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Hostinger offers incredibly low prices – low enough that you might think there’s some kind of catch. As a tester of all things web hosting, I tried Hostinger’s services myself. I looked at every type of hosting on offer, from the budget shared hosting all the way up to the premium cloud plans.
I found that with the right plan, you could get a huge amount of value out of Hostinger. Its entry-level hosting plans provide quality performance and features at prices lower than just about anyone else’s.
However, it wasn’t all good news. Outside of the budget plans, there were some instances where Hostinger didn’t live up to the competition. Read on for all the important details, and to find out which plan best fits your particular needs.
Hostinger has a wide range of hosting packages, offering three shared plans and four WordPress plans. On the higher end, Hostinger has six VPS plans and three cloud hosting plans.
You can pay monthly, annually, biennially, or quadrennially (a four-year term). Choosing a longer payment term gets you better prices, with the four-year plan offering the best value overall. It’s a good deal, but be careful – after the initial payment term, your hosting will renew at a higher price.
You can pay via all major credit cards, PayPal, Google Pay, and even some popular cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Additionally, all plans are protected by a 30-day money-back guarantee. Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to cancel, although I did find that I needed to contact support to process my refund.
Hostinger is a great fit if you’re on a budget, as its cheap entry-level plans contain all the essentials. There are extra features that are only available with higher-tier plans, such as automatic daily backups, but nothing crucial.
There are no hidden fees, although Hostinger does attempt to upsell frequently with pop-ups on its hosting dashboard.
Shared Hosting
If you’re looking to run just one simple site, shared hosting will likely be your best option. While it may not be as fast or as reliable as some more expensive web hosting services, it offers an affordable starting point. It’s also suited to beginners, as it doesn’t require much setup.
Single Shared Hosting
Even Hostinger’s cheapest plan speeds past much of the competitionHostinger’s Single Shared Hosting is the cheapest plan it has. And it really is cheap – this plan is one of the most affordable starting points in the industry today, and it includes everything you need to get started.
You get a free SSL certificate, weekly automatic backups, and some managed WordPress features, if you choose to install it. Additionally, during my performance tests, this plan delivered some of the fastest loading times I’ve seen from shared hosting.
This plan allows for only a single website with 30GB SSD space, 100GB bandwidth, and one email account. Keep in mind that there’s no free domain name – you’ll have to pay for this alongside your hosting if you haven’t already registered a domain elsewhere.
Premium Shared Hosting
Hostinger’s offer of a free domain brings even more savingsPremium Shared Hosting costs slightly more than Single Shared Hosting, but it offers plenty of value. All of your resource limits increase significantly, and bandwidth usage is no longer capped.
You also get a Google Ads credit, which may give you a small promotional boost. A free domain name is included for one year, which makes this plan comparable in price to Single Shared Hosting, if only for the first year.
Developers looking to host multiple sites (up to 100) will find this plan allows for unlimited databases, FTP accounts, and cron jobs, as well as SSH access.
Business Shared Hosting
Hostinger’s free CDN could open up your site to new audiences
Hostinger’s Business Shared Hosting is aimed at those who want the simplicity of shared hosting amped up to its limit. It includes 200GB SSD storage and can support an estimated 100,000 visitors monthly. As such, this plan is a better choice for multiple busy websites.The Business plan includes daily automatic backups, as opposed to the weekly backups in the other two plans. You also get free access to a CDN (content delivery network), which can significantly lower loading times for international visitors.
As Hostinger’s highest tier of shared hosting, this plan is still very affordable. In fact, it’s less expensive than the cheapest shared hosting plans offered by many competing hosts. But while you could serve a large audience for less, you might be held back by the downsides of shared hosting: when traffic ramps up, reliability may suffer, and loading speeds may vary.
Is Shared Hosting Right for You?
If you’re looking for a cheap starting point, you can’t go wrong with Hostinger’s shared hosting plans. I’d say Premium Shared Hostingoffers the most value, with high resource limits, nice freebies, and the ability to host multiple sites. However, if you’re only looking to host one site, Single Shared Hosting will probably be sufficient.
If you find that one or more of your websites are getting very popular, you can upgrade to the Business Shared Hosting plan. But this is still only shared hosting – if you’re getting a lot of continuous traffic, especially on multiple sites, I’d recommend a VPS for better overall performance.
