IQ.pl review

First impression

IQ is a Polish IT services and web hosting company with diversified services, including Shared Hosting, Cloud VPS Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting, Registrations for Domains, IT Admin & Consulting, XaaS (anything as a service) that characterizes applications and technologies offered as a service, just to name a few. IQ was founded back in 2001 by Rafał Pietrzak and has built a good reputation for its secure and reliable online services. The company started as a small IT company, and is currently owned by the renowned H88 Group, one of the biggest in the hosting industry in Poland.

Trial Period

They offer a 14-day free trial (which seems to be the industry standard in Poland) on Shared Hosting plans, making it possible for potential customers to test them out risk-free with no initial commitment. IQ does lack a money-back guarantee, though, so you will have to get as much use out of the trial as you can to ensure their services will meet your needs before making a long-term commitment.

Billing Cycle

If you want to sign up for their Shared Hosting plans, you will have to subscribe to an annual payment cycle, in which you will have to remit an entire year's payment upfront, as soon as your 14-day trial expires. Their Dedicated Servers, however, only offer monthly billing.

Their payment methods now support all major Credit Cards, PayPal, Bank Transfers, as well as payments made with PayU, a popular online payment provider in Poland.

Control Panel

They include their own “IQ Admin panel” with their hosting plans to help you manage your hosting services efficiently and hassle-freely. The in-house-designed interface gives you direct access to most needed activities like domain management, email setup, and server inspection. It is neatly integrated with its hosting services to provide faultlessly stable performance. The panel itself is very intuitive, and thus it becomes very convenient for anyone regardless of whether you're new or have gathered long years with web hosting.

Limits

IQ’s Shared Hosting plans come in 4 scalable and affordable options, namely the Start, Start Plus, Pro, and Pro Plus, each offering different levels of resources to cater to various needs. The Start plan is ideal for beginners and comes with 50GB of storage space, 256MB RAM, 10 SQL databases, and 5TB bandwidth. The Start Plus plan adds a bit more space and performance with 100GB disc space, 512MB RAM, 50 SQL databases, and 10TB bandwidth, but is still suited mostly for small websites. The Pro plan steps up with higher resource limits, making it a better fit for growing sites. It comes with 200GB disc space, 1GB RAM, and unlimited SQL databases and bandwidth, while the Pro Plus plan offers the most robust resources, with 200GB storage, 2GB RAM, as well as unlimited SQL databases and bandwidth, perfect for high-traffic sites. All plans come standard with a complimentary SSL certificate by Let’s Encrypt, and I think it is important to note that although the databases run on fast SSD drives, the web files all run on standard SATA drives.

Their Dedicated Server plans, on the other hand, are available in numerous options that range from 4x 8TB SATA disc space, 64GB DDR4 RAM, and with an Intel Xeon E5-1630v4 3,7GHz CPU on the Dell R430 plan, up to 2x 1.92TB super-fast NVMe Enterprise SSD drives, 128GB RAM, and an Epyc Raphael 4584X 4,2 - 5,7GHz CPU on the Supermicro NVMe GPU plan.

Website Builder

While IQ excels in providing robust hosting services, it’s important to note that they don’t include a website builder in their plans. Instead, they focus on delivering high-performance hosting with the flexibility to use your preferred CMS, such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, to create your desired website.

Security

At IQ, security seems to rank high on their agenda, and this reflects in how they safeguard data with a robust security setup. Their data centers have high-end physical security features such as 24/7 surveillance, biometric entry, and hardened facilities. On an infrastructure front, they have strong firewalls, DDoS protection, and routine security scans to ensure data security and integrity. In addition, some built-in security features such as complimentary SSL certificates by Let's Encrypt, Malware Scanning, Anti-Spam Software, and Automated Backups are also offered in hosting plans that provide you with a safe environment for your online existence. In addition to this, premium SSL certificates such as RapidSSL, RapidSSL Wildcard, GeoTrust DV SSL, and GeoTrust TrueBusiness ID EV may also be availed at an added price if you wish to have extra security.

OS

Their Shared Hosting plans are all Linux-based, with support for popular configurations like Apache and Nginx. They also provide support for PHP, MySQL, and other common technologies. Unfortunately, they don’t disclose the exact version of Linux.  For their Cloud VPS, they offer a choice between various operating systems, including multiple versions of Linux, such as Ubuntu, CentOS, and Debian and Windows Server.

Support

Their support agents are available via Email, Phone, or Support Tickets. While these agents are well-trained, friendly, and professional, I found them to be somewhat slow in responding (though this might just be my experience and not the norm), as my issues were only addressed about six hours after I sent my email.

Conclusion

In my opinion, IQ is a decent hosting option, especially for those who value reliability and flexibility. With its robust infrastructure and a range of customizable hosting plans, it's an excellent choice for small to medium-sized businesses, developers, and anyone who needs a dependable platform to support their growing online presence. However, I do feel that their support lets them down a bit, although this might have just been an isolated incident.