Escaping HostEurope: My No-Downtime Mail and Domain Migration
I was for over 15 yeas a customer at HostEurope. Over the years, I collected 20 domains, 100 email accounts, web hosting packages, and a VPS. That changed in March 2025 when I received an email announcing a forced migration of all mail accounts to Microsoft Office 365.
My plan included 1,000 free mailboxes — I used about 100 of them. After the migration, each mailbox would cost €0.99/month. That’s €100/month for something that was previously free. Migration would start in just five weeks. Thanks, but no thanks.
What kept me with HostEurope for so long was that I was locked in with all my infrastructure, and their excellent 24/7 support. And I needed it — because their UI was a nightmare. Want to change the nameserver? It’s not under Domain Services > Domain Administration > Change Nameserver/DNS, but rather under Domain Services > Domain Administration > Edit Existing Domains, hidden behind a dropdown under selection update. The entire interface was not intuitive and felt stuck in the 90s.
I had already moved my web projects to VPS providers like Hetzner and Alfahosting, but my domains and email were still stuck at HostEurope. Their offer of 1,000 free email accounts with a webmailer and their support was hard to beat — but over time, the support quality started to declined significantly.
They once offered reliable 24/7 support, but now I can’t reach anyone after 8 PM — which is exactly when I usually work on side projects, after family time. After their email migration announcement, I couldn’t reach a single person by phone or chat — requests were dropped immediately. I submitted multiple support tickets by email: one was answered after two days, the others are still unanswered.
The email migration and cost increase were the final straw. I’d already considered leaving in 2024, but the migration effort (and supporting 50+ customers with Outlook migration) felt overwhelming.
This time, I went for it.
My yearly costs dropped from €1,500 to €300. I didn’t realize what the domain costs already added up to.
The Lock-In Problem
HostEurope email only worked if:
- The domain used their nameservers and
- HostEurope was the domain registrar.
So I couldn’t just move my domain elsewhere without breaking email. First, I had to decouple mail from domain.
The first step was to find a new mail provider. I needed something cheap, reliable, and flexible enough to work with external domains. After comparing options, I went with the Mail Basic 25 package from IONOS. It was the most affordable option for my needs: €3.50/month for 25 mailboxes, unlimited redirects, and no requirement to host my domains with them. One thing I didn’t like about IONOS is that I only can pay monthly, I would prefer a yearly invoice.
The Mail Basic 25 includes a free domain. I picked one with ending .online — at HostEurope, I used to pay a litte above 50 € per year for a single domain ending with .online. The Mail Basic 25 Package alone including the .online domain costs only 42€.
Another thing I really liked about IONOS was the webmailer. Beautiful design and I could disable upgrade ads for my end users, which made it feel much more professional (At HostEurope, people would see advertisment for HostEurope Premium Mailer). On first login, users could easily set their display name at IONIS (which was extremly difficult at HostEurope), and changing the password easily (this was almost impossible at HostEurope!).
Outlook setup was super simple — unlike HostEurope, where you had to deal with confusing distinctions between email and a separate autogenerated username. That made Outlook setup unnecessarily painful with HostEurope and let me with frustrated end customers that I had to help using screensharing tools.
The IONOS interface felt like a breath of fresh air. I honestly couldn’t believe how clean and modern the webmailer looked. The email dashboard is also extremely intuitive. Setting up external domains, adding MX records, creating redirects — everything just works. It’s such a relief to finally work with a UI that doesn’t fight back.
To be clear: I’m not sponsored by IONOS — I just found it to be the best value for my setup. I also looked into Mailbox.org (great privacy, but more expensive), Migadu (flexible but more niche), and Zoho Mail (free tier available, but limited). For me, IONOS offered the right mix of price and simplicity.
Step 1: Move Mail to IONOS
- I registered my domain as an external domain at IONOS.
- Added a special TXT entry and new MX records to the DNS at HostEurope.
- Changes HostEurope MX records to point to IONOS
- Created email accounts at IONOS.
- Updated Outlook to pull from HostEurope temporarily, then switched to IONOS after DNS propagated (a few hours).
- After Chaning the MX records, sending with old setting (via HostEurope) is no longer possible, but pulling mails is possible.
Since my mail was no longer tied to the domain at HostEurope, I started looking for a cheaper place to manage my domains. Porkbun quickly stood out for its low prices — the biggest drop was .world domais. The costs over 70€ per year at HostEurope, and only 26.24$ at Porkbun. They also have support for .de domains, which was important for me, since I wanted to have all my domains at one place. That alone won me over.
But then I logged in — and was honestly overwhelmed (in a good way) by how clean and intuitive the UI was. Coming from the nightmare that was HostEurope’s interface, it felt almost surreal. DNS settings were a breeze: adding A, MX, or TXT records took seconds. Everything was easy to find, clearly labeled, and just worked. And the page is really fast.
HostEurope was a slow horse. Here is how I moved the domain:
Step 2: Transfer Domain to Porkbun
- Added the domain as external in Porkbun (required another TXT record at HostEurope).
- Added DNS entries for:
- A-records for my VPS
- MX records for IONOS
- TXT entries for Postmark (for bulk email)
- Requested the transfer code from HostEurope (delivered within minutes).
- Initiated the transfer via Porkbun. HostEurope sent a confirmation email; after approving it, the transfer was complete within minutes.
I first added the domain as an external domain to ensure all DNS records were set up before starting the transfer.
Good to know: you don’t lose any remaining registration time you’ve already paid at HostEurope. It gets added to your domain at the new provider (source) — unless it’s a .de domain, in which case the remaining time is lost.
Also, don’t manually change the nameservers at HostEurope. Doing so will immediately wipe all DNS records, making your website unreachable until the new nameservers propagate. If you transfer the domain instead, HostEurope keeps the old nameservers and DNS records active for a few days, so everything stays online during the switch.
Result
Now I have:
- Cheap domains at Porkbun
- Reliable, affordable email via IONOS (€3.50/month for 25 mailboxes + unlimited redirects)
- A modular setup where domain and mail are independent
If I ever want to switch providers again, I just swap one component. No more lock-in. And I’m saving €1,200 per year. I love it. Hope this helps someone else do the same.
