As of 29 Oct 2026, the panel rates IONOS MyWebsite 2.5/5 and STRATO Homepage-Baukasten 2.5/5 in Website Builders. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 2 of the 6 judges pick IONOS MyWebsite and 3 pick STRATO Homepage-Baukasten, 1 calls it a tie. IONOS MyWebsite scores higher on 3 of 7 criteria (Forms, bookings & business features, Editor, templates & design control and SEO, analytics & visibility). STRATO Homepage-Baukasten scores higher on 4 of 7 criteria (Hosting, domains & portability, European sovereignty, Imprint, privacy & cookie compliance, plus 1 more). Provenance — IONOS MyWebsite: EU-Made; STRATO Homepage-Baukasten: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
The panel splits. IONOS MyWebsite leads on editor and design (5.0 vs 4.2, four lean IONOS, one STRATO, one tie) and forms and business (4.0 vs 3.0, five lean IONOS). STRATO Homepage-Baukasten leads on hosting and portability (5.7 vs 5.0, four lean STRATO), sovereignty (5.5 vs 4.8, four lean STRATO), legal compliance (6.2 vs 5.8, two lean STRATO, four tie) and pricing transparency (7.2 vs 7.0, one lean STRATO, five tie). SEO and marketing sits closest (4.0 vs 3.7, two lean IONOS, four tie). Weighted totals split: the freelance designer has IONOS 4.8 to STRATO 4.3, the marketing lead IONOS 4.8 to 4.7, the data protection officer 5 to 5, the skeptic STRATO 5.3 to IONOS 5.2; no totals appear for the small-business owner and practice owner. Sovereignty attributes: STRATO's data residency reads EU-only, ownership unknown; IONOS's ownership reads listed, data residency unknown; both list US Cloud Act subprocessor exposure.
Choose IONOS MyWebsite if
You need the editor the panel favors: four judges lean IONOS MyWebsite on editor and design (5.0 vs 4.2), where the skeptic and small-business owner scored the AI generator and template gallery at 6.
Forms and business features decide your choice: five judges lean IONOS MyWebsite there (4.0 vs 3.0).
Your buying mirrors the freelance designer's or the marketing lead's view: their weighted totals are IONOS MyWebsite 4.8 to STRATO 4.3, and 4.8 to 4.7.
You want an owner on the record: IONOS MyWebsite's ownership attribute reads 'listed', while STRATO Homepage-Baukasten's reads 'unknown'.
SEO and marketing tools are your focus: two judges lean IONOS MyWebsite (4.0 vs 3.7) and four tie, with SEO and analytics tools named on its pages.
Choose STRATO Homepage-Baukasten if
Your policy requires data residency in the EU: STRATO Homepage-Baukasten's data residency attribute reads EU-only; IONOS MyWebsite's reads unknown.
Hosting matters most to your team: four judges lean STRATO on hosting and portability (5.7 vs 5.0), citing German data centres, a permanently included domain with SSL and 10 GB webspace.
You need legal texts that update automatically: two judges lean STRATO on legal compliance (6.2 vs 5.8); its texts are generated with IT-Recht Kanzlei and updated when the law changes.
Sovereignty carries extra weight in your review: four judges lean STRATO (5.5 vs 4.8).
You compare published prices line by line: STRATO leads pricing transparency 7.2 to 7.0, with one judge leaning its way and five tying; plans list introductory and regular prices, VAT included, and "Einrichtung: 0 €".
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Freelance Web Designer
Builds about twenty sites a year for doctors, restaurants and consultants, and looks after them afterwards. Wants real control over layout, mobile breakpoints and type, reusable sections across client sites, a client login that cannot break the design, backups that restore in one click, and a way to take the site and its content elsewhere if the client or the tool changes.
IONOS MyWebsite
This judge's pick
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
Criterion by criterion
Editor, templates & design control
IONOS MyWebsite
The template gallery is sorted into seven industry groups from gastro to health to portfolio, the AI generator drafts a whole site with texts and images, higher plans add flexible sections, colours and AI colour palettes, and designs can be previewed on desktop, tablet and smartphone. I found no public information on separate mobile or breakpoint editing, reusable components or global styles, client login roles, or a version history I could restore, and the entry plan advertises only "einfache Gestaltungsoptionen" — not the fine control I need for client work.
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
The editor page shows a WYSIWYG editor with design templates, responsive design, widgets and free AI generators for website, text and images, and the homepage pitches 29 industry templates in over 130 designs — enough variety for my restaurant and consultant clients. But I found no public information on separate mobile or breakpoint editing, reusable sections, site history or roles for clients and collaborators, and the features page lists the multilingual function as 'Nicht vorhanden', which rules out the bilingual sites half my clients ask for.
Hosting, domains & portability
IONOS MyWebsite
Hosting comes with a free domain and wildcard SSL certificate, named storage, unlimited bandwidth on the webhosting plans, a tariff-dependent CDN, PHP 8.2 with HTTP/2 and gzip, SSH access and storage mirrored in two geographically independent data centres. I found no public information on backups or a self-service restore, an uptime commitment, or a documented export of the built pages and content — the two things that decide whether I can move a client off the tool.
