Hostinger
If you are considering hosting your website with the company, this in-depth Hostinger review might help your decision.
This isn’t another surface-level regurgitation of info on Histinger. I’ve been a paying Hostinger customer since 2020, hosting four of my websites with them, and I’ve experienced the good and the not so good about the company.
In the Hostinger review, I’ll share my first-hand knowledge of the Hostinger web hosting services and how they impact my website performance.
- Hostinger offers affordable, feature-rich shared hosting starting at $2.99 monthly.
- Custom hPanel provides intuitive management, with easy setup and domain options.
- Hostinger boasts 99.9% uptime, fast SSD storage, and global server locations.
- Lacks phone support but offers live chat, email, and knowledge base.
Basics to Understand
Hostinger is a Luthiana-based web hosting service company serving over 2 million users worldwide.
Hostinger is famous for its generous and feature-rich shared hosting plans starting at just $2.99 monthly. This makes it suitable for beginners and scaling websites alike.
Hostingers affordable hosting comes with plenty of storage, an AI website builder, a one-click WordPress Installer, free backups, free business email hosting, and more—all accessible on a proprietary panel.
Hostinger Ease of Use & hPanel
Unlike the traditional and often complicated (for beginners) cPanel offered by most hosting providers, Hostinger has a custom-built intuitive dashboard called hPanel.
This hPanel houses all website and hosting management features. But if you prefer the old-school way, switching from hPanel to cPanel is effortless with a click.
Getting Started With Hostinger
Once you subscribe to Hostinger, setting up hosting is straightforward.
Simply go to the setup option on hPanel and let the Hostinger wizard walk you through the process.
After answering a few questions about your web hosting project, the wizard will prompt you to choose whether to create a new website or migrate an existing one.
You can create a new website using the Hostinger Website Builder, WordPress, or any other CMS (Content Management System) such as Drupal or Joomla.
Next, you need to add a domain name. You can create a new one or use an existing one. Hostinger offers a free domain for one year on any hosting plan above the single-site tier.
As you can see, this is a cakewalk. The Hostinger Wizard does a great job.
Hostinger Reliable Hosting
Hostinger says it offers the industry-standard 99.9% uptime guarantee, 100GB fast and reliable SSD storage, and LiteSpeed Web Servers with built-in cache engine for even its lowest-tier plan.
As Hostinger claims, these servers run on a 1000 Mbps connection speed.
The company has server locations in four continents (UK, Europe, USA, and Asia), which is excellent for local and international SEO.
You can choose the closest to your visitors, which reduces latency and speeds up website load time. I can testify to this: I’ve done it; switching server locations on Hostinger is easy.
The above are all big claims. But how solid are they, and how do they translate to “Hostinger is a reliable web hosting service?”
To help you answer that, I ran a series of performance tests on one of my Hostinger-hosted sites.
Notable Features
Unlike most reviewers, my Hostinger performance test wasn’t on a dummy site. Instead, I used a fully functional WordPress website
I performed uptime, load, and speed tests on this website. Let’s see the result.
Response Time
The first test I performed was the server response time test to see how fast my website responds to requests from different parts of the world. I use a tool called Global Uptime Test.
Global Uptime Test measures a site’s response time from different locations worldwide. I picked this tool because it adds up the DNS lookup time, request redirect time, and the first byte time to give the total load time.
Here’s the result:
As you can see, the response time is excellent across the board, with the lowest recorded in the U.S. (229 ms).
That’s due to server proximity. As shown above, my website is hosted on a server somewhere in Arizona, United States.
The slowest response time—1067 ms— recorded in faraway Singapore is still within acceptable limits and way below the 2.5 seconds recommended by Google.
In fact, it’s better than what most budget hosting providers can deliver.
Uptime
No matter how fast your website loads, you’ll lose customers and money if your site is always down.
Uptime is one of the most important factors when choosing a web host. So, how does Hostinger fare in this respect? Let’s find out.
My experience with Hostinger has been nothing short of impressive. I have never had any downtime issues since using the service in 2020.
But for the sake of the review, I signed up to UptimeRobot to see my website’s uptime and downtime history.
Amazingly, there has been no downtime record within the last 30 days. This is a good indicator that Hostingers offers a reliable hosting service.
