RUNHOSTING Review 2026. Is runhosting.com good web hosting in Germany?

📄 Editorial Review

🔃 RUNHOSTING is part of AttractSoft
(3*) 🔧 Services: Web HostingDomain Registration Own datacenter
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RunHosting is a budget-friendly hosting platform that tries to cover the full range of needs, from completely free starter sites up to more demanding projects that need semi-dedicated or VPS resources. The service is operated in association with AttractSoft GmbH, a German company headquartered in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, and the infrastructure is built on an in-house cloud platform rather than on off-the-shelf panels and tools. According to their own figures, they host more than 500,000 websites (but not anymore in 2026!), which suggests a mature stack that has been tuned over time for everyday workloads like blogs, small business sites and personal projects.

The product line is quite simple and easy to understand. At the entry level, there is a permanent free hosting plan aimed at hobby projects and first websites. It lets one host a single domain or a free subdomain, with around 1 GB disk space, FTP access, MySQL, PHP, webmail, and a custom control panel. Even on this free tier there is access to the Zacky one-click installer for WordPress and Joomla, so someone with no technical background can launch a basic blog or site in a few minutes. The free plan is intentionally limited, but it is ad-free and offers a realistic starting point for testing the platform before paying anything.

Paid shared hosting is split into two main plans: Personal Hosting and Business Hosting. Both include unlimited disk space, unlimited monthly traffic, weekly backups, the Zacky site builder, anti-spam and anti-virus filtering, an advanced webmail system, and support for modern PHP versions (5 / 7 / 8) plus MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. The Personal plan allows a couple of domains and a defined number of databases, while the Business plan lifts most limits and adds extras such as unlimited domains and more generous email and database allocations. A free domain name is included for the first year on the Personal plan and for the life of the hosting subscription on the Business plan, which is attractive if someone plans to stay long term.

For websites that start to outgrow shared resources, RunHosting offers semi-dedicated hosting. These plans keep the same software stack and control panel as shared hosting but allocate more CPU, RAM and network priority, still with unlimited disk space and traffic. They are well suited to busy WordPress sites, multi-site setups or heavier PHP applications that would struggle on a typical low-cost shared account but do not yet justify the work of a fully managed VPS. Semi-dedicated customers still benefit from weekly backups, RAID-protected storage, email security and 50 Gbit network connectivity on the cluster.

The VPS hosting range is another core pillar. There are three base plans – Starter, Pro and Advanced – all built on Xen virtualization. Resources scale from 1 GB RAM, 25 GB RAID-protected storage and 2 TB traffic up to 4 GB RAM, 100 GB storage and 8 TB traffic, with port speeds from 50 to 100 Mbit/s and a dedicated IP address. The VPS line is explicitly unmanaged but comes with full root SSH access and a rich VPS management panel, plus the option of an easy hosting control panel for those who mainly want to host websites and email without being Linux experts. Operating systems include modern Debian 12 Bookworm with the in-house panel, as well as various Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS images, and even Webmin-based setups for more traditional server administration. On top of that, resources such as RAM, CPU, traffic, disk space and IP addresses can be upgraded on demand.

Beyond hosting, RunHosting also acts as a domain name provider and offers SSL certificates. Domain management includes full DNS and WHOIS control, domain locking and EPP code access from within the same panel used for hosting. Domain privacy protection is an optional paid add-on for many TLDs. SSL options cover standard single-domain certificates and higher-end products for customers that want to secure checkout pages or account areas. All of these integrate into the same custom control panel and can be combined with the built-in website builder and app installer to create a complete small-site stack under one login.

RunHosting has kept the same product lineup since August 2020, with essentially the same feature set, which strongly suggests significant stagnation and limited ongoing development. They consolidated many domains under runhosting, trying to slow down the big loss in customers base.

Overall, RunHosting is a classic "all-under-one-roof" budget host: free entry tier, straightforward shared hosting, stronger semi-dedicated options and flexible VPS, all anchored in the same European datacenter and backed by an in-house platform instead of cPanel or Plesk.

💰 Price & Cost

RunHosting keeps pricing relatively simple and positions itself in the low-to-mid segment of the market. The free plan is genuinely free, with no setup fee and no forced advertising, and can be used indefinitely as long as it stays within the stated limits. This is unusual compared to many "free trial" approaches and can be valuable for testing or very small personal projects.

For shared hosting, the Personal Hosting promo price is around $2.99 per month when paid annually, with renewal closer to the $4.99/month range. The Business Hosting plan starts around $3.99/month on promotion and renews at a higher bracket, roughly in line with many mid-range shared providers. Equivalent prices are shown in euro and British pound, and all amounts are indicated as including VAT, which is important for EU customers. Key financial perks here are the free domain name (for one year on Personal, for life on Business) and the fact there are no activation fees.

Semi-dedicated plans begin in the mid-teens of US dollars per month and scale up with more resources. VPS plans start at $10/month for the Starter VPS and reach about $40/month for the Advanced VPS, again with equivalent pricing in EUR and GBP and zero setup fees. This lands RunHosting’s VPS offering in an accessible range for small businesses, developers and agencies that want dedicated resources without moving into high-end enterprise pricing.

A strong point is the 30-day money-back guarantee on hosting services. Customers who are not satisfied within the first month can request a refund, though as usual, domain registrations, transfers and some other add-on services are not refundable. The Terms of Service also clarify details around partial refunds, pro-rated periods and fees on bank wire refunds.
Payments are handled through third-party processors such as 2Checkout, PayPal and Worldpay, which effectively means most common credit and debit cards are supported alongside PayPal. For many users this is convenient, as it allows payments in different currencies and through widely trusted gateways.

