One.com Review

Jacob Jensen founded the Denmark-based One.com back in 2002.

Since then, they’ve grown into one of Europe’s biggest hosting companies, having 1,500,000 customers across 149 countries with almost the same number of employees.

Impressive – no doubt. But stateside, they’re still virtually unknown. Especially when you stack them up against the likes of HostGator, Bluehost, and GoDaddy.

So is that a good or a bad thing?

Have they been quietly going about their business, growing organically by word of mouth? Or is there a compelling reason you’ve never heard of them?

We purchased their cheapest plan, set up a WordPress website to test their service, and have been monitoring the performance ever since.

Now, let’s take a closer look at their performance so far.

General Info & Hosting Overview

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Pros of Using One.com Hosting

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One.com has backed up respectable load times with customer-friendly extras on each plan. And the pricing is among the most competitive we’ve seen.

Here’s a deep dive into our favorite One.com features:

1. Above-Average Load Time 501 ms

Google updated its mobile page speed benchmarks for companies.

Basically, they analyzed website speed across millions of sites and correlated the results to visitor behavior. For example, they found that “53% of mobile site visits leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.”

It makes sense when you think about it, right? Three seconds is almost an eternity when you’re browsing on your phone.

But here’s the most depressing part:

The average page loading time they saw was closer to 15 seconds! (Or nearly five times longer).

If you stand to lose half of your traffic when your pages don’t load within three seconds, just guess how many would leave if it took five times longer? Pretty much all of them, most likely.

Fortunately, our tests showed that One.com was able to consistently deliver an average of 501 ms over the past 12 months.

Do you know what that means?

That’s right: More happy site visitors.

2. Good Support

One.com is a European outfit that operates in almost 150 countries around the globe.

Admittedly, that probably makes customer support a logistical mess. They have to deal with tons of different languages and time zones that are on the polar opposites from each other.

Fortunately, they are doing a great job with this balancing act.

They have an extensive knowledge base to help you find answers to common questions. If that doesn’t work, they offer support phone numbers for various locations around the world.

Their email support promises to answer within 24 hours. They also have live chat that’s available in multiple different languages during local business hours or 24/7/365 for English.

We tested their 24/7 claims with a simple query, and Angel connected almost instantly.

3. SSL Certificate Included

SSL certificates offer shady web hosts another common upsell. They might even throw it in your account, ‘for free,’ only to stick you with a bill when it’s time to renew again.

Back in the day, you didn’t really need an SSL certificate. The only sites that used them were e-commerce shops or other sites that process credit card transactions.

They work by creating a secure connection between a visitor’s browser and your server, so no one could intercept any personal data being passed back and forth.

Cybersecurity has ratcheted up in recent years as the number of hacks, data leaks, and breaches continues to explode.

That prompted Google to add a measure to its market-leading Chrome browser that would effectively warn users when a website didn’t offer a secure connection.

The good news is that One.com offers a free Wildcard SSL Certificate with all of their plans.

4. Website Builder & WordPress (Easy Integration)

In an ideal world, you would just have an expert build a website for you.

The only problem, of course, is that it’s often expensive. You need to hire a designer to craft the aesthetic. Then, you still need a developer to transform mockups into a functional prototype.

Is this site for a business? You’ll still probably need more help, from someone to optimize it to others who can create the copy.

The point is: Custom websites ain’t cheap.

That’s where website builders come into play. They provide everyone from hobbyists to small business owners a user-friendly, DIY route to get a site up and running in no time.

You can often drag and drop different site elements, creating the look and feel of a custom site for only a few bucks a month.

You probably already recognize some of the most popular options, like Wix or Squarespace.

But here’s the thing:

If you go with one of those companies, you will have to use their own hosting, etc. This means you’re not free to shop around or pick and choose the best setup.

Or, if you start growing and want to move into a custom WordPress site down the road, you can’t. You’re stuck with their platform for the long haul.

One.com offers its own website builder with each plan, along with popular open-source apps like WordPress.

That means you can start simple and create your basic site with a website builder. Then, you can always expand into something more complex in the future.

