcloud

3. SiteGround

SiteGround has built its hosting platform on the tried-and-tested Google Cloud infrastructure. It lets you select server locations during the sign-up, and companies eyeing a German audience can choose Frankfurt. However, you can also select other data centers stationed in the US, Australia, Asia, and different parts of Europe.

I have many peers who use SiteGround for its WordPress (and WooCommerce) expertise. SiteGround has developed plugins for WordPress speed and security optimization, making it stand out from its competition. However, that doesn’t mean it’s restricted to WordPress, and you can also go with other content management systems (such as Drupal and Prestashop) of your choice.

SiteGround recently launched its fully managed cloud hosting, offering guaranteed resources with automatic scaling to handle unexpected web traffic. This service allows users to select from the preconfigured servers or pick the desired number of CPU cores, RAM, and SSD storage.

Admins have the option to add collaborators with their individual accounts/logins to build and maintain an array of web projects. Teammates can also request support from their accounts.

Beginners have an excellent package in SiteGround’s (shared) web hosting plans. You get free SSL, professional email, email migration, free content delivery network (CDN), daily backups, and more. Web hosting subscriptions also provide a 99.9% uptime. But the best part about SiteGround is its live, 24/7 support via chat, emails, and tickets.

SiteGround Pricing

SiteGround’s pricing plans are listed below.

Service	Base Pricing
Web Hosting	€2.99/month
Cloud Hosting	€80.00/month

Try SiteGround

4. FastComet

FastComet offers you a feature-rich shared hosting plan with a rock-bottom introductory price point (although with higher renewals).

These subscriptions provide AMD EPYC processors, NVMe SSDs, and malware scanning. I recommend FastComet shared hosting for WordPress beginners since it adds integrity scans, automatic updates, 1-click-staging/cloning, and more, without cost extra.

Moreover, you get a web application firewall, IP filtering, and account isolation, keeping your WordPress instance safe. FastComet shared hosting also includes a decent 99.9% uptime guarantee. The list doesn’t end here, and free migrations, SSL, CDN integration, and more make FastComet’s base hosting tier irresistible.

It’s common practice to keep backups in the hosting industry, but FastComet goes a step ahead to store all that data offsite. This safeguards against natural disasters and cyberattacks at the primary datacenters.

However, FastComet offers more than the vanilla shared hosting. Power users can get their hands on cloud VPS and dedicated servers for resource-hungry projects. These subscriptions have DDoS protection, website management tools (such as cPanel/WHM), and the flexibility to host unlimited websites.

FastComet has 12 data centers covering Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Oceania.

FastComet Pricing

FastComet offers the following pricing plans:

Service	Base Pricing
Shared Hosting	$1.79/month
Cloud VPS	$46.16/month
Dedicated Servers	$107.06/month

Try FastComet

5. AccuWeb

Though AccuWeb has multiple hosting products like any other hosting provider, I particularly liked its cloud hosting for its versatility and budget-friendly price tags.

Consider this: hosting a basic WordPress website will cost you as little as $1.99/month. While the allocated resources for this package aren’t great, it’s about the low barrier of entry, allowing users to pick from the wide variety of plans they might need.

Accuweb Cloud lets you deploy Magento, Drupal, Joomla, OpenCMS, Ghost, PrestaShop, OpenCart, and more. You can install any PHP, JAVA, and GO-based apps to take benefit of Accuweb’s scalability and performance. Moreover, businesses can bank on this cloud hosting for file storage, backups, developer tools, and hosting application clusters.

The platform’s instances have dedicated resources to deliver consistent output. You also get a 99.99% uptime SLA and managed support for keeping things on track.

You get billed based on the actual usage and not on the server size, which I found to be very user-friendly. Plus, Accuweb allows settings scalability limits, which helps the server perform during uneven traffic.

Accuweb Cloud has data centers in Frankfurt, Pune, Los Angeles, and New York.

AccuWeb Cloud Pricing

AccuWeb Cloud’s pricing plans are listed below.

Service	Base Pricing
Cloud VPS	$1.99/month
Database Hosting	$1.99/month
Storage	$1/month

Try AccuWeb Cloud

6. Cloudways

Cloudways allows you to host applications with hyperscalers, including Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, Digital Ocean, Vultr, and Linode. This gives you an extensive choice of datacenters worldwide, covering North America, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and Africa.

