Released in 2014, RAIDBOXES is a newcomer, but a kid that grew up pretty quickly. From the beginning, his vision was clear to provide his clients with easy WordPress hosting solutions with excellent performance and top-notch security. The company is headquartered in Germany, with all of its data centers and a head office located in Münster, Germany. This made it quite a practical option for companies with a particular focus on European customers. No wonder they were at one time considered the number one WordPress hosting experts in Europe. It's also worth noting that RAIDBOXES offer optional eco 'climate' WordPress hosting, where a tree is planted for every website you host with them. RAIDBOXES' main site doesn't stand out much from those of similar web hosts, mixing shades of bright blue and white and using an all-too-familiar layout. While not overly interesting in its visuals, the website definitely passed the test for usability, intuitiveness, and overall functionality, and everything you need to know before getting started is just a few clicks away. In addition to English, the RAIDBOXES site is fully translated into ten languages, including German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Polish, Czech and Danish Czech. RAIDBOXES publishes its own online magazine available in the same languages as its website. He has a large number of articles on a wide range of hosting-related topics, such as color psychology, WordPress guides, social media platforms, web design trends, and more. The blog feels alive and up to date with current trends in the world. RAIDBOXES has established a strong presence on various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and XING.
As with other WordPress hosting providers, RAIDBOXES costs a bit more, but the company packs a lot of features for the price (Image credit: RAIDBOXES)
Packages and prices
RAIDBOXES wants you covered, whether you're a blogger, freelance writer, or looking to start a WordPress business or open a WooCommerce online store. Currently, there are seven pre-built WordPress plans ranging from €15 ($17,96) to €300 ($359,37) per month. Other than that, if none of these things seem right for you, customers have the option to create a custom plan, which is especially targeted at large enterprises and mission-critical websites. At a minimum, the "Starter" plan will get you 2GB of RAM, a virtual processor core, and 5GB of SSD storage, which is expandable. Plus, you'll get SSH (Secure Shell) with WP-CLI and Git pre-installed, a free SSL certificate, and nightly backups. Although RAIDBOXES does not offer a money-back guarantee, there is a free trial and it is available with all plans besides the "Individual" plan, which is understandable. The duration of the trial depends on the plan you want to try, and varies from four to fourteen days. Regarding payment methods, RAIDBOXES accepts debit or credit cards.
Ease of use
Choosing an optimal hosting solution with RAIDBOXES should be a simple and straightforward experience, as all their plans are presented in a simple and highly detailed way. One feature that we should look out for at the beginning is the free WordPress migration option. That is, if you already have a WordPress site, it will be transferred by the RAIDBOXES technical team within two business days. After choosing a plan, you will be offered to start your free trial, for which you will need to create an account with RAIDBOXES. First, you will need to provide an email address, first name, last name, and password. On the same page, you will be invited to read and study the RAIDBOXES data privacy policy, the DPA (Data Processing Agreement) and the terms and conditions. These can all appear in German (in our case it is), so if you don't know that, be sure to change the language in the navigation bar.
The RAIDBOXES Dashboard makes things simple with an intuitive layout (Image Credit: RAIDBOXES) Once the registration process is complete, you will confirm the package you want and decide all the little details about it. Although domain name registration is not included in any of the plans, you can get one at a fairly affordable price. The RAIDBOXES dashboard has a simple and clean design, which makes the user experience quite intuitive, and managing all aspects of your account with it should be an easy task. Here you can create new "boxes" (ie WordPress sites), transfer websites, register a new domain or start the RAIDBOXES mail service. Your newly created and fully managed WordPress website should appear in a matter of minutes. Since you are probably using a free trial (the duration depends on the plan), you will not be charged immediately, but only after the trial period expires, that is, if you want to continue using the RAIDBOXES services.
We use GTmetrix to test the uptime and response time of our RAIDBOXES site (Image credit: GTmetrix)
Speed and experience
RAIDBOXES promises high performance, which is not too hard to believe, since they use NGINX servers with server-side caching, PHP 7 protocol, HTTP/2, as well as blazing fast SSD hard drives. Anyway, as usual, we test the speed performance of their main website using GTmetrix. The loading speed of the RAIDBOXES website was above average, although we were not very impressed with the results we got. The full website load time was 2,7 seconds, which looks pretty good compared to the average of 8,2. All other core web metrics were also strong, except for one. The total block time was 295 milliseconds, and according to GTmetrix recommendations, the result should be 150 milliseconds or less. Taking this and everything into account, the main RAIDBOXES website was rated B (86%). While RAIDBOXES doesn't make any concrete promises regarding its uptime, the results we got after monitoring its main website over the long two-week test period were quite promising. UptimeRobot (the monitoring service we usually use) could not record a single moment of downtime, which promises us 100% uptime.
RAIDBOXES offers support via live chat and phone, and the company's experts are available to answer tough WordPress questions (Image credit: RAIDBOXES)
Support
Upon entering the RAIDBOXES website, you will be asked to ask any questions you may have through its live chat feature. This option is open from 8 am to 10 pm (including weekends and holidays) and is available in English and German. They promise to respond in 5 minutes or less, which has been confirmed by our own experience.
RAIDBOXES has several helpful tutorials on their site (Image Credit: RAIDBOXES) On top of that, you can contact them via a phone number or visit their "Help Center" if you'd rather find an answer on your own. There you will find a terribly modest collection of articles (six, to be precise), though well written. You are invited to use the search box, but given the number of articles available, it doesn't make sense. In addition to this, the RAIDBOXES site provides access to a "System Status" section where you can get all important updates on the status of your systems and (if necessary) report any problems with RAIDBOXES.
Competition
RAIDBOXES and Flywheel have taken managed WordPress hosting to the next level by creating a user-friendly interface, offering a host of compelling features and all backed by strong customer support. However, the smallest of Flywheel's plans (conveniently dubbed "Tiny") starts at $13 per month, making it one of the most expensive options around. With RAIDBOXES, a "mini" plan is available for small WordPress projects and costs €9 (€10.80) per month, which is slightly cheaper. Like RAIDBOXES, Lightning Base has chosen managed WordPress solutions as its area of expertise. However, since Lightning Base is based in the United States, while RAIDBOXES is based in Germany, this could be a problem for several of its potential users. Another difference is that with Lightning Base all plans come with a standard 30-day money-back guarantee, while RAIDBOXES offers free trials for four to fourteen days. While HostGator provides WordPress hosting with a host of practical benefits, if you want high-end, fully managed WordPress, you're better off using RAIDBOXES as your host. For example, a free migration feature with HostGator is limited to a maximum of three sites (depending on the plan), while with RAIDBOXES you have no limits. The same goes for Bluehost, though it offers a wide variety of useful features with its managed WordPres plans. These include daily backups, free SSL, daily malware detection and removal, additional themes and tools powered by Jetpack, integrated SEO, and more. Bluehost and Hostgator offer a lot, but RAIDBOXES' dedication to all-inclusive managed WordPress solutions sets them apart and makes them the most highly recommended of the three.
Final verdict
RAIDBOXES is an easily recommended WordPress hosting provider with excellent value for money and flexible plans that can be tailored to suit most needs. With its free trial, users can get familiar with its easy-to-use interface and test everything before making a big decision. However, those who aren't much into managed WordPress will have to look elsewhere, perhaps taking a look at what hosts like HostGator and Bluehost have to offer.