More often than not, a Hostinger review article comes first in the list for beginners searching for the best yet affordable web hosting service. And it is most likely why the reason why you are here.
While there are numerous great web hosting providers that cater to first-time web owners, Hostinger provides an impressive set of features—covering basic to advanced and professional tools—that are handy not only for newbies but also for professional web developers.
What is Hostinger?
Hostinger is a web hosting service known for its affordable plans yet reliable and beginner-friendly features.
Started way back in 2014, the web hosting company now serves nearly 30 million customers worldwide. It covers more than 170 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and Singapore. It has several data centers all around the globe as well and is looking to expand its services further, particularly in Eastern Europe.
But prior to its success, Hostinger began as a small company based in Lithuania. It was named “Hosting Media” back then. Its creators eventually rebranded it and launched 000webhost.com for free.
What is it for?
As mentioned, Hostinger is a beginner-oriented web hosting service providing basic to advanced web-building tools. It boasts a wide array of features which it claims can “make life easier for website developers and their customers.”
It offers various hosting types as well with a different set of tools so users can pick which plan is best for their business or project. For instance, it has tools specifically built to optimize WordPress-supported sites.
But the best part about Hostinger is that users can avail of its services for as low as $0.99 per month.
Here are a few more perks to look forward to:
- Low-cost monthly plans
- 99.9% uptime guarantee and quick load time
- It comes free website builder
- Users get a free domain name
- Easy-to-use interface
- Unlimited features in select plans
- 24/7 customer service
- 30-day money-back guarantee
What are the pros and cons?
To give you an overview of what to expect about Hostinger, I enumerated blow some of its perks and disadvantages.
Pros
- High-performing web host
- Affordable plans
- Intuitive and newbie-friendly interface
- Free domain and SSL certificate
- More than 95% uptime performance
- Speedy loading time
- Reliable and 24/7 customer support
- It has its own website builder
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- Users need to log-in first before they can access live chat
- It does not have the standard cPanel
- Some plans do not offer an SSL
- Customer support via phone call is not available
- No daily backups
Hostinger pricing plans
If you are not aware yet, Hostinger has multiple plans across its five hosting types. It means pricing plans vary for every hosting type while at the same time the length of subscription affects each plan’s cost too.
But to give you an overview, I listed down below the starting price of hosting types’ basic plans.
- WordPress hosting’s basic plan starts at $1.99 per month.
- Shared hosting’s starter plan starts at $0.99 per month.
- Cloud hosting’s startup plan starts at $9.99 per month.
- Email hosting’s basic plan starts at $0.99 per month.
- VPS hosting’s basic plan starts at $3.95 per month.
If you want to know more about Hostinger’s pricing plan, check out the next section.
Everything about Hostinger
Hostinger is comprised of different features created to serve specific purposes. To understand how each plan can help you, I will explain in this section everything you need to know about it.
Hostinger’s best features
Hostinger offers a huge collection of features that are created specifically to help users build high-performing websites. Out of these tools, however, there are a few features that stood out, while webmasters deem impressive compared to others.
In short, these elements are Hostinger’s best.
Having said that, below are some of the areas that Hostinger performs well.
1. Hostinger-developed control panel
While cPanel is the standard control panel for most web hosting providers—which Hostinger also used prior to its shift—the web hosting service walked a different path and created its own and called it hPanel.
Hostinger’s control panel or hPanel is packed with handy tools suitable not only for webmasters but also for beginners who are looking to dip their toes in the realm of web creation.
For instance, it has DNS zones configurations, MySQL databases, and a file manager. It also has easy auto installations and email accounts. So, if you look at it further, hPanel is almost similar to what cPanel can do.
But some enthusiasts think that Hostinger web hosting control panel is lacking.
Advanced email features such as mailing lists, routings, and filters, for example, are missing. hPanel’s auto-installer seems to lack a few extra features too that cPanel has. Site cloning and setting up a staging version, for instance, are available on cPanel but are unfortunately not included in Hostinger’s control panel.
On the brighter side, the web hosting company guaranteed that its own-developed hPanel is intuitive and easy to handle that even a newbie would not have trouble using it. So, although it lacks a few features, it is still useful, particularly for beginners.
