manitu web hosting: plans, backups and data centre in St. Wendel

For the reference project we look at web hosting M, manitu’s entry-level plan. It contains everything a WordPress website with its own domain needs: an included domain ending in .de, .com, .net or .org, unlimited email addresses with 25 mailboxes, free SSL certificates and daily backups. There are therefore no extra costs for a domain or email, and according to the plan comparison manitu charges no setup fee for any package.

For plan M, manitu uses an introductory price: for the first six months you pay considerably less, after that the regular monthly price applies. Both prices count towards the cost over 24 months. The contract terms matter:

• Web hosting M has a minimum term of twelve months; after that the contract renews by one month at a time.
• The first twelve months are billed in advance, after that six months at a time.
• According to the plan comparison, the notice period is two weeks.
• The larger plans L, XL and XXL have a minimum term of only one month but are also billed six months in advance.

The included domain is only part of the price while the package runs and has its own contract terms; you cancel the package and the domain separately. Prices on the website depend on the VAT country you select. This comparison uses prices including German VAT.

At manitu you install WordPress via the one-click applications in the customer menu. Besides WordPress, ClassicPress, Joomla, TYPO3, Nextcloud and Matomo are among the options. According to the help page, manitu does not offer managed WordPress, not even for an extra charge. Updates, plugins and the security of your WordPress installation are therefore up to you, although WordPress can now install updates largely on its own. The provider does not describe a staging feature.

Even the entry-level plan is well equipped for technical projects:

• SSH accounts with Bash or ZSH, up to ten in plan M
• Git via SSH and via https
• wp-cli to manage WordPress from the command line
• own cron jobs, up to five in plan M
• PHP in versions 8.1 to 8.4
• an interface for a persistent object cache in WordPress

In plan M a PHP process gets 512 MB of memory (memory_limit) and 60 seconds of run time, more in the larger plans. The 100 GB of storage are split into 50 GB for web and 50 GB for email, plus five databases of up to 1 GB each. Several websites in one package are possible; they then share storage, PHP resources and databases. The provider gives no verifiable information on loading times.

According to the plan comparison, manitu backs up all web content, emails, databases and settings every day. As a rule, the states of the last 14 days are kept; a help page, however, mentions usually at least one week, without guarantee. You request a restore from this backup by email to support. It costs extra and is billed by time spent in 15-minute increments, with a minimum of 30 minutes. If you want to go back to older states more often, also create your own backups, for example with a WordPress plugin. The terms and conditions also expect customers to keep their own backup copies.

For the customer menu, manitu offers two-factor sign-in via an app or a hardware key, plus recovery codes for emergencies. Let's Encrypt SSL certificates are included free of charge for any number of domains and subdomains.

On data protection the situation is clear: manitu runs the data centre itself, and it is located in the same building as the offices in St. Wendel. You conclude the data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR online in the customer menu at no cost. manitu provides it on its own template; individual changes are not offered. You receive the technical and organisational measures as an annex to the agreement.

Every package includes a domain ending in .de, .com, .net or .org. In every package you can create any number of further domains and subdomains and run separate websites on them. You cancel the included domain separately from the package.

Email is comprehensively included: you create unlimited addresses on your domain, and plan M adds 25 mailboxes that share 50 GB of email storage. Spam and virus filters, encrypted connections via IMAP, POP3 and SMTP, webmail, forwarders and mailing lists are part of it. The larger plans offer more mailboxes and more storage.

According to the provider, you reach support free of charge by phone via a landline number and by email, in each case during regular office hours. The technical hotline is staffed Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. manitu names an around-the-clock emergency service only for root servers, not for web hosting. A status page reports incidents. Help pages and guides are available in German.

In our view, manitu suits freelancers, small businesses and clubs that run a website with their own domain and email and want to maintain WordPress themselves. The entry-level plan covers the reference project without extra costs, and the own data centre in Germany together with the data processing agreement makes data protection easier.

The package is also interesting for developers: SSH, Git, cron jobs, wp-cli and current PHP versions are included even in the entry-level plan.

manitu is a weaker fit if you do not want to look after WordPress yourself. Managed WordPress with maintenance by the provider, staging and one-click restore can be found with other providers in the comparison. Agencies can run several websites in one package and create sub-accounts in the customer menu; for a strict separation of client projects, manitu recommends separate packages. Also keep in mind the twelve-month minimum term in plan M and the paid restore from the backup.