As a content creator expert with 2 years of hosting experience, I recently had the opportunity to test out Hostinger’s web hosting services. I will provide my unbiased review of Hostinger’s features, performance, customer support, and user-friendliness as well as the strengths and weaknesses of Hostinger’s services. If you’re considering using Hostinger for your web hosting needs, read on as I share my experiences with a comprehensive overview of the company’s offerings.
Hostinger Review
Hostinger was founded in 2004 in Kaunas, Lithuania. The company has since grown to become one of the largest and most popular web hosting providers in the world, with millions of customers in over 178 countries. Hostinger is a popular choice for small businesses and individuals looking for reliable, budget-friendly web hosting.
Hostinger is not rated by Better Business Bureau (only available for US companies) but has a Trustscore of 4.5 stars out of 5 on Trustpilot with more than 11,704 reviews.
Pros and Cons
PROS
- Free domain and unlimited SSL
- Advanced security features
- Free weekly backups to restore your site
- Free automatic website migration tool
- 30 day money back guarantee
- Reliable live chat support
- Get additional help via knowledgebase and tutorials
- Custom built WP optimization stack & LiteSpeed cache
CONS
- Website builder is a bit slow
- They don’t offer dedicated server hosting
- Charges a setup fee on the lower plans.
Rating Breakdown
At Hostadvice, we applied our rating methodologies during our evaluation process to provide you with this accurate and unbiased Hostinger expert review. Each of the rating parameters below is utilized to rank the host and is awarded a score between 1-10 for each of the 5 criteria.
Parameter | Score | Why did we give this score? |
Prices | 9.4 | Hostinger offers affordable starting prices across their hosting plans with up to 75% discount for first-time users. We gave them a 9.4 score because they offer a 3-month free offer on the higher plans only. |
Features | 9.6 | Hostinger offers both Linux and Windows hosting options plus amazing features like a free domain, website builder tool and in-built hPanel control panel. We awarded a 9.6 score because some features and programming languages are restricted on lower plans. |
Performance | 9.5 | Hostinger uses innovative technologies: LiteSpeed web servers and LVE containerized environment. They also allow you to choose from among their global data centers via the hPanel control panel. They get a 9.5 score because they offer fast hosting services, but the website builder is a bit slow. |
Ease of Use | 9.3 | Hostinger protects websites hosted on their SSD servers from cyber-attacks with in-house developed WAF & free SSL. However, it received a 9.3 score because its in-built hPanel might be too tricky for users who are used to cPanel already. |
Support | 9.4 | Hostinger support is very competent and blazing fast via the live chat, but we decided to give them a 9.4 score because they don’t offer phone support. Plus, they also offer low support for VPS hosting because it is self-managed with a low level of access by the support team. |
Overall Score | 9.4 | Hostinger is a perfect host for new WordPress users who need all-inclusive support. However, this host needs to allow users without an account to contact their support for guidance via the live chat without registration. |
Are Hostinger’s web hosting services as reliable and user-friendly as they claim? Keep reading to find out.
Hostinger Prices & Plans – 2023
Hostinger offers a range of hosting services, including Shared hosting, WordPress hosting, Cloud hosting, Hosting for agencies, VPS hosting, Cyberpanel hosting, Minecraft server hosting as well as domain registration and website builder tool.
Each of the hosting types above is customized with different plans and features to meet the needs of different types of users. Hostinger accepts various payment methods: Credit/debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover), PayPal, Google pay, AliPay, and Coingate (payments in bitcoin).
Here is a breakdown of some of their hosting types, plans and prices:
Shared Web Hosting
The shared web hosting plan is a cost-effective option that is suitable for beginners, personal websites, and small and medium businesses. Hostinger offers 3 shared web hosting plans with different hardware configurations and features.
Plan name | Disk Space | Bandwidth | No. of websites allowed | Visits per month | Price |
The Single Plan | 50 GB | 100 GB | 1 | ~10,000 visits | $1.99/month |
The Premium Plan | 100 GB | Unlimited | 100 | ~25,000 visits | $2.79/month |
The Business plan | 200 GB | Unlimited | 100 | ~100,000 visits | $3.99/month |
I recommend the Business Shared Hosting plan because it comes with a Free domain, WordPress staging tool, Daily backups to protect your data, Cloudflare integration for improved security and performance. This means that your website will load faster, run more smoothly, and be more secure, which is especially important if you are running an e-commerce site or other business-critical website.
