Hostinger Review - Value Hosting with Impressive Setup

The first time I visited Hostinger.com two things struck me: the extremely low prices for shared hosting and the informative value of the site. Sure, it entices users to buy hosting with some of the standard marketing tricks, but it also has plenty of legit info, while the monthly fees are unrealistically low.

Another thing I noticed while preparing the preliminary research for this Hostinger review was that this is a host with a strong technical pedigree. However, technically sound hosts are abundant on our pages. More information was needed.

That’s why I purchased the Premium shared plan, installed a clean WordPress on it, and began monitoring its uptime and speed.

After months of testing, here’s what I can tell you about Hostinger, all summed up in an unbiased, detailed review.

What Is Hostinger?

Created in Lithuania some 15 years ago, Hostinger is an international brand with a very strong presence in many markets. This is a company that doesn’t bow to EIG or GoDaddy. Instead, it strives to create an empire of its own. Only that this empire feels surprisingly good.
After all, Hostinger created and still runs the biggest free website hosting provider. Now, 000webhost is not without its flaws – far from it – but the fact that it was conceptualized and realized by the people behind Hostinger, and still charges nothing because of them counts for something.

Performance – Hostinger Speed, Uptime, and Support

Some say a hosting provider is only good as its slowest server, while others focus on uptime and customer care. I don’t discriminate and test them all.

Extensively!

1. Good Uptime – 99.96%

Uptime is one of the major telltale signs of a quality web host, and Hostinger does reasonably well.

After about three years of constant testing and monitoring, Hostinger exudes stability and reliability. It averages 99.93% uptime (with 99.96% for 2019 and 99,95% in 2020), which is well within the promised industry standard of 99.9%.

Average Uptime 2018 – 99.87%

Average Uptime 2019 – 99.96%

Average Uptime 2020 – 99.95%

Average Uptime 2021 - 99.98%

Verdict: Hostinger upholds 99.9% uptime but promises very limited compensation, indeed.

2. Superb Speed

• Very fast response times – 0.26s (5th)
• Extremely fast loading times – 0.86s (2nd)
• Stable under load – 0.92s (9th)

A consensus between users and professionals is a rare thing online. Still, most people agree in their Hostinger reviews that this is a quick host. The data I compiled from four different benchmark testing tools confirms as much.

In fact, this is one of the fastest hosting providers I’ve tested so far.

The front-end speed is nothing short of spectacular. The Hostinger server takes about 0.26 seconds to respond with the first byte of data. Then, it needs only 0.86 seconds to render the page fully.

With such results, my Hostinger WordPress installation is the fastest-loading site under monitoring, just edging the likes of InterServer and Dreamhost.

When it comes down to backend speed, Hostinger also delivers.

It is far from the best performers in this category, but it is equally distant from the worst. 0.92 seconds average response time to nearly 300 simultaneous requests is not bad at all.

Verdict: Hostinger is a seriously fast website hosting provider.

3. Support Could Be Better

If you go to Hostinger.com, you might be surprised to see that the support team is dubbed “Customer Success Team”. Sounds grand, but my experience with impressive marketing terms has been rather uneven.

The moment I opened the support page, two alarms went off.

First, there is no telephone number listed anywhere. Oddly enough, the office addresses of the company in Kaunas and Larnaca are there, so you can, presumably, send a letter. Both locations are listed with their respective postcodes.

The apparent lack of phone support is extremely strange, but I wasn’t ready to discount Hostinger just yet.

Then I saw the second weird thing under the guise of a vibrant “Let’s Chat!” button that allows you to… send an email?

Seriously, you click it, and it takes you to a contact form. I tried it several times, thinking that maybe it was sending my query to a chat agent who could prepare adequate answers. What I got was an email that contained a one-line answer to my one-line question.

In this regard, it feels like a chat.

Only that it isn’t.

Mind, I managed to reach the chat, eventually. It is accessible only at the Hostinger support page; the page itself is not linked on the home page. I tried from Hostinger.in and also from the UK version of the host but found no direct links toward support.

Oh, and it didn’t work on Firefox.

Anyhow. The chat button is located at the bottom right corner, and I ended up having a pleasant, albeit not entirely convincing conversation with a support agent. He was prompt and friendly, but a bit of poking and probing revealed that certain advertised features are misleading. More on that in the cons section of my Hostinger review.

While wandering around the Hostinger website looking for the elusive chat option, I decided to check the Reddit web hosting threads for some additional insight.

My search for the best web hosting often takes me to Reddit, where Hostinger also frequents. The support there is rated rather well, but the apparent lack of a couple of the main channels of communication is appalling.

Verdict: The support team seems competent, but the lack of phone support is a serious omission. The live chat option could also be delivered in a much more accessible manner.

Hostinger Pros

The Hostinger hosting solution hardly qualifies as an outstanding package, but it is well-rounded and robust. Both newbies and advanced users can find many things to like.

1. Superb for Budding Webmasters

I will go into greater detail about the Hostinger fees a bit later on, but let me just tell you that the company is a mere $1.99 away from being dubbed a free website host. Granted, the starter plan is not the richest hosting solution you can find, but it is excellent for beginners.

This notion is augmented by the fact that Hostinger plans are designed for growth, allowing for smooth scaling up when needed.

2. Dedicated Resources

Hostinger promises certain CPU and RAM power for each of its three shared hosting plans, which is excellent news for those who grow and expand. Knowing what you are paying for and all that jazz.

It is always difficult to tell how well such precise resource management is implemented, but seeing an effort to dedicate certain computational power to each user is always nice.