2. LiteSpeed webserver
As its name suggests, LiteSpeed is a web server and cache manager Hostinger use to provide high-speed loading time. It ranks as one among the quickest and exceptionally reliable web servers hosting companies use. In fact, it is recognized as a much better web server compared to Apache technology which web hosting services like GoDaddy use.
Apart from that, it is also one of the cache manager tool enthusiasts typically recommend, particularly for WordPress clients. LiteSpeed is a hassle-free feature too since users need not perform technical stuff in order to access and run it.
But what is the deal in boosting a webpage’s speed?
A study conducted by Google shows that slow loading time affects conversion rates by up to 20%. It means that web owners, say, those who run an online store, are at risk of losing potential customers from purchasing products as buyers tend to leave slow-loading websites—specifically
with loading time that is higher than three seconds.
Furthermore, that is also the reason why Hostinger built servers in different countries all around the globe including the United States. To keep with the demand.
3. Security tool
SSL certificate is one of the most crucial elements in building reliable and good-performing websites. Basically, what it does is that it secures and encrypts your visitors’ data.
The good thing is that most plans offers the said feature.
The only plan I noticed that does not provide the said tool, however, is the Single WordPress hosting. It is why even if you are a newbie, it is better to opt for plans next to it like the WordPress Starter as it offers a free SSL certificate.
But what will happen if your page does not have the said feature?
Unfortunately, unsecured, and unencrypted data of your visitors can be stolen by hackers and the likes and can be used for online criminal activities such as phishing. Google also penalizes sites that do not have the security tool as it risks people’s data online.
4. Up to 99% uptime
Hostinger is not only known for its fast servers and webpage loading time. It is also recognized for its strong uptime performance.
Considering that is one of the many elements that website owners need to check first, Hostinger provides not only reliable but high-performing uptime of more than 95% to keep your sites online always.
Of course, downtimes are inevitable. But as what many web enthusiasts have noticed, system downtime happens rarely. Overall, it is safe to say that Hostinger performs well in this area.
5. Website builder
Hostinger ventured into the realm of website building too. The web hosting service now enables users to customize and publish their own web themes using their very own website builder called Zyro—rather than letting customers purchase a separate page building kit.
Here are some of Zyro’s perks:
- Drag-and-drop editor. The builder comes with basic and advanced tools that can be usually seen in other site builders. For example, the builder has a drag-and-drop editor which allows folks to drag any elements they want and drop it into the canvas.
It means you do not need to learn how to code like how professional web developers do just to create a website from the ground up. Hence, it is intuitive and noob friendly.
- Pixel-perfection grids and web templates. It has a pixel-perfection feature that enables creators to design on-point web themes. If you need some inspiration, Zyro has a large album of “designer-made templates” too. These templates are customizable as well, hence you can alter and retouch it according to your style.
- Easy commerce. Looking to launch an online store? Hostinger’s website builder got you covered too. It has a feature called Easy Commerce which lets users build online stores that are aesthetically pleasing, and at the same time, packed with marketing tools.
- AI writer tool and free images. The site builder offers a writing tool as well that can help you with written content. All generated texts are also guaranteed SEO-optimized. Perfect for amateur online entrepreneurs.
It comes with a large collection (over 1 million) of free-to-use and high-quality images through Unsplash as well.
Performance
Uptime score & loading time
Hostinger guarantees nearly 100% uptime score to its clients. Surprisingly, after various server examinations, the web hosting service did not only uphold its promise but exceeded every other web hosting providers’ uptime performance as well.
I tested Hostinger’s uptime performance by purchasing its basic shared hosting plan. I also used different software to measure and determine its server uptime score.
Using UptimeRobot, for instance, the average uptime score hit 99.99%.
Hostinger provides premium results when it comes to page loading speed as well. Its average loading time based on GTmetrix is 1.56 seconds. Its fastest time recorded, on the one hand, was 1.0 seconds while the slowest is 1.9 seconds.
I tested Hostinger’s page loading time using Pingdom as well. The average loading time for the fastest location is 0.81 seconds, while the slowest is 2.49 seconds.
