There’s no doubt that when it comes to web hosting, Hostinger is simply the cheapest option available today, with prices starting at $1.99 per month. No other company manages to even come close. Most of them offer a basic plan for five times the price.
Thinking that it’s too good to be true? It isn’t. But let me let you in on a little secret right now. To get the best prices, you’ll have to commit to Hostinger for several years.
This would be a smart thing to do – if the service is actually great. Because your visitors couldn’t care less about how much you pay for hosting. They do care about fast loading speeds, and about actually being able to reach your site when they need to. They also want to know that their personal data is going to be secure and protected.
Can Hostinger offer that? I’ve got my opinions, but I didn’t want to base my review on my opinion alone. You see, as Website is available in many different languages, it just so happens that we have web hosting experts scattered all over the world. This was my golden opportunity to perform a large-scale test, and I decided to do just that.
We had 30 experts sign up to Hostinger and launch a local version of our testing website in 30 different countries. They played around with every available feature, monitored loading speeds and performance, and even bombarded customer support with questions.
The quick answer to all our questions is that Hostinger performed remarkably well. In some countries, like Russia, it came in at #4. In others, like Israel, Hostinger snatched the #1 place.
Read on for the long answer. I’ve detailed my full personal experience with Hostinger, and I’ll explain exactly how to make the most of what the company offers. To see how Hostinger compares to other services, check out our list of the top web hosts.
Everything a Beginner Needs
With prices being as low as they are, my anxious personality immediately identified two areas where Hostinger might be trying to pull one over on me: features and performance. Sure, I’d love to pay half of what the competitors charge, but I don’t want to get only half of what they provide.
Luckily, that wasn’t the case at all, as Hostinger’s plans include everything I needed to get going, from ample resources to performance-boosting tools.
Three shared hosting plans are available – Single, Premium, and Business. All three work on top of Hostinger’s very own control panel, hPanel, which includes easy auto installations of WordPress and dozens of other content management systems (CMS).
I signed up for the basic plan, which came with 30GB of disk space, 100GB of bandwidth, 1 email account, and support for a single website. It’s enough resources to build a very respectable website – think hundreds of pages and thousands of HD images. Definitely enough to showcase your writing, creativity, products, services, or whatever you’re planning on hosting.
The two advanced plans come with unlimited bandwidth, 100 email accounts, and 100 websites. Some extra perks that you won’t get with the Single plan include SSH access and unlimited databases.
The Single and Premium plans also offer weekly automatic backups. For the low price, this isn’t bad, especially as many more expensive hosts have no backup solution whatsoever. For daily backups, you’d have to purchase the more expensive Business plan.
Hostinger does have a drag-and-drop website builder by the name of Zyro, but it isn’t available as part of the hosting plans.
It’s worth noting that Hostinger also offers a variety of other hosting solutions, including WordPress hosting, reseller hosting, VPS, and cloud hosting.
While Hostinger’s budget shared hosting is definitely its biggest strength, its other solutions are worth considering. For example, Hostinger’s WordPress hosting offers more resources for a cheaper price compared to the shared hosting plans. Additionally, if you’re in need of a premium hosting solution, Hostinger’s VPS are very cheap.
Panel Has All the Basic Features, but Lacks Some Advanced Ones
As I said before, Hostinger has developed its own proprietary control panel, meaning you won’t be getting to play with the beloved cPanel that you know and love. What’s that? You don’t develop emotional attachments to hosting control panels? Well, you’re the weird one.
Anyways, while cPanel used to be the standard control panel you’d get with most hosts (including Hostinger), things change. Due to some boring enterprise drama that happened a while ago, hosts have been switching panels left and right.
hPanel is Hostinger’s venture into the panel world, and you’ll find it equipped with all the goodies you need. From easy auto installations and DNS zones configurations to email accounts, a file manager, and MySQL databases, it’s all very similar to what cPanel offers.
But… some things are different. For example, auto installations in cPanel are done with Softaculous, which also lets you clone your site, set up a staging version, and even configure a backup schedule. hPanel’s Auto Installer does a great job at auto-installing WordPress, but lacks these useful extras.
Advanced email features, like mailing lists, filters, and routings, are also missing from hPanel. Did I ever actually use them myself when they were available to me? Honestly, never. I’m not sure who does. But that’s hPanel for you – it might not be capable of everything, but it’s definitely enough for most users.
Powerful Caching Thanks to the LiteSpeed Web Server
LiteSpeed isn’t the physical metal server, but the web server technology that Hostinger uses. It consistently ranks as one of the fastest and most reliable web servers, outperforming the older Apache technology that hosts like GoDaddy still use.
You won’t have to do anything to configure it. Just sit back and enjoy the top-notch performance it delivers, especially for WordPress websites.
What you can do, and most certainly should do, is activate LiteSpeed’s caching function, known as LSCache. Sounds too technical? Well, turning on the Automatic Cache option pretty much sums it up. Cached copies of your pages will be created, significantly cutting delivery times to visitors. Static pages, like business pages and portfolios, will benefit from this even more.
A Free SSL Certificate and Security Solution
You need an SSL certificate. No matter what you think, and no matter what anybody might’ve told you – you need an SSL. Why? Because without an SSL certificate to encrypt and secure your visitors’ data, the many evils lurking online will come for it. You’ll not only be risking your project and your visitors’ safety, but you’ll also take a hit on Google’s rankings.
Thankfully, Hostinger provides a free SSL certificate with all plans. Additionally, you’ll be protected from malware and malicious activity by a combination of Imunify360, BitNinja, and an in-house firewall. You also get Cloudflare and Wanguard DDoS protection.
Great Price-Performance Ratio
There’s a reason why Hostinger tops our web host rankings – it combines some of the lowest prices on the market with some of the best performance. To top it off, it offers a beginner-friendly control panel and a detailed knowledge base that has all the guidance that someone new to web hosting will need.
But it isn’t perfect. Hostinger’s support team could do with an expansion, as the wait times to get a response to a basic question are much too long – I hope we can see this improve soon, as the actual support itself is good.
Hostinger’s affordable shared hosting plans are worth your time, your money, and your consideration. Performance has been surprisingly great, and while it’s not the most feature-packed offering around, it’s got everything that you really need.
Should you go for it? If you’re building a blog, a business page, a personal project, or a similar small-to-medium website, my answer is a resounding yes.
If you’re looking to build an e-commerce store, or a complex service like an online course portal, you’ll need something a bit more powerful than shared hosting. You can find some great options on our list of the best web hosting services for 2022.