If you’re looking to put up a WordPress site, choosing a dedicated WordPress hosting plan is generally a good idea. While any shared hosting plan should be able to run the world’s most popular CMS (content management system), you may be missing out on enhancements that make it faster and easier to work with.
Hostinger manages and optimizes WordPress for you, even with its shared hosting plans. However, its WordPress hosting plans offer a boost in performance and some extra WordPress-specific features.
Single WordPress
Hostinger squeezes as much performance out of WordPress as it can
Hostinger’s Single WordPress plan is a little disappointing: it’s a bit more expensive than the Single Shared Hosting plan, yet it has an almost identical feature list. There’s managed WordPress updates to keep you secure, and the LiteSpeed Cache plugin to optimize loading times. However, these features are already available in the shared hosting plans.
In fact, the only feature the Single WordPress plan has over its shared hosting counterpart is access to WP-CLI, a command-line interface for WordPress that will only be of use to experienced developers.
Still, these plans are hosted on servers that are specifically fine-tuned for WordPress. Because of this, a WordPress site should perform better than it would on a shared hosting server. This alone makes the plan worth considering.
WordPress Starter
Hostinger supports WordPress Multisite with any WordPress plan that offers multiple sites
The WordPress Starter plan increases your available resources, features a free domain for a year, and gives you some Google Ads credit for added value. It’s about 50% more expensive than the Single WordPress plan, but as this is so cheap to begin withit’s quite a good deal for the extra resources.If you’re looking to host more than one WordPress site, this plan is a natural choice due to its 100-website limit. And running many sites can be made easier with the supported WordPress Multisite, which allows you to manage multiple similar sites from a single dashboard.
The free version of the Jetpack plugin comes pre-installed for you. It provides site analytics and some extra security features. But as this plugin is free to download regardless, it isn’t much of an addition.
WordPress Pro
Restoring one of Hostinger’s daily backups only takes a few clicks
WordPress Pro is the highest-tier plan offered by Hostinger for WordPress hosting. It supports an estimated 300,000 monthly visits, and gives you CDN access, daily automatic backups via an included Jetpack Personal subscription, and a free dedicated IP address.
Unfortunately, this increase in resources comes with a significant increase in price. The WordPress Pro plan costs around 4x that of the WordPress Starter plan. Still, hosts that offer a similar amount of reach tend to be even more expensive than this.
But I would have liked to see some more exciting features at this price. For a similar monthly fee, you could get a hosting plan with Nexcess that features AI-tested automatic plugin updates, site staging, and more.
Is WordPress Hosting Right For You?
Hostinger’s WordPress hosting plans are beginner-friendly, and feature impressive performance with LiteSpeed web servers. There is a lack of premium features, but you still get all the essentials, along with a generous set of resources. The WordPress Starter plan offers especially good value for the price.
You can serve a large audience with the WordPress Pro plan, but I’d recommend looking into a VPS once you reach this tier. You’ll get better performance, reliability, and flexibility – all of which become more and more important as your audience grows.
If you have a medium-to-large audience, paying for a VPS might be a good call. As a VPS promises dedicated processing power and RAM, your audience will benefit from more consistent performance and uptime than you’d typically get with shared hosting.
A VPS also gives you much more scalability and customizability – if you have the know-how, you can customize your server as you see fit.
While it’s certainly a step up from shared hosting, a VPS can be affordable – Hostinger’s entry-level VPS plans can be had for budget prices. However, Hostinger’s VPSs aren’t for complete beginners, as you’ll have to configure, maintain, secure, and optimize the server yourself.
VPS 1
Hostinger offers a dedicated IP with every VPS planHostinger’s six VPS plans are distinguished only by price and resource limits. VPS 1 is the entry-level plan and it’s priced pretty low – less expensive than either Business Shared Hosting or WordPress Pro, but resource limits are lower than both of these.
With only 1 CPU core and 1GB RAM, you won’t have much room to deploy much other than the most basic website. There’s also only 20GB SSD space which, depending on your needs, may prove to be insufficient.
Still, this is a very cheap way to get started with a VPS, and you do get 1TB of bandwidth. If you have a relatively small site, and you’d like full control of a small virtual server, you could definitely save some cash by making this plan work for you.