5. Custom Control Panel

One.com uses its own custom-made control panel instead of the most commonly used cPanel.

With a custom control panel, we can never be entirely sure if we’re going to like it or not. Some hosts have very beginner-friendly and innovative control panels and some hosts make it too difficult to use.

Luckily, One.com delivers an easy-to-use custom control panel. You can manage your account details, file, and security, domains, and more from the dashboard.

Cons of Using One.com Hosting

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Our test site on One.com performed well in the speed tests and customer support.

That, in addition to their user-friendly site builder, and SSL certificate, makes it a decent option for new companies.

But there are also some drawbacks.

1. Limited Cheapest Plan

One.com’s cheapest plan is rather limited.

You only get one website, 50 GB of storage, 100 email accounts, and 512 MB RAM. Not to mention, 1-click WordPress, staging environment, and free WordPress migration tool are also not included in the Beginner Plan.

There are many other cheap hosts out there who offer more features in the same price range.

2. Poor Uptime – 99.76%

During our last testing period, One.com delivered a solid 99.95% uptime putting them nicely to our pros section.

However, recently there has been a huge drop in their uptime, coming at 99.76% during the last 12 months. There were 64 outages with almost 21 hours of downtime.

Mostly, One.com has delivered very strong uptime (fluctuating between 99.98%-100%) over the past year. But, there were two poor months (April 2020 and January 2021) where the uptime was only 99.60% and 96.84% respectively, and took down their overall average.

Last 12-month average uptime:

• March 2021: 100%
• February 2021: 100%
• January 2021: 96.84%
• December 2020: 100%
• November 2020: 100%
• October 2020: 100%
• September 2020: 99.99%
• August 2020: 100%
• July 2020: 100%
• June 2020: 99.98%
• May 2020: 100%
• April 2020: 99.60%

3. High Renewal Prices and No Month-to-Month Option

One.com initial prices are quite cheap, starting from $2.49/month. However, once your starter period ends, the price renews to $5.49/month, double the initial price.

Moreover, since One.com doesn’t offer a month-to-month payment option, only annual, you are committed to paying a lot of money in advance.

4. 15-Day Money-Back Guarantee

The standard money-back guarantee in the hosting industry is 30 days. This gives you a month to test services and decided whether you’re happy with them.

One.com, however, only gives you 15 days to try out their services. Sure, it’s better than nothing, but it’s still a short time compared to other hosts on the market, where some of them even give a 90-day money-back guarantee.

One.com Pricing, Hosting Plans & Quick Facts

One.com hosting offers five shared hosting plans:

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Quick Facts

• Free domain? Free for the first year.
• Ease of Signup: Easy signup process.
• Money-Back: 15-days money-back guarantee.
• Payment Methods: Major credit cards and PayPal accepted.
• Hidden Fees and Clauses: According to their Terms of Service, “Traffic is basically unlimited. However, traffic must be normal in nature and not disrupt that of other customers. If a customer’s traffic disrupts that of others, One.com reserves the right to close the customer’s webspace without notice and/or make a separate charge for the traffic. One.com reserves the absolute right to decide whether or not traffic is excessive. On the closure of a webspace, no refund will be made of any subscription paid in advance.”
• Upsells: A few upsells and high renewal fees for extra products.
• Account Activation: Fast account activation.
• Control Panel and Dashboard Experience: Custom control panel
• Installation of Apps and CMSs (WordPress, Joomla, etc.): 1-click install tool to easily install popular apps and CMSs.

Do We Recommend One.com?

Yes and no.

One.com started strong. Their average page speed was pretty good. Support options were also fast, which is impressive given their large, worldwide footprint.

Their uptime isn’t bad either – if you don’t count in their two poor months where the uptime was below-average.

And we liked the fact that they threw in some extra stuff, like an SSL certificate, and a website builder.

Unfortunately, there were some drawbacks that we could not overlook (high renewal fees, limited features, and a 15-day money-back guarantee) that makes One.com just a bit too average for our taste.

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Do you have any personal experience with One.com – positive or negative? If so, please leave a transparent and honest review below.