Hostinger Review

Key Takeaways

Hostinger brings a lot to the table – from fantastic pricing and free domain registration to a wide range of server locations and the depth of plan types to grow into. You’ll also have to contend with plan renewal price hikes – but that’s typical with budget hosting providers.

Who Should Use Hostinger?

Bottom line, Hostinger is a good choice for those who are looking an easy one-stop hosting solution. Their super-cheap price tag and drag-and-drop website builder make them particularly right for newbies who are just starting out; or busy business owners who want a simple website. 

Who Should Not Use Hostinger Hosting?

Hostinger may not be the best choice if you are running complex or fast growing websites. For agencies, SaaS providers, and fast-growing businesses that need extra flexibility and scalability – a cloud-based hosting is recommended.

Company: Hostinger

Background: Hostinger started out as a personal company named “Hosting Media” back in 2004. They changed their name later on and launched 000webhost.com — a popular web hosting provider that’s offered for free. With the rampant growth and expansion, Hostinger went on to achieve a huge milestone of having 1 million users, just 6 years from the day that they started. Today, Hostinger Web Hosting manages over 29 million users and has established worldwide localized offices with 150 people working across 39 countries worldwide.

Starting Price: $1.99/mo

Currency: USD

Visit Online: https://www.hostinger.com

Review Summary & Ratings

5

Hostinger offers a wide variety of hosting solutions, ranging from the advanced with VPS cloud hosting plans to beginners who just want to get started with a cheap shared server hosting. Their cheapest plan – Single Shared Hosting, starts at just $1.99 per month; and if you pay a little extra ($2.99 per month) you'll get to host up to 100 websites with free domain name for a year, better security features, plus unlimited FTP and Cronjob capacity. 

My Experience with Hostinger

While the ultra-low price tag is tempting, is the company and its server reliable? To find out, I setup an account with Hostinger and added a test site (visit here) to their hosting platform. Because the web host is so easy to use, I have added more sites from my other projects to my Hostinger account and became a real user of their servers.

In this review, I will take you behind the scenes and show you features through my Hostinger account. I will share performance statistics I gathered from my hosting speed tests and uptime monitor to showcase the performance of Hostinger servers. 

Who Should Use Hostinger Hosting? My Thoughts

Hostinger, in my opinion, is a good choice for those who are looking one-stop cheap hosting solution – in particular newbies who are just starting out and busy business owners who want a simple website. 

The Seven Pros and One Con of Using Hostinger

Pros

• Affordable pricing with great features 
• Excellent server performance
• Flexible web hosting options
• Global data centers
• Free & very cheap domain prices
• User-friendly experience with hPanel
• Wide range of payment options

Cons

• Price increase during the renewal

Hostinger Service Overview

Pros: Things I Like About Hostinger Hosting?

1. Affordable Pricing with Great Features

Hostinger isn’t just one of the cheapest hosting providers around but it offers excellent bang-for-buck. You’ll find what you pay for to be more than competitive; integrated caching even on shared plans and support for over 10k visits even on most entry-level. Top that up a little more and you get a free domain plus SSH & GIT access for higher tier shared plans.

This value-packed goodness is what makes it one of the most worthwhile platforms for newbie website owners. It’s simply the best launch point.

Notable Features in All Hostinger Shared Plans ($1.99/mo & Up)

• Support PHP 8, Full SSD Storage, HTTP/3, IPv6, LiteSpeed Caching – Great features for faster website speed.
• Weekly Backup & 99.9% Uptime Guarantee – Peace of mind hosting provider for busy business owners and newbies.
• WordPress Site-Building Wizard & Managed WordPress – Easy to start and manage for first time WordPress users.
• Free SSL & GIT Access – For better security and easy collaboration with third-party web developer.

Features in Hostinger Business Shared Plans ($4.99/mo & Up)

• Free Domain for one year – Choose from a wide range of TLDs including .com and .net.
• SSH Access – For secure encrypted connection to your server.
• WordPress Staging Tool – Convenient for web development and versioning; also available in Hostinger higher-tier WordPress Hosting.
• 100,000 Monthly Visits – Run on much larger server with 2 CPU cores and 1.5GB RAM.
• Unlimited Databases & Cron Jobs – Do more with your host account with website automation and bigger database capacity.
• Free CDN (&9.95 value) – Faster page load time for visitors from different geographical locations

2. Excellent Server Uptime & Speed Performance

Part of my Hostinger rating is based on proven data. In case you are unaware – my team and I have launched a new system named HostScore to track hosting performance in 2019. We now have a system that constantly tracks server uptime every 5 minutes and runs speed tests from 10 locations worldwide every 4 hours. The massive data collected by the system enables me to understand a web host's performance better and make a more accurate judgment.

Hostinger Server Uptime

From my observation, Hostinger servers have been really stable at near 100% reliability over time. Our Hostinger test site's uptime and speed test results show that Hostinger is not fooling around when it comes to server reliability.