VPS 3
Hostinger lets you easily install a variety of Linux OS templates
By choosing the VPS 3 plan, you’ll get much more computing power – VPS 3 offers triple the resources found in VPS 1. Of course, this plan is also triple the price, which could be a problem if you’re on a budget. And don’t forget, Hostinger’s renewal prices tend to be around double the original discounted price.
Regardless, the VPS 3 plan will be sufficient for most medium-sized websites and applications with a significant amount of traffic. Unlike the VPS 1 plan, you’ll wield the power of a VPS with less worry about hitting resource limits.
It must be said that Hostinger’s VPS 3 plan lacks value in the face of the competition. For example, A2 Hosting’s Runway 4 plan includes more CPU cores, more RAM, and more SSD storage, all for a lower price.
VPS 6
Hostinger’s platform delivers top speeds
As the top-tier plan, VPS 6 is the absolute pinnacle of performance for Hostinger’s VPS hosting service. With 8 CPU cores and 8GB of RAM, it certainly isn’t messing around – this should be more than enough to speedily serve a huge audience with a particularly large site, or several large sites.
Prices start high and renew for even higher, as you’d expect for a premium plan. Yet for just a little bit extra, you could have a fully-managed VPS with double the RAM from InterServer.
Is VPS Hosting For You?
Hostinger’s unmanaged VPS service is best suited to those with the technical knowledge to use it. As the VPS 1 plan offers one of the cheapest entry points in the industry for VPS, this would be a great option for someone who is just learning how to configure and manage a web hosting server.
Cloud hosting is the next step up. Spoiler alert: Hostinger’s cloud hosting generally offers better value than the more expensive VPS plans. If you have a big budget and a large audience to serve, it might be time to look into the cloud.
Cloud hosting is Hostinger’s most expensive and highest-capacity service offering. These plans make use of cloud infrastructure to guarantee scalability, flexibility, and redundancy.
Rather than being tied to a single server, your site will exist across a network of servers, and any surges in traffic will be served by the entire network. These plans are best for those who require the absolute best in performance and reliability. And, most notably, Hostinger’s cloud hosting plans are fully managed.
Cloud Startup
Hostinger’s cloud hosting is the best-performing managed solution it offers
For Hostinger’s most expensive category of hosting, the Cloud Startup plan is reasonably priced if you agree to a four-year term. It doesn’t stay cheap forever – renewal rates are more in line with what you’d expect for a cloud-based service.
Still, it gives you access to the same features as Hostinger’s higher-tier cloud plans. There’s a dedicated IP address, managed WordPress services, and access to a CDN, to name a few.
The only way this plan differs from the other two is in its lower resource limits. However, with 3GB of RAM and 2 CPU cores, you still get a decent amount of power.
Overall, Hostinger’s Cloud Startup plan offers a cheaper starting point than its competition along with a solid range of features.
Cloud Professional
Hostinger’s Cloud hosting plans focus on usability, performance, and convenience
Cloud Professional is the mid-tier plan. While it doesn’t offer any additional features, it has double the CPU and RAM of the Cloud Startup plan for a significant increase in performance.
Of course, this added power comes at almost double the price, which may double again upon renewal, depending on the term you’ve chosen. Prices are not outrageous for managed cloud hosting, but as with all Hostinger plans, you’re best to go with the longest plan you feel you can justify.
Cloud Enterprise
Cloud Enterprise gets you the very best performance offered by Hostinger
Cloud Enterprise is Hostinger’s most expensive plan, and with 16GB of RAM and 6 CPU cores, there’s plenty of server power to use as you see fit. As its name implies, this plan is aimed at large companies, performance-heavy projects, and developers of multiple sites.
As the price is almost four times that of the Cloud Professional plan, Cloud Enterprise is solely for those with the biggest budgets. Thankfully, prices do not double at renewal, but they still do rise significantly.
For such an expensive plan, it’s slightly disappointing that there are no extra features. Many other hosts offer something special for their highest-paying customers – such as a premium level of support, or more customizability.
Is Cloud Hosting For You?
Hostinger’s cloud service aims to combine the usability of shared hosting with the power and scalability of the cloud. These plans are a good choice if you need consistently high performance regardless of your overall technical knowledge.
The Cloud Startup plan offers a relatively affordable place to start, and it doesn’t miss out on any features. It’s not a bad deal – especially for a managed service – but this type of hosting is still costly, especially upon renewal.