Cloud Hosting
The Cloud hosting plan offers powerful dedicated resources optimized for speed and efficiency that guarantees improved performance and reliability. It is suitable for large-scale projects and also has 3 customized plans with different resource allocations to choose from.
Plan name | Disk Space | Bandwidth | No. of websites | RAM | CPU Cores | Price |
Cloud Startup | 200 GB | Unlimited | 300 | 3 GB | 2 | $9.99/month |
Cloud Professional | 250 GB | Unlimited | 300 | 6 GB | 4 | $14.99/month |
Cloud Enterprise | 300 GB | Unlimited | 300 | 12 GB | 6 | $29.99/month |
I recommend the Cloud Professional plan from Hostinger for its powerful features and affordable price. It is the most popular of Hostinger’s cloud hosting plans and comes with enough resources to build and manage your website.
WordPress Hosting
The WordPress hosting plan is optimized to host WordPress websites only. This plan includes a range of features and resources specifically tailored for WordPress websites, such as WP-CLI, WordPress multisite, WordPress staging tool, and more. You can choose from 4 customized WordPress hosting plans tailored to make your ideas happen.
Plan name | Disk Space | Bandwidth | No. of Visits | No. of websites | Price |
Single WordPress | 50 GB | 100 GB | ~10,000 visits/month | 1 | $1.99/month |
WordPress Starter | 100 GB | Unlimited | ~25,000 visits/month | 100 | $2.79/month |
Business WordPress | 200 GB | Unlimited | ~100,000 visits/month | 100 | $3.99/month |
WordPress Professional | 200 GB | Unlimited | ~200,000 visits | 300 | $11.59/month |
I fully recommend the WordPress Pro plan from Hostinger for anyone looking to host their WordPress website. This plan comes with all the features, performance, and security you need to succeed, as well as dedicated resources & an IP address that are not available on the other WordPress hosting plans.
Agency Hosting
The Hosting for agencies plan is designed to help developers and web designers who want to scale their business by offering professional web hosting to their customers as part of their services. The 3 available plans will allow you to focus on managing your client while Hostinger’s dedicated support team handles the technicalities.
Plan name | Disk Space | RAM | CPU | No. of websites | Price |
Business | 200 GB | 1.5 GB | 2 | 100 | $3.99/month |
Cloud Startup | 200 GB | 3 GB | 2 | 300 | $9.99/month |
Cloud professional | 250 GB | 6 GB | 4 | 300 | $14.99/month |
I recommend the Cloud Startup plan from Hostinger for resellers looking to upsell their services and offer their clients an all-in-one solution on a budget. This plan comes with all the features and resources you need to provide top-quality hosting to your clients, including support for up to 300 websites, and unlimited bandwidth.
VPS Hosting
The VPS hosting plan is a virtual private server option that provides users with dedicated resources and more control over their hosting environment. It is recommended for websites that require more resources than shared hosting can provide, but do not yet need the resources of a dedicated server. Hostinger offers 8 scalable VPS hosting plans customized with weekly backups, snapshot, dedicated IP and root access.
Plan name | Disk Space | Bandwidth | RAM | vCPU | Price |
VPS 1 | 20 GB | 1 TB | 1 GB | 1 Core | $3.49/month |
VPS 2 | 40 GB | 2 TB | 2 GB | 2 Cores | $4.99/month |
VPS 3 | 60 GB | 3 TB | 3 GB | 3 Cores | $7.99/month |
VPS 4 | 80 GB | 4 TB | 4 GB | 4 Cores | $9.99/month |
VPS 5 | 120 GB | 6 TB | 6 GB | 6 Cores | $23.95/month |
VPS 6 | 160 GB | 8 TB | 8 GB | 8 Cores | $38.99/month |
VPS 7 | 200 GB | 10 TB | 12 GB | 8 Cores | $57.99/month |
VPS 8 | 250 GB | 12 TB | 16 GB | 8 Cores | $77.99/month |
I recommend the VPS2 hosting plan for anyone looking to order a VPS hosting plan because it offers a perfect start and allows you to scale as your website grows. The VPS 2 plan offers the right balance of resources and affordability, making it a great choice for a wide range of websites.
CyberPanel VPS Hosting
The next hosting type is CyberPanel VPS hosting. You might be wondering what this is, yes. It is an open-source web hosting control panel that provides a range of tools for managing websites and servers. Hostinger provides 8 scalable CyberPanel VPS plans which can be seen in the table below.
