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Hostinger Review
- Unique website builder
- Github integration
- LiteSpeed cache
- Free SSL and email service included
- No phone support
- You must be logged in to access live chat
- No cPanel
- Limitations of entry planc
- Cost: $1.99/month (Deal)
- Uptime: 99.9%
- Average load Time: 432 Ms
- CMS Auto-installer
- WordPress Tools
- Automatic Malware Scanner
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- 24/7/365 support
- DNS management
- 30-day money-back guarantee
If you’ve read our reviews about cheap web hosting, you’ll know that we aren’t incredibly enthused about how the discount hosting world works.
It generally goes like this.
They lure you in with a cheap offer and then you get terrible service. We’re talking excessively long downtime, bad uptime and the worst support for that Rogers Cable. 🤷
We generally don’t recommend ultra cheap hosts, but with Hostinger --- we're going to make an exception.
Since 2004, Hostinger has consistently provided the most cost-effective, yet high quality hosting out there for over 29 million customers.
We were slightly skeptical of some of the other information available online about Hostinger. So for the last 18 months we’ve been tracking them. You can see our live tracking here.
In this Hostinger review, we'll look at their service and support from top to bottom - the good, the bad, and the great - to see how they stack up amongst other popular web hosts.
Hostinger Stability and Reliability Assessment
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
Hostinger guarantees that their servers will be working 99.9% of the time.
If this guarantee fails you can get some money back. In the legal signup agreement with Hostinger they say that if the uptime guarantee fails you can get a credit of 5% of your monthly hosting fee for that month.
Companies put a lot on the line when they offer up a guarantee like this and again, it shows a lot of confidence in their service.
When it comes to the real uptime and performance measurement we were able to get the following results:
Actual Uptime - 99.95%
Through 2023 Hostinger averaged an uptime of 99.95% - which is good, very good.
What does uptime mean?
- Uptime - A percentage to indicate the overall time that the hosting provider is online and functioning normally.
- Hostinger’s average uptime was 99.95% in 2023. That means that services were only unavailable 0.05% percent of the time for users.
- Other hosts with low prices have an average uptime right around 94% which is about 525 hours of downtime over a year. That difference is massive.
- Good uptimes - Uptimes higher than 98% are more than desirable. An average this close to 100% is hands-down amazing.
Average Load time - 432 ms
We went deeper and performed 2 tests. First, we checked the connection latency from our network to the Hostinger server, which was 65ms. Then, installed a fresh WordPress with no optimizations and measured the results. The average load time, according to Pingdom tools, was 432 ms.
This blows the industry average out of the water.
With these stats, Hostinger boasts an amazing performance across the board---even compared to our curated list of best hosting providers.
Hostinger’s Transparency in Reporting Downtimes
During the planned maintenance, all the users receive email notifications several days prior to it, which improves user experience.
For sure, there can be cases when a force majeure occurs even for best hosters. In the event that there’s an unplanned downtime, there are 2 ways to check it:
- Log in to your account, then press a help widget on any page. You’ll see the status bar to see if everything is fine, it’s green and says “All Systems Operational”. In case there’s some issue, the corresponding message appears.
- Go directly to their Status post page and check the recent downtimes.
No shared host can guarantee 100% uptime at all times. Being honest about incidents gives a hoster more credibility, and with Hostinger, we see this transparency in communication with a customer. Plus, 99.95% of actual uptime says they are taking this metric really seriously.
Hostinger Performance
Hostinger offers Linux-based hosting for all the available hosting plans.
For web hosting, they use Cloudlinux, which is the standard OS for shared hosting environments. No surprise, as it offers great resource isolation, increases security, and ensures better performance. On top of that, Litespeed as a web server allows websites to load faster, caches static content, and boosts PHP performance, so it will be great for running PHP-based applications and CMS like WordPress.
When it comes to data center locations, Hostinger has a lot to offer. They have data centers in Europe (France, Lithuania, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom), North America (Arizona), South America (Brazil), and Asia (India, Indonesia, and Singapore).
Moreover, you can switch the data center location in one click with the transfer happening almost instantly, with no need to wait for the manual migration. Note, though, that it’s possible to change server location only once per month.
Hostinger Review Pricing Explained
This is what grabs your attention with Hostinger. They have an $0.99 per month introductory pricing rate. It’s as if they looked at the rest of the industry and said, “We can do better.”