Stress Test
While my website server shows excellent response time to the one-off load speed test above, I ran another test to see how it will perform under heavy requests. I use a stress testing tool called k6 to do this.
I used this tool to unleash 50 virtual visitors simultaneously to see how the server would handle such a sudden surge in traffic. Here’s the result.
The test shows that the server can handle 46 req per second at an average response time of 66 milliseconds, a solid A for a lower-tier hosting plan. Again, Hostinger proves to be reliable.
Hostinger Security
Hostinger offers impressive security features. In addition to the standard free SSL certificate with every plan, other internal security modules, such as DDoS protection, exist.
All Hostinger servers are equipped with Imunify360 or Bitninja web application firewalls, meaning no cracks in the wall.
Hostinger offers users free weekly backups of files and databases on its basic plan, and business plan subscribers get free daily backups.
Thus, you can quickly recover your data in case of an attack.
With Hostinger, I also get an automated malware scanner to help protect my website against cyberattacks. Upon setup, this scanner continuously checks my files, databases, and server configurations for any form of intrusion.
I can even set up two-factor authentication (2FA). Even if my password gets into the wrong hands, they won’t be able to access my website.
Hostinger Hosting Plans
So which Hostinger Hosting Plan is right for you? Let’s find out.
Shared hosting is the most popular and affordable option. It’s ideal for small to medium websites and includes free domain and SSL certificate features.
If you are building a WordPress website, Hostinger Managed WordPress hosting will make your life easier.
You’ll never have to worry about updates, backup, caching management, setting up SSL, backup, or performance optimization. It’s all done for you.
Hostinger’s Cloud hosting is specifically designed for websites with high and fluctuating traffic or those needing more resources and power.
It’s the most scalable and robust option. VPS hosting is a self-managed service with dedicated resources within a virtualized environment.
It’s a step up in performance and control, suitable for advanced users.
Pricing & Cost
Hostinger offers various hosting plans at different prices to suit users’ needs. Shared hosting starts at $2.99 per month, one of the industry’s most affordable options.
VPS hosting costs $4.99 per month, and cloud hosting costs up to $9.99. These are the base plans for Hostinger hosting services.
They all include a free domain, SSL certificate, and website builder, with higher-tier plans offering additional resources and functionalities.
Does Hostinger Offer Discounts?
Yes, Hostinger offers discounts on long-term commitments for all new customers. Depending on your plan, you can get up to 75% off when you pay for 36 or 48 months upfront.
I’m a beneficiary of Hostinger’s discount. I purchased the hosting I’ve been using since 2022 at $119.
Additionally, they often provide seasonal promotions, such as Black Friday or New Year sales, where customers can enjoy even more significant savings.
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My Honest Thoughts
It’s unheard of to say a company serving over 2 million website owners has no telephone support. Well, Hostinger doesn’t.
Their excuse is that telephone support slows things down.
Like you, I am curious to know whether that’s genuine.
But if you find yourself in a situation where you need to speak to a human on a voice call, you won’t get that here.
You can either resort to live chat or email support.
Interestingly, I’ve never had to use any of the above. For me, the Hostinger web knowledge base has always been enough.
It contains many helpful guides and tutorials arranged
into topics for easy access.
The only problem with this library is that the search box does a horrible job finding the right article. So, I always end up scrolling the page.
Another thing I find displeasing about Hostinger is the hPanel’s speed. It has always been a work in progress.
Despite continuous updates over the years, it can take forever to load, which doesn’t speak well for a web hosting provider.
Is Hostinger Worth The Cost?
For me, Yes. Hostinger is worth considering for individuals and small businesses looking for an affordable and reliable hosting provider.
Their hosting plans offer good value for money, with features like free SSL, 24/7 customer support, ample SSD storage and a wide range of hosting options.
Moreover, Hostinger has a strong reputation for uptime and performance, ensuring your website remains accessible.
That said, you need to assess your specific needs and compare them with Hostinger’s offerings to determine if there’s a fit.
Alternatives
Bluehost offers beginner-friendly hosting with 99.9% uptime, starting at $2.95 for 36 months. Unlike Hostinger, Bluehost reserves automatic backups for higher-tier plans and offers just 10GB of storage, compared to Hostinger's 100GB.
Both offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, but Bluehost has phone support and a 90-day refund period.
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