I have been using 1and1 hosting since first “going online” in 2005. I have found their support to be very responsive and knowledgeable. Perfect for both absolute beginners and experienced web masters. I recommend them highly. Tremendous value!

There are way too many options for me to do justice in this short post.

- jms

The only thing 1and1 has going for them is price. Nothing else. Their support is slow (average 18-24hrs for response sent through their contact form while I’m logged in) and seemingly dimwitted (they don’t actually read the emails sent to them and send canned replies).

I have documentation for both examples from these past 3 days.

I’m willing to admit that like any company/service, it’s the personal experience that matters. I like some hosting services that other people hate, etc. But for anyone who’s used other domain registrars, they’ll notice a tremendous lack of features and ease of use when going over to 1and1. Putting up with hassles and headaches is the trade off for price.

Don’t ever register a domain name with 1and1, as trying to transfer it away is a nightmare. I registered many .uk domains with 1and1, and each and every time I had to download a form, print it, fill it in and fax it back to them. Then wait 48 hours to process the form before agreeing to release my domain name. Its a complete joke.

I tried to transfer a registrar and domain over to 1&1, and they have totally messed it up. At one point they even lost the domain. Whois said it was held in 1&1 but it was not assigned to my account. My 2 domains are somewhere still inside their system. I don’t have access to them. I’m getting absolutely nowhere with their inept customer support, who by the way have no way to escalate problems – apparently they don’t have anyone they can call to push a difficult problem to or find out what is going on. My customers haven’t been able to access their email or web services for over a week. I’ve told this to 1and1 but they could not care less. I’m currently at the point where they have decided to cancel my 2 domains and give them back to the world. Now I have to download a form print it out sign it, email/fax it back to them.
This has been going on for 3 weeks and it still on going when is this nightmare going to end. Do yourselves a favour and stay away from 1 and 1.
Rating: zero/5

Ignore my last, there doesn’t seem to be any way of getting to page 2 of the comments!

Support is rubbish, domain buying with them is cheap, but poor service. Constantly sent automated responses – never again!

Have been using 1and1 for my domains. Can’t agree with “anon” – they are cheap, efficient and I like the auto renewal feature.

We Initially debated who to host through, but after reading a helpful review found on Google – 1and1.hostinggeek.co.uk – we decided to go with 1and1.

1and1 currently power several of our websites and continue to do a good job, to date.

Thier customer service isn’t bad – could possibly be better, but this is usually the case with large companies. Uptime is very respectable. 1and1 have proven to be one of the best hosting companies we have worked with so far.

4/5 (due to cusomter service) But, highly reccomended.

Been with these guys around 4 years. They are ok for a small start up website. Reasonable support usually for basic queries.

BUT
the server is and has always been very slow
technical support is in india and often i have just given up as I could not understand the staff – due to their limited english
Their back ups are poor and despite their claims
leaving them is made very – very difficult especially transferring domains away.

In short if its a small basic website they are ok – if its anything more avoid them like the plague.

oops
1 more thing there servers are based in germany – effecting your google ratings if you are based here in the uk. ;-(

I was using one and one shared hosting. They limit the maximum memory for PHP to less than 20megabytes. As a result I couldn’t run more than about 15 wordpress plugins. The price jump was quite unreasonable. Tech support was really poor. I never got an answer to any of my questions.

Happy to have left.

Truly the worst Internet company in the world.
My personal experience with them has resulted in a lengthy (and on-going) lawsuit against them.

Many hundreds & thousands of customers have been defrauded by their obscene business practices. To say their ‘customer support’ is a joke – is a joke in itself!

Much of their fraudulent activites relate to charging for non-existant or cancelled services. Many customers have even had ‘debt collection’ letters sent to them for such non-existant services.
Attempts to actually cancel services are met with great problems and resistance.
Many other customers have lost access to their services & domains, despite them being paid in advance.
This company has been operating like this for over 5 years.
It is a true and utter disgrace.

I have used 1&1 for over 3 years now and found their services to be great. I have also had great support when I need assistance and can’t really grumble about anything. So going with 1&1 is a good choice.

Abs

I cancelled my VPS with 1and1 at the end of November, 2009 and they still sending me bills at January, 2010.

They are just horrible.

1and1 can be a good choice for only small sites with few visitors. They oversell A LOT. Also the customer care support is unprofessional. It seems their support is located either in India or Phillipines – it is difficult to get anybody with fluent English at all.
They overbilled us for cancelled domain names few times, each time by $1000 or $2000. They only accept cancellations by fax or e-mail and this process is very unreliable – you send them fax or e-mail to inform you don’t want the domain name anymore (say for the next year) and then they still bill you.
Complaints don’t work (see the point about customer support in Phillipines).

With 3 years experience with one & one, the only thing i am happy with the good up time, other than that, you cant cancel anything with them because the option to cancel doesn’t exist. You have to struggle to cancel anything. They sell you all other plug in’s you could also get free from elsewhere.