We had one of our resident hosting experts, sign up for a Contabo account and take it for a spin. Below are Thitraapp’s ratings of the Contabo experience, broken down by the types of hosting Contabo offers.
If you decide to go with Contabo, you may get a discount by using our link to sign up. While we often make commissions on purchases made through our links, this had no bearing on Thitraapp’s review.
Contabo’s favorable pricing scheme is its main forte. One recurrent term in the provider’s customer reviews is “affordability”. After making my findings, I discovered that Contabo’s web hosting services were indeed very cheap compared to its competitors. The provider offers shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud VDS, and dedicated servers. It also provides a 14-day money-back guarantee and accepts payment via PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
| Plan Name | Space | Bandwidth | Panel | Email Addresses | Price |
| Webspace Package M | 50 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 1000 | $3.99/month |
| Webspace Package L | 100 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 2000 | $6.99/month |
| Webspace XL | 250 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | 5000 | $10.99/month |
| Webspace Package XXL | 500 GB | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | $12.99/month |
Contabo’s shared hosting service is suitable for individuals who require simple and inexpensive hosting solutions for their websites. Each plan comes with free domains and SSL certificates, DDoS protection, PHP support, PhPMyAdmin, unlimited bandwidth, and cPanel. If you intend to start out with your first website, I recommend you choose the Webspace Package L plan as it is cheap ($6.99/month), has sufficient server resources and databases, and includes a one-click installer.
| Plan Name | Space | Traffic/Port Speed | RAM | Number of CPU Cores | Price |
| Cloud VPS S | 50 GB NVMe or 200 GB SSD | 32 TB Traffic | 8 GB | 4 vCPU | $8.49/month |
| Cloud VPS M | 100 GB NVMe or 400 GB SSD | 32 TB Traffic | 16 GB | 6 vCPU | $13.99/month |
| Cloud VPS L | 200 GB NVMe or 800 GB SSD | 32 TB Traffic | 30 GB | 8 vCPU | $22.99/month |
| Cloud VPS XL | 400 GB NVMe or 1.6 TB SSD | 32 TB Traffic | 60 GB | 10 vCPU | $40.49/month |
| Storage VPS S | 400 GB SSD | 32 TB Traffic200 Mbit/s Port | 4 GB | 2 vCPU | $8.49/month |
| Storage VPS M | 800 GB SSD | 32 TB Traffic400 Mbit/s Port | 8 GB | 4 vCPU | $13.99/month |
| Storage VPS L | 1.6 TB SSD | 32 TB Traffic600 Mbit/s Port | 16 GB | 6 vCPU | $22.99/month |
| Storage VPS XL | 3.2 TB SSD | 32 TB Traffic1 Gbit/s Port | 32 GB | 8 vCPU | $40.49/month |
Contabo’s virtual private servers are more sophisticated than its shared hosting plans because they offer guaranteed server resources. The web host offers both cloud and storage VPS, with both featuring 32 TB of traffic, private networking, constant DDoS protection, API, CLI, developer features, and DNS management. However, the cloud VPS plans present NVMe technology, while the storage VPS plans prioritize SSD storage capacity. If you need a speedy and inexpensive VPS plan with abundant server resources, I would suggest that you try Contabo’s Storage VPS L plan.
| Plan Name | Space | Traffic/Port Speed | RAM | Number of Cores | Price |
| Cloud VDS S | 180 GB NVMe | 32 TB Traffic250 Mbit/s Port | 24 GB | 3 | $57.99/month |
| Cloud VDS M | 240 GB NVMe | 32 TB Traffic500 Mbit/s Port | 32 GB | 4 | $68.99/month |
| Cloud VDS L | 360 GB NVMe | 32 TB Traffic750 Mbit/s Port | 48 GB | 6 | $103.99/month |
| Cloud VDS XL | 480 GB NVMe | 32 TB Traffic1 Gbit/s Port | 64 GB | 8 | $137.99/month |
| Cloud VDS XXL | 720 GB NVMe | 32 TB Traffic1 Gbit/s Port | 96 GB | 12 | $194.99/month |
Contabo’s cloud VDS (virtual dedicated servers) service is a hybrid of its cloud VPS and dedicated servers. Each VDS plan comes with private networking, dedicated server resources, Enterprise-level NVMe SSD storage, 32 TB Traffic, API, CLI, and dedicated IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. If you want budget-friendly access to dedicated server resources, NVMe, and a speedy virtual private cloud, I recommend the Cloud VDS M plan.
| Plan Name | Space | Traffic/Port Speed | RAM | Number of Cores | Price |
| Cloud VDS XL | 480 GB NVMe | 32 TB Traffic1 Gbit/s Port | 64 GB | 8 | $137.99/month |
| Intel10-Core | 256 GB REG ECC | 32 TB Traffic1 Gbit/s Port | – | 10 | $164.99/month |
| Intel Dual 10-Core | 256 GB REG ECC | 32 TB Traffic1 Gbit/s Port | – | 20 | $194.99/month |
| AMD EPYC 16 Cores | 256 GB REG ECC | 32 TB Traffic1 Gbit/s Port | Up to 512 GB | 16 | $249.99/month |
| AMD EPYC 32 Cores | 256 GB REG ECC | 32 TB Traffic1 Gbit/s Port | Up to 2 TB RAM | 32 | $329.99/month |
Contabo’s dedicated servers are a more advanced hosting type than its cloud VDS, featuring bare metal, 100% dedicated resource allocation, and individual hardware configuration. All plans present 32 TB traffic, remote management, web UI, always-on DDoS protection, and DNS management. If you seek a cost-effective immediate upgrade from cloud VDS and extra CPU cores, I suggest you purchase an Intel Dual 10-Core plan.
Some common web hosting tools and features that come with Contabo include:
Contabo is a reasonable web host when it comes to performance. In terms of speed, Contabo recorded favorable response times ranging from 36 ms to 384 ms when tested for five different locations (Dallas, London, Seattle, Tel Aviv, and Hong Kong). The fastest response time was in Dallas and the slowest was in Hong Kong. My server location was in the US, so the proximity may have influenced my result.
Its page loading times are also impressive with consistently quick load times of around 2-3 seconds. However, the provider recedes in uptime with an annual mean availability of 95% globally.
Contabo offers fairly good customer service accessible via phone calls, email, support tickets, and its self-help/FAQ section (knowledge base). However, the provider does not provide live chat support.
Contabo’s technical agents can be reached via phone from 10 am to 8 pm CET (UTC+1) from Monday to Friday. The service team is helpful and strictly adheres to its period of operation. I tried putting a call across to the agents around 6 am to no avail but was able to reach them by 11 am. Fortunately, they don’t charge extra fees for phone support.
Contabo does not clearly specify its email support’s opening and response times. I sent an email to the support team but was informed that they had received a high number of emails from their customers. So, I was redirected to fill out a support ticket form and wait for a response. I got a response after 3 hours, although it was not helpful.