November 2022 – January 2023

June 2021

January 2021

Hostinger Server Speed Tests

Hostinger isn't the fastest around but response times are reasonable for what you pay. Overall I’d say that performance is actually above par for the price range it falls under.

Hostinger Server Speed Test at Bitcatcha (March 2023)

Hostinger Server Speed Test at Bitcatcha (June 2022)

Hostinger Speed Test at WebPageTest (July 2021)

Hostinger Speed Performance June 2021

3. Flexible Web Hosting Options

With Hostinger there are different types of hosting you can opt for – depending on the needs of your website.

For New Users

There's the shared server hosting plan which breaks down into three separate packages: Single, Premium, and Business. Single offers the basic features you'll need to run a single website. Premium, on the other hand, offers more features and performance while Business offers features and performances for those that focus on eCommerce websites.

For Experienced Users

A bigger website can choose to go for VPS or Cloud hosting, which gives the best performance in terms of speed and server resources. All the different hosting plan gives your website plenty of flexibility to grow and expand once your business becomes bigger ranging from $2.49/mo to $77.99/mo on signup, for users who require higher hosting capacity.

Host with cPanel, hPanel or CyberPanel

Unlike many competitors, Hostinger has always marched to the beat of its own drum. While in the past that may have caused some frowns it is actually an advantage given how the web hosting landscape has changed.

One clear example has been the increasing cost of cPanel licensing. Since Hostinger uses its own hPanel, they’re able to offer much more competitive deals than those who have traditionally relied on cPanel.

For VPS plans, Hostinger makes use of CyberPanel, a web hosting control panel that’s powered by LiteSpeed. That helps keep VPS pricing competitive as well while allowing good levels of speed performance and flexibility.

4. Global Data Centers – Server Locations in Three Continents

Part of Hostinger's vision is to have as much presence around the globe as possible – that's why have over 150 offices across the globe. The same can be said for their data centers.

As of today, Hostinger has seven data centers spread across the US, Asia, and Europe – all of which you can choose to host your website. All of the data center servers are connected to 1,000 Mbps connection lines which ensure maximum speed performance and stability. That means that you'll get maximum speed for your website.

Having multiple is definitely helpful in keeping your website loading fast, partly because it helps reduces latency for users when they try to access your website's data that's nearer to their physical location.

Shared & Cloud Hosting Plans

Server Locations:

• Europe (Netherlands, Lithuania, United Kingdom)
• Asia (Singapore, India)
• North / South America (United States, Brazil)

WordPress Plans

Server Locations:

• Europe (Netherlands, Lithuania, United Kingdom)
• Asia (Singapore, India)
• North / South America (United States, Brazil)

Linux VPS Hosting Plans

Server Locations:

• Europe (Netherlands, Lithuania, United Kingdom)
• Asia (Singapore)
• North / South America (United States)

5. Free and Cheap Domain (.XYZ at $0.99/year)

For domain name registrations, Hostinger offers some of the more affordable pricing when it comes to domain extensions.

Compared to popular domain registrars such GoDaddy, Hostinger's prices for popular extensions, such .com and .net are, much cheaper.

For less popular domain extensions like .xyz or .tech, you can get it for as low as $0.99, compared to GoDaddy which offers it at $1.17 and $10.17 respectively.

Domain Extensions Prices (Hostinger vs GoDaddy)

• .com – Hostinger ($9.99); GoDaddy ($3.17)
• .net – Hostinger ($12.99); GoDaddy ($15.17)
• .xyz – Hostinger ($0.99); GoDaddy ($1.17)
• .tech – Hostinger ($0.99); GoDaddy ($10.17)
• .online – Hostinger ($0.99); GoDaddy ($1.17)
• .store – Hostinger ($0.99); GoDaddy ($2.17)

* Note: For best accuracy in pricing, please refer to official site: https://www.godaddy.com/

6. User Friendly with hPanel & Lifetime SSL

Lifetime SSL

SSL certificate is mandatory nowadays and if you aren’t running HTTPS you will find your site getting penalized in many ways. Previously, it was difficult to install a free SSL at Hostinger and I listed that as one of the disadvantages of hosting with Hostinger.

Not now anymore.

At Hostinger, you now have free Let's Encrypt Lifetime SSL for all of your domains. Moreover – this free SSL certificate will be installed automatically as soon as you add them to your Hostinger account.

Custom Built Control Panel

Hostinger uses their in-house developed  Web Hosting Control Panel, named as hPanel, for their shared server platform. It functions similarly to cPanel but it comes with a posh design and some modern usability tweak – which makes it better than cPanel in my opinion.

The entire layout of hPanel dashboard makes it easy for users to access important system functions such as managing web files using drag-and-drop uploader in File Manager, setting up email accounts or changing your password, as well as switching PHP version and tracking web host resources usage (refer to images below).

hPanel Demo

7. Wide Range of Payment Options

Hostinger makes the payment process for their services easy to its users by allowing a wide variety of payment methods. You can make your payment using either PayPal, Credit Card (Visa, Master, Discover, American Express), Ali Pay, Google Pay, and various crypto currencies including BTC and ETH.