However, I think the best part is the ability to manage multiple clouds within a single user dashboard as managing that with their origin portals is very time-consuming. Besides, Cloudways adds a very efficient cloud control panel, performance and security optimizations, and 24/7 friendly support to make hosting operations a cakewalk. I say that very confidently based on my two years’ experience with them, which was terrific with no complaints whatsoever.

On the security front, Cloudways provides a server-level firewall to shield against internet threats, including brute-force login and DDoS attacks. Its login protection is powered by Fail2Ban, an intrusion prevention system that bans IP addresses involved in failed login attempts for a set amount of time.

Cloudways handles security patches, server OS updates, and vulnerability and malware scans. You can also manually block specific IPs and entire countries for added protection.

As for limitations, Cloudways is limited to PHP applications, such as WordPress, Magento, and Laravel.

Cloudways Pricing

I’ve listed Cloudways’ pricing plans in the table below.

Service	Base Pricing
Digital Ocean	$11/month
Vultr	$16/month
Linode	$14/month
AWS	$20.56/month
Google Cloud	$37.45/month

Try Cloudways

7. HostEurope

HostEurope has its headquarters in Cologne, NRW, Germany, but maintains a global footprint with servers across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific. It provides shared web hosting, WordPress-optimized hosting, virtual private servers, web servers, email hosting, and more.

Their web hosting packages come with Installatron to deploy over 125 apps easily. Plus, you have the basics covered with an SSL certificate, daily backups, 24/7 support, professional email, and 99.9% uptime SLA.

Personally, I suggest picking its virtual servers if you know about server administration since its priced similarly to its web hosting plans. Moreover, VPS doesn’t restrict you to a number of websites and includes NVMe SSDs for high I/O speeds.

HostEurope also offers a fully managed VPS, which includes server migration, setup, website configuration, optimization, security, and backups.

You can opt for HostEurope’s paid add-ons for performance optimization, server protection, data backup, setup, and server migration assistance.

Host Europe Pricing

HostEurope offers the following plans:

Service	Monthly Pricing
Web Hosting	€5.99
WordPress Hosting	€2.99
VPS	€6.99
Fully Managed VPS	€80.98

Try HostEurope

8. Contabo

Contabo is a Munich-based web host offering VPS, virtual dedicated servers (VDS), bare metal servers, object storage, GPU cloud, etc.

I highly recommend Contabo’s VPS offering. It costs just €4.50/month (as of this writing), packing 4 vCPU cores, 6GB RAM, 100 GB NVMe, 32 GB of outgoing traffic, DDoS protection, API & CLI, SSH access, and more.

Interestingly, Contabo also offers VDS, a hosting package at the intersection of VPS and fully dedicated servers. VDS presents isolated RAM, CPU, and NVMe storage for resource-intensive workloads.

You get 12 data center locations covering the US, EU, Asia, the UK, and Oceania. This includes 5 data centers in Germany itself, serving Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The biggest downside with Contabo is its 95% uptime guarantee. For context, this means 18 days and 6 hours of yearly downtime. This is a lot for any serious business website, where a momentary outage can incur significant financial losses. Consequently, Contabo’s uptime guarantee pushes it out of the race for enterprise web hosts.

Contabo Pricing

Contabo’s pricing plans are listed in the table below.

Service	Monthly Pricing
Cloud VPS	€4.50
Cloud VDS	€34.40
Bare Metal	€99.00

Try Contabo

9. Strato

Strato is an entirely Germany-based web host with ISO 27001-certified datacenters running on 100% green electricity. It offers typical hosting services, including web hosting, WordPress hosting, business email, cloud storage, and dedicated servers.

Its WordPress package bundles all the essentials, such as an SSL, professional email, AI website builder, and even an AI content creator. Besides, Strato adds DDoS protection to keep your website safe.

Strato’s virtual dedicated servers come with dedicated CPU cores and RAM. These hosting plans also include a Plesk license for server management and put no cap on bandwidth. For lighter workloads, you can check out their Linux and Windows V-servers (similar to a VPS).

Business owners can opt for Strato’s managed servers for a hands-off hosting environment featuring 1Gb networking uplink, backup control, resource monitoring, access control, etc.

Starto’s otherwise decent hosting plans are marred with the lack of round-the-clock support. However, you can pay extra to get a 24/7 hotline for mission-critical projects. Moreover, uptime SLAs aren’t included in the price tags and must be bought separately.