Plan name | Disk Space | Bandwidth | RAM | vCPU | Price |
Cyberpanel VPS 1 | 20 GB | 1 TB | 1 GB | 1 Core | $3.95/month |
Cyberpanel VPS 2 | 40 GB | 2 TB | 2 GB | 2 Cores | $8.95/month |
Cyberpanel VPS 3 | 60 GB | 3 TB | 3 GB | 3 Cores | $12.95/month |
Cyberpanel VPS 4 | 80 GB | 4 TB | 4 GB | 4 Cores | $15.95/month |
Cyberpanel VPS 5 | 120 GB | 6 TB | 6 GB | 6 Cores | $23.95/month |
Cyberpanel VPS 6 | 160 GB | 8 TB | 8 GB | 8 Cores | $38.99/month |
Cyberpanel VPS 7 | 200 GB | 10 TB | 12 GB | 8 Cores | $57.99/month |
Cyberpanel VPS 8 | 250 GB | 12 TB | 16 GB | 8 Cores | $77.99/month |
I recommend the CyberPanel VPS2 plan for anyone on a budget. It is the most popular and affordable plan and offers a great start for anyone looking to host their website on a virtual private server.
Minecraft Server Hosting
The last hosting type is Minecraft server hosting. It is a type of hosting that allows Minecraft game lovers to tailor the game to their preference using a Minecraft server hosted on a VPS server. There are 7 different Minecraft server hosting plans available with different hardware configurations.
Plan name | RAM | vCPU | Price |
Alex Plan | 2 GB | 2 Core | $3.95/month |
Villager Plan | 3 GB | 3 Cores | $8.95/month |
Creeper Plan | 4 GB | 4 Cores | $12.95/month |
Herobrine Plan | 6 GB | 6 Cores | $15.95/month |
Enderman Plan | 8 GB | 8 Cores | $23.95/month |
Evoker Plan | 12 GB | 8 Cores | $38.99/month |
Wolf Plan | 16 GB | 8 Cores | $57.99/month |
I recommend the Villager plan from Hostinger for anyone looking for a powerful and feature-rich Minecraft hosting solution. Whether you are a seasoned Minecraft player or just starting out, the Villager plan has the resources and features you need to succeed.
Features
Since we have reviewed the different hosting types offered on Hostinger, let’s take a look at some of the important features and tools designed to assist you in the website-building process in our Hostinger brand review.
1. Domain registration
Hostinger makes it easy for you to search for the availability of your domain name using a domain checker tool. Once you enter in your preferred word combinations (3 words at most) into the search box, you will get instant results showing the TLDs available for your domain name and the prices.
Hostinger’s domain registration service also allows you to transfer your domain name from another host as well as the WHOIS domain checker tool to look up certain information about the history of a domain name.
2. Email Hosting
Hostinger offers 2 professional email hosting types: Google workspace and Titan email hosting. The Titan email hosting has two available plans: Business email and enterprise email while the Google Workspace email hosting has only one plan which costs only $6 per month to set up business email addresses.
3. Website builder
Hostinger provides a website builder tool that allows you to create a website with ease without needing to write any code. You don’t need to pay for it as it is already included in Hostinger’s web hosting packages. You can use the drag-and-drop editor to move elements such as text, images, and videos into place.
4. Security features
Hostinger takes the security of your website seriously with unlimited free SSL, Cloudflare protected nameservers, automated website backups, in-house developed WAF, complete DDoS protection, auto-updates, and Bitninja web application firewall on the servers. With Hostinger, you can be rest assured that your website will not be vulnerable to cyber attacks.
5. Global data centers
Hostinger has multiple data centers distributed strategically in global locations including USA, Brazil, India, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom and Lithuania. In order to achieve maximum website speed, make sure you choose a server location geographically close to your target audience.
6. Daily & Weekly Backups
As part of Hostinger’s commitment to deliver top notch service, they offer daily & weekly backups on their web hosting plans to protect your website’s data from getting lost due to accidents. Hostinger takes daily backups of your website data of the last 7 days and weekly backups of the last 7 weeks to allow you restore your website as it was at an earlier date.
7. Website Migration
Using the website migration tool, you can transfer or move your website to Hostinger from any host. You will get support and technical assistance from their support team, so you don’t have to worry about the complexities of migrating your website.
8. WordPress Staging tool
Hostinger’s user-friendly staging tool is a feature that allows you to create a separate, private version of your live website that you can use to test out changes, updates, and other modifications before making them live on your actual site.
Unique Features
Hostinger offers some unique features that you might not find elsewhere. While other web hosting companies stick with the popular cPanel control panel, Hostinger has its own in-built hPanel control panel designed with an intuitive interface and best web hosting features to allow you setup and launch your website in less than 15 minutes. It is available in 15 local languages to help users from different countries and regions navigate and manage their hosting account easily.