Below are the results:
- Washington D.C: 0.8 seconds
- London: 0.54 seconds
- San Francisco: 1.12 seconds
- Tokyo: 1.57 seconds
- Sydney: 2.49 seconds
Hostinger’s plans and features
To accommodate each user’s needs, Hostinger offers almost all types of web hosts that are known today, including WordPress, shared, cloud, VPS, and email hosting. Each plan, on the other hand, offers a varying set of features in order to further fulfill all users’ demand.
Below is a breakdown of each program.
WordPress hosting
Everyone knows that WordPress is the top and widely used content management system in the digital realm. To supply the demand, Hostinger built a hosting plan specifically for WordPress clients.
Hostinger’s WordPress hosting solution is a feature-rich plan with prices that can go as low as $1.99 a month. Its features are not merely web-building tools as well, but tools to help users create an optimized WordPress hosting environment.
For instance, it has features like SSL certificate and LiteSpeed cache manager that allows you to enhance your site’s security. Users need not worry about where to get themes and plugins as well. The plan comes with a collection of customizable WordPress themes and plugins that will surely help boost the site’s performance.
The plan also comes with several WordPress tutorials to help customers—particularly beginners—understand better how WordPress works.
On top of that, all features are intuitive and easy-to-use that even newbies can handle it without professional help.
The WordPress hosting solution, on the one hand, is categorized into four plans to further provide a solution that will fit the user’s needs. If, for example, you run an online business, Hostinger’s Business WordPress plan would be a perfect fit. However, if you are new to this or looking to launch a personal website, I recommend Single WordPress or WordPress Starter.
To help you decide, below is a brief breakdown of each plan and its features:
| | Single WordPress | WordPress Starter | Business WordPress | WordPress Pro |
| Price | $1.99/monthly | $2.99/monthly | $7.99/monthly | $11.59/monthly |
| Website | 1 website | 100 websites | 100 websites | 300 websites |
| Email Account | 1 email account | 100 email accounts | 100 email accounts | 100 email accounts |
| Disk Space | 10GB disk space | 20GB disk space | 100GB disk space | 100GB disk space |
| Bandwidth | Limited (100GB) | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SSL and domain | Free (no domain) | Free SSL & domain | SSL & domain | SSL & domain |
| Jetpack tool | Not available | Free | Free | Jetpack Personal |
| WooCommerce | Available | Available | Available | Available |
| Use | For starters | Personal use | For small to mid-size businesses | For large businesses |
Another impressive thing about Hostinger’s WordPress hosting solution is that it has a dedicated team of WordPress specialists that customers can reach out to—whether it is to fix bugs or add features and plugins.
Most importantly, customer support through live chat is available 24/7. To learn more about the plans, visit the Hostinger website here.
Shared web hosting
Hostinger also offers a shared web hosting solution that is targeted at folks looking to run multiple websites.
Just like WordPress hosting, it comes with a wide array of features—from basic to advanced—that users can access. And although it lacks some WordPress-specific tools WordPress hosting provides, Hostinger guarantees that it is optimized for better WordPress performance.
The only difference is that it is cheaper. In fact, it is the cheapest program among the four plans.
But what is shared hosting exactly?
Shared hosting enables users to run multiple sites hosted in one server, allowing each user to occupy a particular amount of storage and resources. It is typically cheap due to its low-budget usage of hardware. Such type of hosting is often preferred by bloggers and hobbyists too.
To give you an overview, I enumerated each plan under shared hosting:
| | Single Shared Hosting | Premium Shared Hosting | Business Shared Hosting |
| Price | $0.99/monthly | $2.59/monthly | $3.99/monthly |
| Website | 1 website | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Email account | 1 email account | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Limited (100GB) | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SSL and domain | Free SSL (no domain) | Free SSL and domain | Free SSL and domain |
| Allocated resources | 1x allocated resources | 2x allocated resources | 4x allocated resources |
| WordPress acceleration | Not available | Available | Available |
| Use | For newbies | For personal use | For small enterprises |
Beginners need not worry as well. All tools are easy-to-managed and have a user-friendly interface for hassle-free navigation. Customer service is also available 24/7.
Cloud hosting
Hostinger has a cloud hosting plan and is being offered in the best possible way. It is packed with handy features, just like the first two Hostinger web hosting plans. Along it is an intuitive interface and easy-to-use tools dedicated to creating the best cloud hosting for large-scale businesses.
