Contabo Review – A Genuine Customers Experience With Contabo

Contabo Review

Summary

Contabo offers cheap Windows and Linux VPS servers in both the USA and Germany. Plenty of CPU and Ram available and on 1.000 Mbit unmetered ports -what's not to like? 😉

Ease of Use

Features

Documentation/tutorials

Customer Service

Value for Money

Likelihood to Recommend

Reader Rating0 Votes

Pros

Affordable price

Unmetered traffic on a 1.000 Mbit port

Both Windows and Linux servers

Root access

Data center both in the USA and Germany

24/7/365 Phone support

Cons

No chat support

No International Toll free support number

4.6

Score

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Everybody working with SEO requires reliable and fast Web Hosting. In this Contabo review, you would be able to decide if Cotabo is a web hosting provider qualified for your needs and budget.

In this Contabo review, I will share the pros and cons of being a customer for about four years. 

Who is Contabo, and where are they located?

Contabo is a web hosting company established back in 2003 in Germany. In the beginning, they were named Giga-International, but in 2013 they changed the name to Contabo GMBH.

Contabo states that they currently host more than 5.000 servers and that business keeps expanding rapidly.

In 2009 their data center in Munich, Germany, with enough room for more than 4.000 servers. 

The increasing number of new customers turned into higher demand for space, so in 2014 Contabo opened its second data center in Nuremberg, Germany.

The Nuremberg hosting facility has a 1.700 m² data floor with space for 10.000 servers. It also has a 700 m²  office and service premises.  

Contabo claims that they monitor their data centers and infrastructure 365 days a year (holidays and weekends included).

The third data center in the Contabo hosting environment was opened in St. Louis, Missouri (USA). The current capacity has room for 1.500 servers and includes an option for expanding. 

Contabo offers their customers hosting solutions for single sites, multiple sites, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers. 

What Types Of Hosting Does Contabo Offer?

Contabo offers the following web hosting types – all plans include free traffic, backups, DDoS protection, and free website builder.

• Shared hosting
• VPS
• Virtual Dedicated Servers
• Dedicated Servers
• Outlet Servers

Contabo Shared Hosting Review (Basic package)

Features of the basic plans:

Contabo offers four different shared packages named “M,” “L,” “XL,” and “XXL.”

All features being offered on the shared hosting plans

Additional features that can be added: 

• 1 GB extra disk space and extra 
• Extra subdomains
• The different domain name(s)
• Extra MySQL database

Conclusion about the shared plans

Considering that even the smallest hosting plans provide 50 GB of disk space for your website and unlimited traffic, DDoS protection and backups make even the small plan “M” a great bargain.

On top of that, you get access to many scripts and functionality via your control panel right off the bat. 

If you compare with some big US-based Web Hosting companies, Contabo’s smallest plan outperforms other companies’ bigger hosting plans on shared plans. 

Contabo even offers you a monthly subscription – other hosting services often require 12,24 or 36 months subscriptions. And even then, they are still not able to match the prices.  

If you plan to get a domain name, start a WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, or similar, you get full bang for your bucks. You can also use their free website builder. 

There are plenty of applications available via their one-click installer. 

Contabo VPS review

Contabo offers seven different VPS plans on two different co-locations EU and USA. The features include DDOS protection, backups, unlimited traffic on 100-1000 Mbit ports. 

You can choose between AMD or Intel CPU with up to 10 cores and up to 60 GB of RAM. 

All VPS have root access.

Features:  

On top of the available features, you can have your VPS configured as you please. 

You can choose between the following operating systems (OS) installations:

• CentOS 8
• CentOS 7
• Debian 10
• Debian 9
• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 18.04
• Ubuntu 16.04
• Fedora 32
• openSUSE Leap 15.1
• FreeBSD 12.1
• Arch Linux

Windows Server 2012R2 Datacenter (64 Bit) The bigger VPS also offers Windows Server 2016 and 2019 Datacenter (64 bit).

Administrative panel (add-On)

• cPanel/WHM
• Plesk Obsidian Webhost Edition
• Plesk Obsidian Web Pro Edition
• Webmin
• LAMP
• Webmin + LAMP

Additional add-ons:

• Additional IP Adress
• Managed Server
• Full Monitoring
• Instant Setup
• SSL certificate
• SSL certificate (Wildcard)
• Additional FTP Storage(For backups) 
• Individual reverse DNS (=PTR) entry

 Full VPS feature list

The installation cost depends on your contract (Free installation with a 24 months contract).

