Raidboxes: managed WordPress hosting from Münster in the web hosting comparison

Raidboxes offers hosting for WordPress only. Each website runs in its own box, that is, its own hosting contract with one WordPress installation and one database. The entry-level Mini plan is enough for the reference project. According to the provider, it is meant for small static websites or simple blogs and comes with 5 GB of SSD storage, one shared CPU core and 2 GB of memory.

No Raidboxes plan includes a domain or email. For the reference project, we therefore add two items as mandatory extra costs:

• a .de domain at Raidboxes, paid yearly,
• the entry-level email plan Mail Mini with three mailboxes.

Booking the domain at Raidboxes is not optional here: Raidboxes only provides email mailboxes for domains that are also hosted at Raidboxes. An SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt and the nightly backups, on the other hand, are included at no extra cost.

You choose between monthly and yearly payment. Raidboxes grants a discount for yearly payment, so the reference project costs less over 24 months when paid yearly. The term equals the chosen billing period and renews automatically by the same period unless you cancel. According to the help centre, there is no notice period; you cancel by the end of the term in the dashboard. A domain contract always runs for one year. The pricing page shows no separate introductory price for new customers. Raidboxes lists all prices without VAT; the comparison adds the tax.

Raidboxes takes care of the WordPress core. According to the help centre, the provider rolls out minor updates to all boxes as soon as possible after release and major version jumps after a waiting period of 14 days. You can pause major updates, but for no more than two major versions.

Raidboxes only takes over plugin and theme updates from the Fully Managed plan upwards. There, the system creates a backup before each update and restores it if something goes wrong. On the plan cards, this service is accordingly crossed out for Mini and Starter.

For fast loading times, Raidboxes uses a Varnish server cache whose size grows with the plan. The provider names Apache as the web server and PHP 7.2 to 8.4 as PHP versions. In the Mini plan, the PHP memory limit is 128 MB; from Starter upwards, it is up to 1024 MB.

Every box has a staging environment. You create it as a copy of the live website, try out changes there and then transfer them to the live site. A second staging environment with its own backups is available as a paid add-on. SFTP and phpMyAdmin access are included in all plans. The pricing page also lists SSH with WP-CLI and Git, but according to the help centre, SSH cannot be enabled in Mini boxes. If you want to work on the command line, you need at least the Starter plan.

Raidboxes backs up every box automatically each night. How long automatic backups stay available depends on the plan: seven days in the entry-level Mini plan, 14 days in Starter and 30 days from Fully Managed upwards. According to the help centre, backups are stored on a separate, specially secured server. You can also create manual backups, for example before major changes. Raidboxes never deletes these automatically; their number is limited per plan.

You restore a backup yourself in the dashboard. This overwrites the entire content of the box with the state of the backup. The help article therefore recommends creating a current manual backup first. The article does not say whether restoring costs anything. According to the terms and conditions, you remain responsible for backing up your data sufficiently despite the backups.

Raidboxes offers two-factor authentication for the customer area. You enable it in the account settings and use an authenticator app or a code by email. According to the provider, the Security Shield protects websites against common attacks. There are also features such as login protection and blocking individual IP addresses.

According to the provider, websites are hosted in the Equinix data centre in Düsseldorf. The operator is Raidboxes GmbH, based in Münster; its parent company is team.blue. You conclude a data processing agreement under the GDPR once per account. It then covers all websites in that account. Agencies that run client websites in their own account conclude the agreement for those websites themselves.

You register domains via the Raidboxes dashboard. A domain contract always runs for one year and is excluded from the right of withdrawal. You can bring a domain that is already with another provider and connect it to your box via DNS, or transfer it to Raidboxes.

Raidboxes has three email plans of its own. The entry-level plan Mail Mini includes three mailboxes and 3 GB of mail storage; according to the provider, the servers are located in Germany. The mailbox domain must be hosted at Raidboxes. So if you want to keep your domain with another provider, you book email there as well. As a further option, Raidboxes lists Microsoft 365 as an add-on.

Support is available via live chat, daily from 8 am to 10 pm and, according to the provider, 365 days a year. The pricing page does not list phone support. According to the pricing page, migrations of existing WordPress websites are free in all plans and unlimited in number. Before booking, you can try a box free of charge for up to 14 days without entering payment details. The demo box stays password-protected until activation; you connect your own domain only afterwards.

In our view, Raidboxes suits you if you want to run a WordPress website and do not want to deal with servers, caching and core updates. Staging, nightly backups and a server cache are already part of the entry-level plan.

Raidboxes is a weaker fit if you want to bundle domain, email and website in one package with one provider. Domain and email are added as separate contracts, and email is only available together with a domain at Raidboxes. For a single small website with a mailbox, the total cost is therefore rather high in comparison.

For agencies, Raidboxes offers volume discounts in the Starter plan, rights for additional box admins and templates for new websites. Developers get SSH with WP-CLI and Git from Starter upwards but are tied to WordPress. The offer does not cover other applications or custom runtime environments.