Strato Pricing

Strato offers the following pricing plans:

Service	Monthly Pricing
Starter Hosting	€5 (first month free)
Basic (WordPress Hosting)	€5 (first month free)
VPS	€1
Dedicated Server	€32 (for first three months, then €64)

Try Strato

10. Kamatera

Kamatera is a veteran in the web hosting sphere with a portfolio comprising cloud servers, firewalls, virtual desktops, load balancers, cloud storage, etc.

You can use a Windows, Linux, or any custom OS server, starting at $4/month. Kamatera VPS comes pre-configured with cloud firewalls. You can pick from FortiGate VM, pfSense, Sophos, or set up a custom solution. You also have plenty ready-to-deploy apps in just about every category, including containers, databases, monitoring tools, analytics, search, and more with Kamatera Marketplace.

Kamatera provides a decent choice of 24 global datacenters across Europe, North America, Middle East, Asia, and Australia.

I particularly like their pricing section, where you can customize a server’s CPU, RAM, SSD, operating system, bandwidth, etc., and see their impact on the cost. You can also opt for add-ons, such as extended daily backups and server management.

To my disappointment, the Kamatera website has little information on server security. You have the product landing pages explaining the performance, scalability, and pricing without emphasizing security protocols. Though advanced users can set up firewall rules, monitoring tools, and more, I would advise beginners to look for a host that provides managed server monitoring and protection.

Kamatera Pricing

Kamatera’s pricing plan is shown below.

Service	Monthly Pricing
Cloud server	$4/month

Try Kamatera

11. Timme Hosting

Timme Hosting is a Germany-based provider of web hosting, e-commerce hosting, manager servers (VPS and dedicated), cloud servers, and object storage.

Straightaway, Timme Hosting comes out as one of the expensive service providers, with the introductory web hosting plan retailing at €19/month. However, that instant shock eases away the moment you see the features and the fact that Timme Hosting is not luring in customers with dirt-cheap first few months only to renew at exponentially higher pricing points.

Its web hosting subscriptions cover the basics very well with professional email, app installer, SSL certificate, DDoS protection, daily backups, 24/7 support and monitoring, malware protection, and automated attack defense. Furthermore, there are addons for additional storage, IP address, email storage, databases, PHP memory, and cron jobs.

You can upgrade to its managed virtual servers for resource isolation and even move to dedicated servers for hosting multiple projects.

Timme Hosting also has an offering for growing businesses—ScaleServer. This bills hourly, has isolated resources, and scales up as per requirements.

Timme Hosting Pricing

Timme Hosting offers the following plans:

Service	Pricing
Web Hosting	€19/month
Managed Virtual Server	€66/month
Managed Server	€149/month
ScaleServer	€0.0653 per hour (€43.89/month)

Try Timme Hosting

12. Profihost

Profihost is a German-based host that offers fully managed services for anyone looking to host online shops.

I liked the fact that Profihost provides thrice redundant infrastructure and offsite backups for utmost reliability, even with the base tier. This entry-level package remains performant even during uneven traffic fluctuation to let your customers shop without any interruption.

However, Profihost’s USP remains project consultation to advise you individually for maximum efficiency. Plus, every subscription provides a direct contact that you can ping 24/7 for assistance.

Bigger projects can bank on Profihost’s Managed Server, providing dedicated resources. This is an even better package with additional perks, such as website monitoring and performance profiling. It ensures your e-commerce shop remains constantly available and conducts regular audits for speed optimization.

In addition to these regular hosting subscriptions, Profihost provides related services separately. This category includes CDN, VPN, standard service, website monitoring, emergency support, performance profiling, cybercrime protection, and more.

Profihost Pricing

Profihost’s pricing plans are listed in the table below.

Service	Monthly Pricing
Managed Hosting	€49
Managed Server	€99

Try Profihost

13. Estugo

Estugo caters to beginners and mid-level projects with its web hosting, managed virtual servers, and e-commerce hosting plans.

Unsurprisingly, web hosting is the base tier, which Estugo retails at €3.99/month. However, unlike many other web hosts, you get clear-cut information regarding the resources (vCPU, RAM, etc.) per plan. While this is standard practice with virtual private servers, this is the first time I have seen a web host advertising resource isolation to their entry-level customers.

A step up from web hosting, Estugo’s VPS subscriptions come in two variants: managed and unmanaged. Besides an improved spec sheet, you get 1Gb networking, unlimited websites, dedicated IP, dedicated resources, 24/7 monitoring, 7-day backups, and an integrated firewall.

What I didn’t like was that Estugo charges a one-time setup fee for its vServer plans. Though a few hosts charge similarly, there are options where you can get setup fees waived with an annual commitment upfront. Unfortunately, Estugo has no such options yet.