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
Hosting itself is documented well beyond the basics: a domain permanently included with SSL, 10 GB webspace, unlimited traffic, two mailboxes, German data centres and a minimum 99 % availability in the yearly average. What I miss as the person who has to move a client one day is export — the only migration documented runs into STRATO, from Wix, Jimdo or WordPress — and the terms place regular backups of all data on the customer, with STRATO BackupControl merely named.
SEO, analytics & visibility
IONOS MyWebsite
The plan pages name automatic SEO optimisation, a KI SEO assistant and KI Search-Manager, rankingCoach Standard, and built-in analytics with marketingRadar, SiteAnalytics Plus and WebAnalytics Plus. But I found no public information on editing page titles and descriptions, sitemaps, redirects or indexing control — the technical basics I set by hand on every client site.
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
The web-editor page documents an AI SEO assistant for the site's meta data, marketingRadar appears on every plan and rankingCoach only with the top plan, which is sold with an SEO focus. Beyond that I found no public information on sitemaps, redirects or visitor statistics, so for a doctor who needs to be found locally I would be relying on a meta-data tool plus a bundled SEO add-on.
Forms, bookings & business features
IONOS MyWebsite
An integrated online booking tool on the top plan, an optional onlineshop with social-media connections, and "Business Web Apps" among the templates are all documented. I found no public information on contact or custom forms, spam protection, where form entries are stored, or CRM and calendar integrations — for a doctor's surgery or a restaurant that is the part I would need spelled out before signing.
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
The features page names appointment booking as one example of additional functions, password protection is listed on the security page, and a shop arrives only as separate SmartWebshop tariffs or via WooCommerce. I found no public information on contact or custom forms, their spam protection, notifications or where entries are stored — the first thing every practice and restaurant site needs.
Imprint, privacy & cookie compliance
IONOS MyWebsite
Impressum and privacy-policy texts under German law come from a named partner, IT-Recht Kanzlei München, are checked daily and updated automatically, embed with one click, and the vendor takes over liability in case of a cease-and-desist letter; a data processing agreement is published. I found no public information on a cookie consent banner or script blocking, GDPR handling of form entries, or accessibility, so those I would have to build or verify myself.
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
Legal support is the strongest part: together with IT-Recht Kanzlei customers create AGB, a Widerrufsbelehrung, a Datenschutzerklärung and an Impressum in a few clicks, and those texts are updated automatically when the law changes; cease-and-desist protection comes as an optional add-on and a data processing agreement is published. I found no public information on a consent banner that blocks scripts on customer sites or on GDPR handling of form entries, and the accessibility statement I saw covers the vendor's own site.
European sovereignty
IONOS MyWebsite
The contracting entity is IONOS SE, registered at Amtsgericht Montabaur (HRB 24498) with a Montabaur address and German VAT ID, it acts as processor with a published data processing agreement and a data protection officer, and customer data sits in two geographically independent data centres. I found no public information naming where sites and visitor data are hosted, or on subprocessors and their locations; the privacy policy names US marketing partners (Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, Google) for the vendor's own marketing, with data hashed via SHA 256 first.
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
The chain is visibly European where it counts: STRATO GmbH, registered in Berlin-Charlottenburg and part of United Internet AG, runs its own data centres in Germany, acts as processor under the GDPR, publishes a data processing agreement and names Berlin as the place of jurisdiction. But no subprocessor list with locations is published and no ISO 27001 or SOC 2 certification is stated; the Microsoft terms I found concern optionally resold Microsoft cloud products.
Pricing transparency
IONOS MyWebsite
Every webhosting plan shows the introductory price, its duration, the price afterwards and the 10 € setup fee, VAT is stated as included, domain prices after the intro year are listed per TLD, the legal-text add-ons are permanently priced at 8 € and 12 € per month, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. The captured pages give different figures for the Plus plan's later monthly price (11 € and 18 €), and minimum term and notice period are only hinted at, so a multi-year cost is close to computable but not exact.
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
The core cost is computable: '0 €/Mon. für 1 Monat danach 7 €/Mon.' for Basic, '1 €/Mon. für 12 Monate danach 12 €/Mon.' for Plus and '0 €/Mon. für 1 Monat danach 18 €/Mon.' for Pro, each with 'Einrichtung: 0 €', prices including VAT, a 12-month term for Pro and one month's notice. What a client cannot price from these pages are the add-ons my clients actually ask about — cease-and-desist protection, the SmartWebshop tariffs, the bookable 24/7 hotline — and the service fees are named without amounts, though a postal invoice is stated at 2,50 € per invoice.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
IONOS MyWebsite
STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting location
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting options
Not determined
Not determined
Open source
Not determined
Not determined
Data processing agreement
Not determined
Not determined
Transfer impact assessment
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
Questions about IONOS MyWebsite and STRATO Homepage-Baukasten
Which is better, IONOS MyWebsite or STRATO Homepage-Baukasten?
As of 29 Oct 2026, the panel rates both 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 2 of the 6 judges pick IONOS MyWebsite and 3 pick STRATO Homepage-Baukasten, 1 calls it a tie. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is IONOS MyWebsite or STRATO Homepage-Baukasten European?
IONOS MyWebsite is European (EU-Made). STRATO Homepage-Baukasten is European (EU-Made). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.