Conclusion: Great VPS And Affordable pricing

Once again, Contabo is generous with their hosting packages. For a low price, it is possible to get a super-fast server with plenty of disk space (Go for an SSD for maximum speed).

With up to 10 cores and 60 GB of ram, there should be plenty of power enough for all your hosting needs. 

What I like most is the broad offering of OS and administrative panels. You can stick to their free hosting control panel or pay an extra fee for cPanel/WHM or Plesk. 

At the moment, I have two VPS Windows servers I use for web scraping, rank tracking, and SEO audits, and I had plenty of time to review them.

I enjoy having a blazing fast server where I don’t need to worry about bandwidth and stability.  So far, I haven’t had any issues for more than four years, so I think I will stick around. 

If you compare contabo’s VPS pricing with typical US-based hosting companies, you will probably notice that those companies charge the same for shared WordPress WebSpace Package as Contabo does for a small VPS.

Did I forget to mention the unlimited traffic? 🙂  

Other solutions offered

Virtual dedicated server:

A virtual dedicated server is a combination of a VPS and a Dedicated server. A virtual dedicated server is a great hosting solution that gives you dedicated computer power without sharing resources.

The product line brings you high performance with a 1:8 core to  RAM ratio, 100% NVMe SSD as well as physical access to CPU cores.  

Virtual Dedicated servers are available in both EU and the US with the following specs.

• Physical Cores: From 3- 8
• RAM: From 24 GB to 64 GM RAM
• NVME SSD: From 180 GB to 480 GB
• Port speed from 250 Mbit to 1 Gbit

Additional features:

• Quick Provisioning
• Unlimited traffic
• Dedicated Physical Cores
• Ram Optimized 1:8 Core to RAM Ratio
• 100% NVME SSD
• Multiple Linux distributions
• Extra SSD Storage (Add-on)
• One-Click Backup (Coming soon)
• DDOS Protection
• Windows Available (Add-on)
• Self-Upgrade through web interface (coming soon)
• Nested virtualization Possible
• Dedicated Bandwith (Add-on)
• Monitoring Available (Add-on)
• Root Acess
• Reboot and OS Reinstall (Via Web interface)
• VNC Acess
• 1 IP Adress
• /64 IPv6 Network 
• Additional IPs Available (Add-on)
• DNS Management (Via Web interface) 
• Reverse DNS
• cPanel or Plesk (Add-on)
• Free control panels included
• Extra domains can be added to the server (Add-on)
• SSL Certificate can be added (Add-on)

Conclusion: Virtual Dedicated servers:

Once again, unlimited traffic, blazing-fast NVME SSD drives plenty of CPU Power and Ram. Enough horsepower and almost as fast as a dedicated server.

This is a perfect solution if you want an even more dedicated webspace package compared to contabo’s regular VPS. But still at a very affordable price.

The specs should be sufficient for most web applications. Running a dedicated server is for advanced users. 

Dedicated servers – Raw Power Plan

This is raw computer power when it is best. Here you get the latest customizable hardware, unlimited traffic, and the highest level of server availability, as well as flexibility and efficient server hosting.

Dedicated servers are the kind of webspace package; only power users will choose.   

Dedicated servers specifications 

CPU´s: Choose between:

Intel Xeon E5 263v4 CPU

2 x  Intel Xeon E5 263v4 CPU

AMD EPYC 7282 CPU

2 x AMD EPYC 7282 CPU

Ram: From 256 GB up to 2 TB

Port speed: 1 Gigabit

Colocation: EU Or US

Server features: Like Virtual Dedicated servers

Conclusion: Great Affordable Performance Available

Dedicated servers are not exactly a webspace package for an average user. So unless you are not a system administrator, this might be a bit overkill unless you have server experience with hosting and server management.

Perhaps you want to impress your friends and build a super-fast Minecraft server – then here is your chance! These beasts should be fast enough, even during peak times! 🙂

The price range is 129.99 – 229.99 EUR per month. 

Outlet Servers 

If you want a dedicated server but a bit cheaper, you can choose one of Contabos Outlet servers. 

These servers are not as powerful as the dedicated servers but still have decent hardware. 