Hostinger offers impressive performance for low prices, but plans may lack specific features you’re looking for – or maybe you just don’t want to commit for four years just to get the best deals. In that case, some of our other top-rated hosts may suit you better.
A2 Hosting
Like Hostinger, A2 Hosting offers excellent performance at low prices, but with a superior refund policy. Cancelling your plan at any time nets you a prorated refund for the remaining time on your contract.
If you find that you’d like to cancel a year or so into one of Hostinger’s four-year plans, you’re going to be out a lot of money. A2 Hosting’s guarantee1 allows you to take advantage of its discounted triennial payment options while retaining the option to change your mind at any time.
InMotion Hosting
InMotion Hosting1 is more expensive than Hostinger, but it does offer some unique features. For example, it allows you to skip the website development process entirely – for a one-time fee, InMotion Hosting’s team of experts will create a single-page WordPress site for you, tailored to your needs.
Additionally, InMotion Hosting offers a 90-day money-back guarantee, which is three times longer than the guarantee offered by Hostinger. This gives you plenty of time to see if the service is right for your needs.
InterServer
If you find resource limits in Hostinger’s shared hosting plans to be too low for your needs, InterServer could be a better choice. The Standard Web Hosting plan1comes with unlimited SSD storage, bandwidth, and email accounts, all for a relatively low price. While InterServer is more expensive than Hostinger, especially upon renewal, it may be worth it to you for the more generous resource allocations.
InterServer also provides “Inter-Insurance.” If your site is compromised, InterServer will clean and restore it, and will take measures to prevent similar breaches. Hostinger leaves the entirety of post-hack site cleanup to you.
Hostinger features some of the cheapest entry points for web hosting in the industry, while still providing very good performance. No plan is missing any crucial features, but there is a lack of anything truly special, especially on the premium plans.
The shared and WordPress hosting plans will get you the best deals. Although the VPS and cloud plans offer competitive starting prices, they can become quite costly rapidly. You will probably find a superior premium hosting experience at a similar or even lower price elsewhere.
If you’re still unsure which plan to choose, here are my recommendations.
If you’re on a tight budget, you can’t go wrong with Hostinger’s shared hosting plans. Single Shared Hosting is one of the cheapest ways to get started, while Premium Shared Hosting is only slightly more expensive for a big increase in resources. The free domain for the first year makes it an even better deal overall.
However, I’d go with Hostinger’s WordPress hosting plans if you want to set up a WordPress site. They are a little more expensive than shared hosting with a similar set of features, but Hostinger’s optimized server configuration will deliver better loading speeds.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for raw power, I’d go with Hostinger’s cloud hosting service. The Cloud Startup plan includes a solid feature list and a decent amount of resources, all at a relatively affordable price.
Want to configure your own server? Hostinger’s VPS plans do not offer as much value as A2 Hosting’s unmanaged VPS. I recommend A2 Hosting’s Runway 4 plan1, as it features more power than Hostinger’s VPS 3 for a lower price.
FAQ
Is Hostinger good value for money?
On its entry-level shared hosting and WordPress plans, absolutely. You’d be hard-pressed to find another host that can meet both Hostinger’s low price and high performance.
If you’re looking to save even more money, see our coupon page for great discounts.
Does hosting affect the speed of your website?
It sure does! If your host is using outdated technology or minimal optimization, your site’s speed will suffer. Thankfully, our performance tests revealed that Hostinger delivers excellent performance – due in no small part to its LiteSpeed web servers and WordPress-specific performance tweaks.
Additionally, all of the hosts in our list of the best web hosting providers recorded great speeds in our tests.
Do I need to pay extra for backups with Hostinger?
All plans feature automatic backups. The cheaper plans commonly include backups on a weekly basis, while the more expensive plans back up your data daily. And you can purchase daily backups as an add-on with any plan.
Does Hostinger have an uptime guarantee?
Hostinger guarantees 99.9% uptime on all of its web hosting services. If this guarantee isn’t met within any given month, you may be eligible for a 5% service credit of your monthly hosting fee.
Ryan Jones is a writer at Website Planet who has been professionally reviewing web hosts and credit card processors for 2+ years. Before joining Website Planet, Ryan Jones was a freelance content writer with experience in several industries, from gaming to pet care. In addition to his work with Website Planet, he also reviews VPNs along with his colleagues at vpnMentor.com. When he isn’t writing, you can usually find him keeping up to date with the latest tech news or playing video games.
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