We will get more into the specifics of what you get at this price farther down, but the main thing to keep in mind is that you get competitive uptimes and load speeds at this price point.
But don’t worry, if you subscribe for a longer period and don’t like the service, you can get your money back. More about that a bit later.
Yet, сent for cent Hostinger is probably the best value for money on the market today as a hosting service. Did we mention that you're getting a free domain with ANY hosting package?
Hostinger Free Website Builder
Formerly known as Zyro, the free website builder from Hostinger is surprisingly impressive.
Most website builders included with a hosting service are an afterthought, but Hostinger actually brought in templates and building functionality that can create solid landing pages for a website.
You’re not going to blow anyone away with these designs, but the functionality feels a lot like what you would get from a leading landing page creator without having to use a separate service.
It comes with a lot of useful features - both completely new and ones that we have already heard of - Free SSL Certificate, unlimited SSD storage, and unlimited bandwidth.
The most innovative new features have to be AI Content Generator and Logo Maker.
Put your creativity to good use with Hostinger’s new feature which allows you to create logos for your brand in no time. Reinvent your company’s logo with Logo Maker.
Obviously, landing page softwares are built for that so they are optimized for funnels and all of that fun stuff but this is a simple replacement if you’re just looking for one page to throw up on the internet.
In a nutshell, if you’re looking for affordable hosting ($1.99 per month) and looking to throw a web page up as soon as possible, Hostinger is a fantastic option.
You want a domain, you want somewhere to send people, you’re not sure what else you need right now. All you would have to do is sign up and set up a quick page with Hostinger’s website builder.
If you're looking for more builders like Hostinger Canada, check out our guide to the best website builders in Canada.
30-Day Money Back Guarantee
Money back guarantees are relatively run of the mill in the hosting industry now but they’re always worth talking about.
Some hosting sites still don’t offer a money back guarantee and those hosting sites should either get with the times or go away.
If a hosting service does offer a money back guarantee, then we could infer two things:
- The company wants to treat you right
- They are confident in their offerings
On some parts of their website Hostinger actually refers to their money-back guarantee as a free trial. This is a great way to look at these guarantees so you can have the ability to stop using the service if you find it isn’t working well.
There are a lot of things in this world that don’t come with a money back guarantee. If there is one offered on a product you are after you’d be silly not to keep that in mind when making a decision.
Easy to Use
I’m going to talk about the control panel in the Pros section and the Cons section.
Here is why it is a Pro: The control panel used by Hostinger is not a traditional cPanel. They created their own.
This new control panel is way easier to use than cPanel. What that means is if you are a beginner you will like it way more.
It is obvious that the goal for this control panel was to make it as easy to use as possible to manage everything on the backend of your website.
WordPress Management
At Hostinger, you can install WordPress (and other most popular CMS) in several clicks via Auto-Installer. After that, the WordPress menu in the side panel acts like a separate dashboard inside your hosting panel.
Here you have the overview of your installation, control HTTPS redirect, play with maintenance mode, enable LiteSpeed caching, and many more.
Within this menu, you can change auto-update preferences, and update WordPress core, plugins, or themes without a need to log in to the WordPress admin panel. But when you need it, there’s an autologin button as well. Also, you get suggestions of plugins that your installation may be missing.
Another cool feature that was recently added to WordPress websites is the AI troubleshooter. If your website comes across a critical error or a bug, it can help restore the functionality by analyzing what settings might have caused the issue and offering you the magic “Fix my website” button you were dreaming about.
Free SSL Across All Tiers
A free SSL should be standard in hosting today. Of course, with Hostinger, receiving a free SSL comes with any plan you decide to purchase.
What exactly is SSL? It stands for Secure Sockets Layer protection. Basically, what it does is secure data transmissions between web browsers and web servers. You definitely want it if you’re trying to build a successful business.
Not having an SSL certificate can ding your SEO rankings and make people leave your website when they realize you don’t have one.
Hostinger’s SSLs are powered by Let’s Encrypt and are automatically installed and updated, so you don’t need to worry about manual installation.