But what is cloud hosting exactly?
Cloud hosting is a single physical server divided into multiple interlinked servers. The system is designed for servers to tap or take over each other if needed. Basically, cloud hosting provides more resources to fit demand. Hence, it is recommended for large-scale businesses as well as those who need 100% uptime guarantee.
The Hostinger cloud hosting plan is packed with benefits. Here are some of its perks:
- Easy-to-use. It has an intuitive control panel for hassle-free access and navigation.
- Fully managed. No need to worry about sudden downtime. Hostinger has dedicated support team available 24/7 to help users. Other support includes maintenance, monitoring, and uptime.
- Dedicated resources. Users will get dedicated resources including IP address, SSD disk space, domain, RAM, and CPU.
- Tutorials. It has a collection of cloud hosting tutorials as well to help customers, especially newbies, understand how the system works.
However, on the flip side, cloud hosting plans’ prices differ significantly from other hosting systems. In fact, it ranks second in Hostinger’s most expensive plans. But that is because Hostinger’s cloud hosting plans include dedicated resources and other impressive benefits.
Below is a breakdown of plans under Hostinger’s cloud hosting programs:
| | Cloud Startup | Cloud Professional | Cloud Global |
| Price | $9.99/monthly | $18.99/monthly | $56.99/monthly |
| Websites | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SSD storage | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| CPU cores | 2 CPU cores | 4 CPU cores | 8 CPU cores |
| RAM | 3GB RAM | 6GB RAM | 16GB RAM |
| Speed boost | 1x speed boost | 2x speed boost | 4x speed boost |
| SSL and domain | Free | Free | Free |
Email hosting
It is known that email marketing is a crucial strategy in the sales funnel. Having a professional email address improves the business’ brand image as well.
Having said that, Hostinger provides email hosting services to its customers as well. So, rather than using free email service, users can now purchase and enjoy domain-based email addresses.
Powered by Titan, Hostinger’s email hosting boasts a wide range of handy features too.
It allows third-party integration with applications like Asana, Todoist, and Twitter, for instance. Productivity features like reminders, notes, to-do lists are also included. It also has a calendar tool where you can schedule, set up, and track important events.
Online meetings? Titanmail got you covered as well. Using it, users can host a meeting of up to 50 people by integrating video calls.
But what exactly is email hosting all about?
Email hosting is a type of hosting solution that enables users to buy their own email server. Such a server operates independently from website hosting as well. Hence, users can still do business through emails even when, say, the site is down.
It is, on the one hand, not free and is being offered separately under two plans: business email and enterprise email. The latter is being offered for as low as $0.99 a month, while the former costs about $2.49.
VPS hosting
Another type of web hosting Hostinger offers is VPS hosting.
VPS or Virtual Private Server, as its name suggests, is a private-type server that can be exclusively own by one user only unlike shared hosting. It is a popular hosting solution, as well as its benefits, goes in between shared hosting and dedicated hosting, which is suitable for website owners with medium-level web traffic.
It is deemed more reliable and secured than shared hosting plans too.
When it comes to its perks, VPS hosting is feature-rich and guaranteed to meet all users’ demand just what other hosting plans can do. For example, it has auto-installers together with known operating system templates and website scripts. It has a custom control panel and up to 128 GB of RAM for one server.
It provides a dedicated IP address as well and up to 100 Mb/s network for a speedy and excellent loading time experience.
Hostinger’s VPS hosting is divided into six solutions. And each plan is categorized based on the power of the CPU or Central Processing Unit given to the server.
That said, below is an overview of its VPS hosting plan:
| | RAM | SSD disk space | Bandwidth | Dedicated IP | Full root access | Price (monthly) |
| 1vCPU | 1 GB | 20 GB | 1 TB | Free | Free | $3.95 |
| 2vCPU | 2 GB | 40 GB | 2 TB | Free | Free | $8.95 |
| 3vCPU | 3 GB | 60 GB | 3 TB | Free | Free | $12.95 |
| 4vCPU | 4 GB | 80 GB | 4 TB | Free | Free | $15.95 |
| 6vCPU | 6 GB | 120 GB | 6 TB | Free | Free | $23.95 |
| 8vCPU | 8 GB | 160 GB | 8 TB | Free | Free | $29.95 |
Security and privacy
Hostinger knew that when it comes to online trading, security as well as privacy matter. It is why, as an acknowledged web hosting provider, Hostinger made sure that all its clients’ websites are secured by giving a free SSL certificate.