Learn more about Hostinger:
Performance
Hostinger’s hosting performance has received positive reviews from users, with many praising the company’s fast load times and reliable uptime. To help you get real-time performance of Hostinger hosting types, we used our in-built tool to test the load time and performance of a website from multiple locations around the world.
Speed
In terms of speed, Hostinger uses various technologies such as Cloudflare and HTTP/2 support to improve the performance of websites hosted on its platform. Websites hosted on the US data center will get a speed of 479 ms. This speed score also depends on how close your visitors are to the data center location.
Uptime
Hostinger claims to offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee, which means that your website should be available and running smoothly for the majority of the time. Hostinger’s uptime has been excellent in the last 6 months with an average uptime of 99.97%.
Loading time
Hostinger delivered an average page loading time of 302 ms which makes them one of the top hosting providers we have tested.
Level Of Support
Hostinger offers round-the-clock customer support through:
Knowledgebase
Hostinger’s knowledgebase contains written advice and answers on FAQ such as how to set up and manage a website, hPanel, features, website builder, troubleshooting issues with a website or hosting account, and using the various tools and resources provided on the platform.
Live chat Support
To access live chat support on Hostinger’s website, you will need to log in to your account and click on the live chat button located on the bottom right end of the page. After that, you will be required to select a topic that is related to the issue you have. You can either read their knowledgebase article if it is what you are looking for or proceed to chat with a customer support representative.
Email Support
Hostinger provides email support to its customers. If you have any questions or issues regarding your Hostinger account, you can contact the customer support team via email. To get in touch with the team, you will need to fill out a form on the Hostinger website. The form will ask for your name, email address, and a description of the issue you are experiencing.
Once you have filled out the form and submitted it, the Hostinger customer support team will receive your request and will get back to you via email.
Ease of use
While doing my Hostinger brand review, I found some amazing features that really impressed me. I was very pleased with the user-friendly interface and the wide range of features offered by Hostinger. I will now explain how I was able to complete my Hostinger registration, set up my account using the hPanel control panel, install WordPress, and add an email account.
Hostinger registration
I registered for a Hostinger account, and it was quick and easy. First, I visited the Hostinger website and clicked on the “Log in” button. From there, I was taken to a page where I was asked to select a plan that suit my needs. During checkout, Hostinger allows me to choose between creating an account with an email address, Facebook or Google account. After making payment, I was taken to a page to fill out a form with my personal information and complete the registration process.
Hostinger control panel
Next, I logged into the hPanel control panel using the login information provided in my welcome email. The Hostinger control panel is user-friendly and easy to navigate. It allows me to manage all aspects of my hosting account, including setting up domains, creating email accounts, and installing applications like WordPress.
Installing WordPress on Hostinger
To set up WordPress on Hostinger:
- Login to the Hostinger control panel.
- Click on the “Hosting” option on the main menu.
- Select the domain name that you want to install WordPress for
- Click the “Manage” button to access your hPanel.
- Scroll down the page and select Hostinger Auto Installer.
- From the list of available applications, select WordPress and click “Continue.”
- Fill out a simple form, including choosing a website title (which you can always change later), setting up an administrator username and password, and entering an email address for logging into your WordPress dashboard.
- On the next screen, you can select a relevant language and opt-in to update only to minor versions for automatic updates.
- Finally, click the “Install” button and WordPress will begin installing.
Adding an email account to Hostinger
Adding an email account to Hostinger was simple. I just had to go to the email section of the control panel and follow the prompts to create a new account. It only took a few minutes and now I have a professional email address for my business.
Conclusion: Do We Recommend Hostinger?
Yes, we do. As someone who has used Hostinger for my own web hosting needs, I can confidently say that they offer an all-in-one solution at affordable prices. One of the standout features of Hostinger is the in-house control panel, hPanel, which makes it easy to manage all aspects of your hosting account.
With Hostinger, you can launch websites quickly using their Website Builder, and even register a personal domain name for free. In addition, you can set up a professional business email address and receive help from their agents anytime via live chat support.
The Hostinger knowledgebase is also a valuable resource, with a vast array of in-depth tutorials available to help you get the most out of your hosting experience. And if you need to transfer an existing website, Hostinger’s free automatic website migration tool makes the process a breeze.
Overall, I highly recommend Hostinger for anyone in need of web hosting services. And if my brand review doesn’t convince you to give them a try, remember that they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try out their service risk-free.