Another not-so-good aspect is that you won’t have 24/7 support. While there is ever-present emergency assistance, Estugo has specific guidelines defining such situations. And unfortunately, even critical events such as a website outage don’t qualify as an emergency per Estugo if the users themselves cause them.

Frankly, this makes me recommend Estugo to only hobbyists since technical errors happen, even with the most experienced sysadmins, let alone by beginners or non-tech-savvy business owners.

Estugo Pricing

Estugo offers the following pricing plans:

Service	Monthly Pricing
Web Hosting	€3.99
Unmanaged VPS	€39.99
Managed VPS	€79.99

Try Estugo

14. All-Inkl

I have included All-Inkl for its German following and a surprising 3 months’ worth of free trial. They have a decent 4.3 Trustpilot rating from 258 reviews (as of this writing), which isn’t a small number for a web host with data centers in a single country.

Coming to the technicalities, the base plan nets for €4.95/month, offering 3 domains and 150 subdomains. You also get business emails with malware and spam filters. Furthermore, SSL certificates, SSH access, one-click app installer, and 24/7 hotline make the proposition worthwhile.

Setting the bar very high, All-Inkl openly states the number of users per server for their (shared) web hosting plans. 100 customers share the same hardware for the base package. This number reduces to 30 customers for All-Inkl’s top shared hosting tier, indicating the performance upgrade.

You can also pick managed servers from All-Inkl for dedicated resources. These are good bets for agencies, with the entry-level subscription letting you onboard 500 clients.

However, there is a critically important aspect All-Inkl didn’t pay any attention to in its landing pages—security. There’s no section defining All-Inkl’s approach to protecting its users from cyber-attacks.

Firewalls, DDoS attacks, Login Protection… the list is long, but either All-Inkl isn’t concerned about these sensitive issues, or it’s just poor marketing. Either way, this makes it challenging to recommend All-Inkl for business use cases.

All-Inkl Pricing

All-Inkl’s pricing plans are listed in the table below.

Service	Monthly Pricing
Web Hosting	€4.95
Managed Server	€99.95

Try All-Inkl

15. Domain Factory

Domain Factory is a web hosting provider from Germany, but has a global footprint spanning Europe, the US, and Asia. It has hosting subscriptions covering standard web hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS, managed cloud servers, email hosting, etc.

You get a clear indication of the resources with their shared web hosting. These hosting plans also add cPanel, one-click app installs, free SSL, NVMe SSDs, daily backups, and DDoS protection.

The next in line, VPS, is also similar in price and features. However, there are subtle differences. For instance, VPS tiers have a beefed-up spec sheet and root access, but don’t include cPanel.

An even better option is Domain Factory’s managed cloud servers. They are top-of-the-line plans with greater resources, including CPU, RAM, and 1 gigabit networking. These plans are also complimented with 24/7 performance and port monitoring.

Domain Factory Pricing

Domain Factory’s pricing plans are highlighted in the following table.

Service	Monthly Pricing
WordPress Hosting	€2.99 (renews at €4.99)
Web Hosting	€6.99
VPS	€6.99
Managed Cloud Server	€99.99

Try Domain Factory

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Hosting Platform for Germany

Choosing your web host is a vital decision for your business, and it’s best NOT to overlook certain aspects, including GDPR compliance, server location, and more, as discussed below.

GDPR Compliance

Europe is home to one of the most stringent data privacy laws in the world. Consequently, you need to ensure a GDPR-compliant hosting plan. You must be careful since GDPR compliance can vary among plans offered by the same host. That’s why it’s best to query sales in advance.

Data Center Location

No amount of performance optimizations can make up for what distance (and latency) does to networks. That’s why I would absolutely not advise hosting servers at long distances from your target audience, as this would result in a subpar user experience.

Support Language

Many German hosts have their websites (and support documentation) in their native language without any switch to English or another dialect. Likewise, support language proficiency is also a matter of concern, especially for on-call assistance. Therefore, this adds to your list of things to verify before taking out your credit card.

Scalability

This goes without saying, but enquire about scaling options if your website is expected to have traffic spikes. Some of these technologies can include vertical scaling (enhancing existing server), horizontal scaling (adding more servers), load balancing (distributing server load), CDNs (caching content at various locations), and more.

FAQs

References

Citations

1. 1. Software Hosted in Germany – Advantages of Domestic Data Storage