Overall, pricing is aggressive for what is included, especially if someone can take advantage of the promotional first-year prices and the free domain benefits. The one thing to watch is the difference between promo and renewal pricing, which is standard in this market but still worth noting.

🏢 Data Center

A key characteristic of RunHosting is that all servers are strategically colocated in the LambdaNet datacenter in Kiel, Germany. This facility is part of important backbone routes linking Europe with North America, which helps with connectivity and latency for both European and transatlantic visitors.

The datacenter infrastructure is built around redundant power and cooling. There are UPS systems and diesel generators to keep servers running during power issues, as well as Class 3.1 air conditioning and early fire and water detection systems. On the storage side, hosting clusters use RAID-protected disks and weekly backups to provide a layer of resilience against hardware failures. For paid hosting accounts, the network connectivity for the core cluster is rated at about 50 Gbit, giving enough capacity for peak periods and heavier use.

RunHosting publicly commits to a 99.9% network uptime guarantee, which aligns with industry norms among mainstream shared and VPS providers. This uptime target is backed by 24/7 monitoring and maintenance by their technical team. For many typical sites, this level of availability is acceptable, though mission-critical workloads should still consider their own monitoring and backup strategy in addition to what the host provides.

From a regulatory perspective, RunHosting states that EU customer data is processed in data centers inside the European Union, which is important in the context of GDPR and privacy legislation. This, combined with the singular location in Germany, makes them particularly attractive for users who explicitly want their workloads to remain in the EU and do not require multi-continent datacenter choice.

✍️ Customer Support

RunHosting promises 24x7x365 support, and the shared hosting feature tables confirm that both Personal and Business plans include round-the-clock assistance. Support is delivered primarily through an integrated ticket system inside the control panel, which routes issues directly to the technical staff. They aim for rapid response times, commonly around the one-hour mark for initial replies on regular tickets.

For pre-sales and simpler questions, there is a live chat feature available from the website, plus direct sales phone numbers in the US and UK. This combination is useful if someone prefers to talk through a plan choice or migration scenario before signing up. The site also includes an FAQ/Help section that covers common tasks like domain pointing, email configuration and basic troubleshooting, which can reduce the need for tickets for routine issues.

There is no explicit promise of senior-engineer phone support or managed service on VPS – those are clearly advertised as unmanaged – so users who want fully managed infrastructure will need either to manage the servers themselves or bring in external expertise. For typical shared and semi-dedicated customers, however, the combination of 24/7 helpdesk, live chat and phone contact feels adequate and competitive in this price segment.

🔨 Control Panel

Instead of using cPanel or Plesk, RunHosting relies on its own in-house hosting control panel, which is used for free hosting, shared and semi-dedicated plans, and can also be deployed on some VPS images. The panel is web-based, drag-and-drop customizable and organized into more than 40 sections, covering domain and DNS management, email accounts, subdomains, databases, FTP accounts, statistics and various security features. Advanced users can shuffle the dashboard sections around to keep their most-used tools at the top, while beginners get a fairly clean and intuitive interface.

The file manager built into the panel is quite capable: it allows uploads, downloads, editing and organizing files directly from the browser, which is helpful for users who do not want to use a dedicated FTP client. There are dedicated sections for MySQL and PostgreSQL, with phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin, and options for custom php.ini, cron jobs (on higher plans), and a variety of scripting capabilities (PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, SSI, cURL, ImageMagick, ionCube, Zend Optimizer).

On the VPS side, there are actually two control layers. First, a VPS management panel for low-level operations – rebooting the server, switching to a rescue OS, changing the OS image, watching bandwidth and server statistics, and accessing a web-based console. Second, for website and email hosting, customers can choose either the in-house hosting control panel or Webmin on some Linux distributions. This combination gives technically inclined users enough tools to administer their own server while still making life easier for those who mainly care about hosting sites and mail.

For users who are accustomed to cPanel, the custom interface will feel different, but the feature coverage is broad enough that most everyday tasks are straightforward once someone gets used to the layout.

🎯 Conclusion

RunHosting comes across as a value-driven European host with a long-standing free hosting tradition and a fairly complete stack for small and medium projects. The main strengths are:

• A genuinely free hosting tier to experiment with, without forced ads.
• Simple but capable shared hosting with unlimited resources, modern PHP, MySQL/PostgreSQL and a decent email feature set.
• Semi-dedicated plans that provide more CPU and network headroom without the complexity of managing a VPS.
• Flexible Xen-based VPS with full root access, a choice of OS images and a solid management panel, all still located in the same European datacenter.
• A custom, feature-rich in-house control panel rather than generic panels, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee and 99.9% uptime commitment.

Potential downsides to consider are the lack of alternative datacenter locations (everything is centered around Kiel, Germany), the fact that VPS plans are unmanaged by default, and that users deeply tied to cPanel/Plesk workflows will need a bit of adjustment to the in-house interface.

For personal websites, blogs, small business sites, hobby projects and developers who appreciate a free entry path and low prices, RunHosting is a very reasonable choice. Projects that demand managed infrastructure, enterprise-grade SLAs or multi-region redundancy might eventually outgrow what this platform is designed to offer, but as a cost-effective, EU-based hosting option it stands up well.

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