Such a tool is known as small data files creating an encrypted link between a browser and a web server, cryptographically. In layman’s terms, it ensures that all information going in and out of web servers and browsers are private and safe.
Hostinger’s free SSL Certificate exactly functions like that. It enables web owners—especially those who run an online store and sell services—to prevent visitors’ personal and sensitive data from being stolen.
But why is it important?
There are several reasons why a feature like that is important for a website to have. But the number one and web oners’ top concern is data stealing.
Unsecured webpages or those without it are prone to data theft, message forgery, and eavesdropping. These activities are typically done by hackers who will, later, use it to scam people online, specifically the owners of the information they stole.
Another reason is that Google penalizes those that do not have the feature, which impacts the site’s ranking too. On the flip side, Google will do the opposite if a website uses the security feature. Letting your visitors know that your site is safe from hackers helps you earn their trust as well.
Business websites say, an online shop, tend to be more at risk of data theft and forgery. So, if you own one or you are planning to launch, I recommend you secure your page using Hostinger’s free SSL certificate.
Moreover, the web hosting service recently unveiled a new feature that allows users to set up two-factor authentication. What it does is that it lets customers identify themselves as the account’s owner by using either a phone number or an email address. It is like an extra layer of security.
Customer support
Bugs and other web malfunctions are inevitable in the digital realm. It is why having responsive and always-on-the-line customer support is crucial for all types of online business, including web hosting providers.
Fortunately, Hostinger has an impressive remark on the said area.
Hostinger’s customer service comes with a long-range of choices for users to opt for. It has 24/7 email support, live chat, as well as support tickets. The company built its own knowledge center too equipped with reliable and quick response times.
Another great thing about its Hostinger’s customer support team is that it has multilingual teams serving in about 20 countries. It also has local support teams so that locals would not have trouble communicating with the team.
Document and photo attachments are also available. A great feature if, for instance, a user cannot precisely explain the problem through words.
Another fun thing to take note of is the chat box’s interface. It comes with a GIF album as well as emojis that users can use to express, say, how frustrated they are. Yet still, in a fun and too overwhelming approach.
And last but not least is its no-tier support system. It means customers will likely receive immediate action and solution as the teams do not pass the calls to upper-tier support, which usually makes the whole process long and complicated. They are instead trained to answer all calls and provide solutions quickly.
Things to take note of
Hostinger is not only about good performance and impressive features. It also has a few—but not too concerning—downsides and confusion that I believe potential users need to be aware of as well.
Having said that, I enumerated some of them below:
- Non-standard payments policy. If you read Hostiger’s Refund Policy, it has a certain situation in which refund is applicable, while other certain exceptions will not allow you to get your money back.
In its web hosting service, for example, all plans are refundable except the first payment after the Free Trial. Payment for SSL certificates is refundable as well under its standard terms. When it comes to Domain Transfers, .eu transfers are refundable while .es and EURid are not.
Other terms like privacy protection, redemption fees, and domain name renewal are however non-refundable. Do take note that new domain name registration is also refundable only when it was canceled and was processed within four days.
- Extra domain name is not free. Most plans under Hostinger offers free domain, while some plans do not. If, however, you want to add an extra domain, you will then need to separately pay for it.
Additional registration of domains like .net and .com, for instance, will cost you $10 a year. On the one hand, you will be charged $0.99 a year for domains like .tech and .online.
On a good note, renewal of expired domains comes with no extra charges as long as it is renewed within 36 days after the expiration. Otherwise, you will pay a fee of $53 if you get to renew it within the Redemption Grace Period (66 days).
The Verdict
If you prefer a reliable web hosting service yet at the same time want to save money, then I believe Hostinger’s cheap, but feature-rich hosting plans are something you would be interested of. It indeed proved their goal to “make life easier for website developers and their customers” performance-wise.
All in all, I highly recommend it among other web hosting providers for many reasons, but particularly because it is affordable and has easy-to-understand interface and user-oriented tools.