Con: What I Don't Like About Hostinger?

1. Price increase during the renewal

For the most part, Hostinger plans are quite affordable when you first sign up. When you renew, however, Hostinger will increase the prices quite significantly. While they have changed their renewal pricing to lower the hikes recently, the price increase is still an unpleasant surprise for many.

Hostinger Web Hosting Plans

Shared Hosting Plans & Pricing

Hostinger comes with 3 shared web hosting plans that you can choose from, which are Single Web Hosting, Premium Web Hosting and Business Web Hosting. Since all of them come with a 30-Day Free trial, you can test out their services risk-free.

Single Web Hosting offers the basic in terms of features and performance. For those who need more, premium and business includes a number of features such as more SSD storage and unlimited bandwidth. Business hosting, in particular, gives you 4x enhanced processing power and a free CDN which is great for eCommerce stores.

Compare Hostinger Single & Premium Plans

** Note: Hostinger does not offer dedicated IP for shared plans users. 

More about Hostinger Shared Plans here

VPS Hosting Plans & Pricing

There are 8 tiers of VPS hosting on Hostinger, starting from VPS 1 to VPS 8. If you're looking for blazing-fast loading speed, the Hostinger Cloud VPS is 30x faster than other normal hosting.

In addition to that, all of the Cloud VPS come with 100 MB/s Network, IPv6 Support, and SSD drives. Their VPS 8 can get you up to 8 CPUs, 16 GB Ram, 250 GB disk space and 12,000 GB bandwidth, which can handle any kind of website. Plus, if you need help, they have dedicated in-house live chat and phone support ready to help 24/7/365.

Compare Hostinger VPS 1 & VPS 2 Plans

* Note: Hostinger offers eight pre-set VPS hosting plans – please check out plan #4 – #8 at their official website. All Hostinger VPS hosting comes with free dedicated IP address and full server root access.

More about Hostinger VPS Plans here

Message from Hostinger: Why Go with Our Hosting Plans?

I spoke to Hostinger marketing managers and their Customer Success Team (Hostinger support staffs) a number of times in the past. Naturally, the question “What makes Hostinger the better web hosting provider compare to others” come up and this is what they wish to say to WHSR readers:

Message from Team Hostinger

Giving the opportunity for people to learn led Hostinger to become an industry’s price leader with a strong community of more than 30  million happy clients all over the world who choose to continue their journey with Hostinger and unlock all the unlimited web hosting features for the best price & quality balance and strong customer support.

Starting from  $1.99/mo webmasters can experience powerful SSD based shared web hosting services and for more demanding ones – only $3.95/mo to take absolutely full control over their personal cloud VPS servers.

– Sarune, Hostinger

Hostinger Alternatives

Despite Hostinger's ultra cheap signup rates and user popularity, not everyone will find them an ideal fit. It is important to realize that there are many alternatives to Hostinger that may better fit your websites. Below are some Hostinger alternatives that come out on top in our list of recommended web hosting companies.

Compare Hostinger with Oher Cheap Hosting Providers

• BlueHost ($2.95/mo) – BlueHost web hosting service is officially recommended by WordPress.org; the web host comes out tops for user-friendliness and overall popularity (see detailed comparison).
• TMD Hosting ($2.95/mo) – TMD Hosting is a rare gem that I often recommend to my friends and families. TMD's shared plans come with built-in Weebly Site Builder and choice of different server locations.
• GreenGeeks ($2.95/mo) – GreenGeeks is the global leader in eco-friendly web hosting services; the web host also comes with a great Let's Encrypt free SSL support and five data centers.

Alternatives to Hostinger VPS Hosting

1. Cloudways ($12.00/mo) – Cloudways is a Managed Cloud Hosting run on Digital Ocean, Vultr, Amazon AWS, or Google infrastructure. Their web hosting services are affordable and highly scalable.
2. A2 Hosting ($43.99/mo) – A2's Managed VPS Plans start with 4GB RAM and 150GB SSD storage at less than $50 per month (see comparison).
3. InMotion Hosting ($5.00/mo) – InMotion's VPS and Private Cloud Hosting come with Corero DDoS protection, dedeicated IP address, and built-in server monitoring. Their cheapest plan starts at just $5 per month – which makes them a great choice for those searching for a low-cost VPS Hosting.

Verdict: Should You Go with Hostinger Hosting?

Hostinger brings a lot to the table, from fantastic pricing and free domain registration to a wide range of server locations and the depth of plan types to grow into. Of course, you’ll also have to content with plan renewal price hikes, but that’s quite typical with low cost hosting providers.

Bottom line, Hostinger is a good choice for those who are looking one-stop cheap hosting solution – in particular newbies who are just starting out.

Frequent Asked Questions

Learn more – Visit Hostinger official website online