Pro Panel
This feature would interest web professionals or users with several websites. It allows you to manage all your websites in one place. Here, you can see the page performance score, access WP-admin in one click, seamlessly update plugins and themes, and check your installations for vulnerabilities. A cool thing is that you can manage the websites hosted within multiple Hostinger accounts if you work as a web admin or a freelancer.
Unlimited Features if you Upgrade
All of the standard aspects you get with the first-tiered plan are unlocked further for a few bucks.
With the initial plan, you only can have one website, one email account, one database, and a limited amount of disk space and bandwidth.
If you decide to go with a higher tiered plan you can have unlimited websites, unlimited email accounts, unlimited databases, unlimited disk space, and unlimited bandwidth. Talk about maximum effective performance, that's it right there.
Pay With Crypto
You’re smart, right? You got into Bitcoin waaaaaay before December of 2017. You were probably buying Bitcoins for fractions of a penny back in 2010.
Well, since you’re super rich in virtual currency you might as well pay with it. 🤑🤑
Cons - What We Don't Like About Hostinger
No Phone Support
While the customer support is top notch at Hostinger - they don’t offer phone support.
A lot of people don’t like talking on the phone when they’re dealing with customer support at companies.
Sometimes - yes, sometimes - it’s nice to solve an issue quickly over the phone. There are certain situations where going back and forth over email or chat doesn’t cut it.
Any service that doesn’t offer phone support has to take a hit. What if you need to talk to someone as soon as yesterday? Chat is going to piss you off in that scenario.
Chat support only after login
One other weird thing is that you have to sign in to actually chat with the customer support team. Obviously, this isn’t an issue if you’ve already signed up.
If you’re looking for information about the service before signing up you definitely won’t be helped via chat.
Even if you have some pre-sales inquiries, it won’t be possible to reach the chat. They offer to book a call with sales though, which is nice, but it might not be convenient for everyone.
If you are comparing different providers before the purchase, a great level of support won’t be on the Hostinger’s side, because there’s no way to try their support prior to subscribing.
However, once you start using that customer support machine it really is reliable.
Any chat question we have asked of Hostinger’s support team has been answered in under five minutes which compares favorably to the rest of the industry.
Different Control Panel
The control panel was also in the Pros section of this Hostinger review. The positives are out there - it’s easy to use, user-friendly, and makes more sense than traditional cPanel.
Now, imagine being a veteran in the world of web hosting - which some people reading this will be. They’re going to be annoyed that they have to use a different control panel.
The learning curve on the new control panel isn’t exactly hard to learn but why fix something that isn’t broken? A lot of people have learned how to control their hosted website through a traditional cPanel.
Limits of the first plan
The cheapest Single plan goes with 1 website, 1 email address 2 MySQL databases, and 2 subdomains. This plan allows to host 200 000 files which is sufficient for 1 small website with media but if it grows, you will need to upgrade even if you don’t need to use other perks of a higher plan. Also, a free domain name upon a yearly subscription is not available.
It may seem to be a bit limiting taking into account that the second plan allows you x100 more. If you want a bit more resources like 5 domains/emails/databases, etc, there’s no plan in the middle.
The price difference is really insignificant yet, there’s a bit of imbalance here.
Pricing
The pricing is what really draws you in to use Hostinger so let’s go into what is actually provided at that $0.99 price point as well as the higher tiers.
All of these plans are priced for locking in a subscription for 48 months. Four years - who the heck knows what will be happening in four years? That is a long time and paying for that amount of time up front is sometimes tough to swallow.
If you are not ready to commit, you can choose a yearly billing cycle at $2.99/mo which is also one of the lowest prices on the market.
Subscribing on a monthly basis may not be a good idea because it will cost you $9.99/mo + $4.99 for the setup fee.
Drawing a customer in with a low rate is nothing new in business and definitely nothing new in web hosting. Hostinger did go about this a little differently as their lowest tier is extremely low priced and serviceable.
However, if you want worry free web hosting as you grow - the business tier makes way more sense and is still relatively affordable.
Conclusion
With Hostinger you come for the price and stay for the quality hosting experience. You may need to use the highest tier to get the most bang for your buck but Hostinger is right up there with the industry leaders in terms of service.
We definitely recommend Hostinger as a top-tier hosting service and should be looked at seriously when making a web hosting decision.
References and image credits:
- Bisend.com
- TheSSLStore.com
- RainHosts.com
