Hostinger is a dynamic web hosting provider known for unbeatable affordability, high-speed performance, and user-friendly interfaces. It offers a range of hosting options from shared to VPS hosting, WordPress hosting, Cloud hosting and Pro. With a global presence and a reputation for reliability, Hostinger is popular among individuals and small businesses looking for budget-friendly yet effective hosting solutions.
In this Hostinger review, we are going to see how good or bad it really is.
Table of Contents
- Web hosting plans / Pricing
- Performance
- Easy of use
- Migration
- Features
- Security
- Customer support
- Pros and Cons
- Do we recommend Hostinger ?
Web hosting plans / Pricing
Hostinger offers a wide range of hosting services and each service comes with different pricing based on features.
Below is a list of hosting services offered by Hostinger.
Shared web hosting
Shared web hosting is a popular choice among website owners, often serving as an initial and cost-effective hosting solution.
Pricing: Shared web hosting plan starts from USD $2.99/mo – 48 months
Ideal for new businesses looking to grow and expand.
Get started with Shared web hostingVPS web hosting
This service is a great choice for those who have outgrown their shared web hosting services. With VPS hosting website users get more control over their website specially if they have consistent too much traffic month to month.
Pricing: VPS hosting plan starts from USD $4.99/mo – 24 months
Ideal for managing multiple projects. Get full root access and automated daily backups, on-demand snapshots. Unlimited traffic.
Get started with VPS web hostingCloud web hosting
Cloud hosting service basically handles grows so that if you get large amount of traffic then cloud hosting plan is the right one to accommodate the surge traffic. This web hosting plan uses multiple servers to balance the load and maximize uptime instead of using one server. This means if one of the serves fails then another sever kicks in to keep everything running.
Pricing: Cloud web hosting starts from USD $7.99/mo – 24 months
Ideal for people who want to grow their business with managed service and auto-scalable cloud plans.
Get started with Cloud web hostingWordPress hosting
WordPress hosting is optimized for WordPress, offering features like one-click WordPress installation and automatic updates to the WordPress core.
Pricing: WordPress hosting starts from USD $2.99/mo – 48 months
Ideal for WordPress users who are looking for solutions for web presence and commerce needs.
Get started with WordPress web hostingPro
This plan is designed for professionals in mind.
Pricing: WordPress hosting starts from USD $7.99/mo – 48 months
Ideal: for professionals.
Get started with Pro web hostingHostinger offers a wide variety of web hosting services with different plans and prices.
To get a good deal you need to opt for long term contracts like 48 month’s, depending on the hosting service and chosen plan’s terms.
The good thing
- Save money and you don’t need to worry looking for plans or new hosting provider for a long time.
- You get FREE domain + 3 months FREE are included with most plans.
- You can see price of renew in advance so renewal price is not hidden.
- Lots of payment options are available at the checkout.
- 30 days money back guaranteed and this includes web hosting services, SSL certificates, Cloudflare and more, click here for more info.s
- Hostinger has data centers in North and South America, Europe and Asia, you can click here to see the exact locations
Hostinger data center locations
*Source Hostinger
The bad thing
- Some products like domain name is only refundable within 4 days.
- To save money then you need too commit for a long term however, this might be not a good option in case you are not ready to commit for that long.
- Some plans start at the same price even when discounted which can be confusing sometimes.
- Plan names can be confusing for instance the basic plan called Premium
Additional features and services
When selecting web hosting plan with Hostinger, security features are part of the package and some features such as Enhanced DDoS Protection is only available when choosing certain web hosting services.
For instance if you select a shared web hosting service then you get these security features
- Free SSL certificates installed automatically to secure your clients’ sensitive information.
- Malware scanner to proactively detect and remove harmful files.
- Privacy protection to keep your personal information safe.
- Defend against unwanted access by employing IP and country blocking, included with Hostinger CDN.
- Domain WHOIS Privacy Protection.
Performance
Hostinger has excellent uptime and response time which is really crucial for website performance, on an average the uptime is between 99.55% – 100%.
One of the big outages they have had was in June 2023, the outage took almost 2 hours.
Below report shows recent uptime and response time for Hostinger.
Table below shows both uptime and response time history from December 2022 – July 2024
*Source Pingdom
Easy of use
Hostinger dashboard looks clean, intuitive and easy to navigate, basically everything you need is right there.
The dashboard offers some nice little features like the pageSpeed insights integrations which gives you a quick overview about site’s performance.
Overall the Hostinger dashboard looks very clean and easy to use.
Migration
If you are considering switching web hosting providers, we have you covered.
To migrate your website to Hostinger
- Migrate the site yourself which is FREE of charge even when your website is currently hosted elsewhere.
Features
Hostinger offers many features (some features are available to certain plans only) when you sign up for a web hosting service.
- 24/7 chat support
- Free domain for 1 year
- Free SSL
- Weekly backup
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Free 1-Click WordPress Installation.
- 30 days money back guarantee Free website migration.
- Free domain for the 1 year
Resources
- Click here to read our free guide how to choose the best domain name for your website.