The specs for Outlet servers are:

CPU: 

Intel Core i7 CPU  (4 x 2.66 GHz) 

Intel Core i7 CPU (6 x 3.20 GHz)

Intel Core i7 3930k CPU or 4930K (6 x 3.20 GHz)

Ram: 12, 24 or 64 GB

HD/SSD:

2000 GB or 8b GB SSD + 2000 GB HDD or 256 GB SSD + 3000 GB HDD

Port speed: 

100 Mbit

Colocation: 

EU (Germany) only 

Prices: 49.99 EUR, 69.99 EUR or 79.99 EUR (Additional add-ons available)

What kind of Customer service and support are offered?

Contabos customer support team offers technical support and is available on phone and email 365 days a year (including weekends and holidays). Their opening hours are from 8 AM to 11 PM UTC+2.

From my experience, the support team is friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable.

 I think it is an advantage that you don’t need to deal with a ticket system (where you forgot your password anyway).

Sometimes it is faster to make a quick phone call and get an issue solved while talking with a helpful technician.

Here you can just give them a call or bump them a mail. The only downside is that Contabo doesn’t offer a toll-free phone number, but on the other hand – I prefer the cheap pricing on the hosting plans.

No chat support at the moment

At the moment, they don’t offer chat support, but I would not be surprised that they would come now when they have launched their US data center. 

Does Contabo offer Tutorials? 

If you struggle with Plesk, cPanel, VNC, or SSL certificates, there are plenty of tutorials to check out. 

Multiple Award-winning company: The Best datacenter in Germany

Most hosting companies like to brag about how good they are, how fast their servers are, the fantastic uptime guarantees, upload speed, the best load times, and extra features. 

Contabo can back up their claims with external rewards. 

Here is a list of the most recent awards they won

“Very Good” – Chip Hotline Test (2019)

Winner – Best German Data Center (2018)

1st place – Chip Hotline test (2018)

Winner – Best German Data Center (2017)

Premium Web Host – HOSTtest

Reviewed Provider at Webhostlist.com

Uptime Guarantee

The average uptime guaranteed by Contabo is 95%, which might push customers to demand some sort of guarantee away. Still, according to their recent press release, Contabo’s uptime goes up as high as 99.9%.

Test and trials

Contabo does not offer any trials; however, you can test the cPanel setup. The minimum contract length with Contabo is one month. 

Server locations

Munich, Nuremberg (EU, Germany) and St. Louis Missouri, USA

Colocation

Contabo provides secure and fully powered housing for your private servers. Also, there will be an associate on standby for server monitoring and maintenance 365 days a year.

Dedicated IP address

All VPS, Virtual servers, and Outlet servers come with a free dedicated IP

What Payment options does Contabo offer?

Contabo offers three different payment options: PayPal, Skrill (Creditcards) as well as Bank transfer. 

Verdict and my results of this Contabo review

I have had 3 Windows VPS (currently, I have two). Each time I got a confirmation mail instantly. Typically within a couple of hours, the servers were provisioned via Contabos automatic setup process and ready for use. 

When you compare the price you pay with the features you get, it is almost a no brainer. 

However, if you are a total newbie investing in your first VPS, there are a few things to consider before signing up for a plan.

The main thing is that you do have support on hardware, the Internet, and the server, of course. But there is a reason why Contabo offers a full monitoring service. Consider what kind of service you need. 

I have only contacted their support 3-4 times during the years, and each time I got a prompt and helpful reply I could use.

The different control panels are pretty straight forward. If it is your first VPS, I strongly suggest that you try to “fool around” before making the VPS your primary hosting environment.

One of the things I considered terrific is that they offer unlimited bandwidth. 

Usually, you would see some kind of limitation – but here, it is completely unlimited bandwidth. If you want to max out a 100 Mbit port, you can do it.

If you are a semi advance user or trained system administrator, you would love all the features available. You would not find a cheaper host with the same features anywhere (Trust me, I have looked).

The good thing about Contabo is that you can grow with the company. If you have one site or are looking to host multiple sites, they can offer a suitable hosting solution.

With thousands of customers and multiple co-locations, I think it is safe to assume that the company would stick around in the future. 

Is Contabo the perfect host for your website?

If you have a basic knowledge of web hosting, you got a winner! The affordable plans should be able to fulfill your web hosting requirements.

Check Contabos website and review the prices here