3. SSD Across the Board

In terms of infrastructure, Hostiger keeps up with the latest industry standards.

All its servers run on SSDs.

Solid-state drives are much faster than the older HDDs, so that’s an obvious upgrade. So much so that Hostinger ranks high among the best SSD hosts.

4. Built-in Cache

All Hostinger plans have Nginx caching enabled. Without descending deeper into technicalities, suffice it to say that Nginx is a powerful and fast web server; it was designed to outperform Apache and duly does so.

When server-side Nginx caching is configured properly (which the Hostinger support assured me is the case), even content-heavy dynamic sites should perform flawlessly.

5. Regular Backups

While only the Business plan guarantees daily backups, each of the shared hosting solutions backs up your data weekly.

Many would consider this the bare minimum a premium web host must do – I fully agree with this notion – but the truth is that regular backups are not universally provided.

I am looking at you, GoDaddy.

6. 30-day Money Back Guarantee

Money-back guarantees are standard practice among the top web hosting companies.

Hostinger doesn’t excel at it but goes with what most providers offer. 30 days are not that much to test a web hosting service properly but are infinitely better than nothing.

7. Unlimited Cronjobs

You heard that right, unlimited cronjobs.

The smallest plan (that is already with one leg in the free web hosting category) supports only one cronjob at a time, but the other two shared solutions can handle as many as you’d like.

Cronjobs are awesome.

You can never have too many of them.

8. Git Across the Board

While we are at it, let’s geek it out to the fullest. All Hostinger plans come with Git version control repository.

If you don’t know what that is, you probably won’t be using it anyway, but if you do – awesome, right?

9. Optimized for WordPress

WordPress caching plugins and servers ready to accommodate this popular content management system make Hostinger an excellent home for it.

1-click installer and automatic updates make the Hostinger WordPress package a rather tempting offer.

10. Proprietary Control Panel

Truth be told, I needed quite some time to decide whether having an in-house built control panel belongs in the Pros category or not.

While I admire such initiatives, they rarely are better than existing solutions. I instinctively wondered why Hostinger doesn’t use cPanel.

However, the company devs have done a pretty spectacular job. Admittedly, the control panel looks a lot like cPanel, but that’s not a bad thing; it saves learning time.

It is slick and functional, allowing enough control and seamless access, which makes it ideal for novices and one of the best cPanel alternatives there are.

11. Website Builder

Hostinger provides a decent amount of 1-click installers, but it also has a decent site-building tool.

The Hostinger website builder is included in all plans and has a functional drag-and-drop interface that can help you craft a web page quickly and efficiently.

While I am not a particularly big fan of such website builders, I must admit that this is one of the better iterations I’ve seen.

12. Did You Say Discounts?

Now, I mentioned the introductory prices are ridiculously low, but you can also get some serious Hostinger discounts with relative ease. It feels a bit surreal typing that as the starting prices are so low, to begin with, that discounting them further barely makes sense.

Yet, it is a very real possibility.

13. Users Love It

Hostinger is a host with massive popularity that generates universal love.

Countless user reviews heap praise on Hostinger’s performance, insane value for money, decent support, and overall engagement.

The negative reviews, of which there are a few, complain mostly about the support.

There are a few discussions and reviews on Reddit, where Hostinger’s reputation is vehemently defended and tattered.

Overall, the user feedback is extremely positive and, as far as our tests

14. Responds to Feedback

Less than three months after my Hostinger review was published, the company reached out to thank me for pointing out some issues on Hostinger.com.

The first negative point in the Cons section of my review was about the misleading phrasing used by the company when describing its plans.

However, Hostinger took active steps to address the issue, and now its plans’ parameters are described much more adequately. The limitations are clarified with asterisks, making everything significantly more transparent and less misleading, even for the most distracted of users.

I must admit that it felt great on a personal level as making the web hosting companies fairer and more transparent is one of the main reasons behind the existence of Web Tribunal.

Naturally, seeing a host that actually cares enough to take a few simple steps toward honest marketing is a massive positive sign.

Kudos, Hostinger.

Hostinger Cons

While Hostinger has a pretty solid hosting solution, its offer is far from flawless.

1. Limited for Advanced Users

Hostinger has a well-rounded shared hosting package, but advanced users might find it lacking in certain areas.

Yes, there is Git, cronjobs, and Curl, but many goodies available in cPanel are simply absent.

Ruby on Rails, Python, and others are nowhere to be found.

2. Difficult Migration

Migrating a site over to Hostinger can be problematic.

While the support is ready to help in any way necessary – advice or direct involvement in the process – the fact that the host runs a proprietary hosting panel makes it difficult to transfer existing sites over.

It is possible, but it is highly likely to be a serious hassle.

Hostinger Plans & Pricing at a Glance

Hostinger has three shared hosting plans.

The fees continue to be amazingly low.

Hostinger did increase its fees a tad since 2019 when we first reviewed its services, but the smallest plan still costs less than a couple of dollars.

Do We Recommend Hostinger?

Yes, we do recommend Hostinger for a good number of reasons.

If you are looking for a cheap hosting solution to start off, that’s probably the best option. Hostinger plans scale up smoothly, allowing for a natural website growth, while the long-term deals lock in the price nicely, helping with budget planning.

Speed and performance are impressive as well.

Access to the support team can be optimized, but the agents are responsive and knowledgeable.

The several instances of typical hosting marketing lingo we mentioned throughout this detailed Hostinger review don’t change the fact that the company provides tremendous value for money.