Security
A strong security offers significant benefits, including protection against cyber attacks, safeguarding sensitive data, maintaining your site’s reputation, ensuring regulatory compliance, minimizing downtime. This helps keep your website secure, operational, and trustworthy.
Hostinger offers total security from
- Securing files with regular automatic updates and two factor authentication.
- Offering free SSL certificates which helps to encrypt your website traffic.
- Enjoy full protection from DDoS attacks with Cloudflare protected nameservers.
- All plans come with secure access manager which helps you managing privileges for others to access your web hosting account.
Check out our FREE guide on the ultimate WordPress security.
Customer support
Overview
Hostinger offers different channels to help their customers with their issues or queries, they offer 24/7 live chat as advertised.
You also gain access to tools like a knowledge base, tutorials, blog, and their Hostinger Academy YouTube channel.
Our experience
Our experience with Hostinger live chat was not great because first an AI assistant tried to help but we tried to speak to human like many other people but surprisingly you need to login (be a customer) if you have questions.
If you are not a customer and still want to speak to human then you need to fill out a form which can be annoying.
For the form is too lengthy and there is an option for online meeting, you can view the form here.
We even tried to talk to support team but we got this
After signing up we have tried to test the live chat by asking questions related site transfer.
As you can see there is an option to chat now but it was a big disappointment.
Initially, we interacted with a chatbot, but after waiting 25 minutes, we were unable to speak with a human.
The experience was not great at all, first Hostinger advertised as they have live chat then when we tried to talk to someone before signing up then it turns out we needed to fill out a form and anything other than that was AI assistant.
After signing up the experience was similar and after 15 minutes talking to chatbot we were advised that we are connected to speak to someone however, we kept waiting until we gave up.
We checked after 40 minutes and the message not seen yet
After waiting for over 1 hour we finally had the chance to talk to someone from the support team, overall knowledge wise was ok and there was a bit of delay as well.
Conclusion
Overall, Hostinger‘s live chat experience was disappointing and unexpected from a major web hosting provider like them specially when they have advertised that they offer 24/7 live chat support.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Uptime is really good
- The renewal prices are advertised when looking at the plans.
- Hostinger offers free SSL security certificates also DDoS Protection with hosting services.
- There are many web hosting services offered by Hostinger you can choose from and each one of them comes with different plans, prices and specs based on your business needs and budget.
- 30 days money back guarantee.
- The dashboard is easy, intuitive and easy to use this also include the sign up process was simple and straight forward.
- Designed for WordPress and Hostinger recommended by WordPress
- For the checkout there are many options to choose from in terms of payments like credit cards(American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa or you can pay with PayPal, Google pay, Apple Pay, AliPay and Coingate.
Cons
- Some plans have the same starting price and very similar features which can be confusing for the average user. For instance Web hosting service and managed WordPress have the same starting price after discount and specs are very similar.
- All plans come with WordPress AI tool but when for example looking at Web hosting plans it says it comes with WordPress AI tool. (not in the basic one) and when looking at managed WordPress hosting it doesn’t say the service comes with WordPress AI tool. The support team clarified that all the plans come with WordPress AI tool.l (it depends on the plan) however, looking at the plans are not clear.
- Name of the plans is confusing for example the basic plan is called Premium and top one is called cloud starter.
- Renewal pricing can be expensive for example, if you sign up for 48 months for web hosting service, the introductory price is USD $2.99 then USD $8.99.
- The monthly option is expensive compared to other options such as 12, 24 and 48 months.
- To save money then you need to sign up for 48 months which is good in terms of saving money but not great if you are not planning to stay longer with Hostinger or don’t want to keep the site after 12 months.
- Live chat is not a true live chat, if you are not a Hostinger customer yet then you have two options
1- Speak to AI assistant which can be annoying and not the preferred option for many people.
2- Fill out a very long form to be able to speak to someone.
Do we recommend Hostinger ?
It depends
The good stuff about Hostinger
Hostinger is one of the major web hosting providers, offers various services like shared to VPS hosting, WordPress hosting, Cloud hosting and Pro, making it a significant player.
Hostinger offers a WordPress-focused hosting platform with AI tools for creating posts, selecting images, and troubleshooting issues efficiently
Despite potential price increases after plan expiration, Hostinger continues to offer a complete package for beginners to create WordPress website.
The biggest downside is the customer support
When you are on the Hostinger site, there is an option to ask questions however, it’s a chatbot not human.
To speak to a human then need to fill out a lengthy form then can talk to a human.
Upon signing up, we attempted to use the live chat; however, we spent 15 minutes with a chatbot before reaching a human.
Talking to human in the live chat can be a crucial feature for some people and in our testing it’s an important one to have the option to speak to someone other than a chatbot.
The strange part if you are not a Hostinger user then it’s even worse since you need to fill out form to schedule a call to speak to a person.
We believe customer support is very important services should not be compromised for whatever reason.
To conclude Hostinger is a recommended web host by WordPress, with an easy sign-up process, intuitive dashboard, and varying customer support wait times.
Get started with Hostinger today