Hostinger Review – Best Web Hosting Provider for 2023
In October 2021, I posted a blog on the Top 3 WordPress Web Hosting for New or Small Businesses: BlueHost, DreamHost, and SiteGround. In that post, my top pick was DreamHost for overall performance, features, and value. However, one year fast-forward, I began searching for another web host. The reason was that after the promotional rate expired, the renewal rate was more than 4x of what we paid initially. As a result, we had to switch to a monthly plan as it was easier on the pocket.
But my goal was still to find a reliable hosting company that offers affordable pricing even after the promotional rate and features such as great speed, uptime, load time, SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth/traffic, 24/7 customer support, Free SSL, money-back guarantee, etc.
Fortunately, Hostinger satisfied all these great features and passed the test.
Below are the topics I will be discussing in this post:
Overview
Hostinger is a web hosting company that has been providing hosting services since 2004. Over the years, the company has become one of the most popular hosting providers, with millions of websites hosted on its servers.
In this post, we’ll look closer at Hostinger’s features to help you decide whether it’s the right hosting provider for your website.
Hostinger Plans and Features
Below is a list of features for the Single, Premium, and Business plans Hostinger offers for Shared Hosting.
Hostinger offers various hosting plans, including shared hosting, cloud hosting, and WordPress hosting. But in this post, I will focus on shared web hosting. They offer four-term plans: 1, 12, 24, and 48 months. You can save more when choosing a longer term because you are locking in the price for the selected period.
As a disclaimer, I am an affiliate of Hostinger and so, if you purchase a subscription via the “Choose Plan” buttons below, I will be eligible to receive a small commission.
With the Hostinger referral button, you will get an additional 20% discount, a very good deal that is hard to pass up.
Single
1 Website
Premium
100 Websites
Business
100 Websites
Pricing Table
| Term | Intro Pricing | Renewal |
|---|---|---|
| 48 months | $1.99 ($95.52) | $3.99 ($191.52) |
| 24 months | $2.29 ($54.96) | $4.99 ($119.76) |
| 12 months | $2.99 ($35.88) | $5.99 ($71.88) |
| 1 month (plus 4.99 setup fee) | $9.99 (month-to-month) | $9.99 (month-to-month) |
| Term | Intro Pricing | Renewal |
|---|---|---|
| 48 months | $2.99 ($143.52) | $6.99 ($335.52) |
| 24 months | $2.99 ($71.76) | $7.99 ($191.76) |
| 12 months | $2.99 ($35.88) | $8.99 ($107.88) |
| 1 month | $11.99 (month-to-month) | $11.99 (month-to-month) |
| Term | Intro Pricing | Renewal |
|---|---|---|
| 48 months | $3.99 ($191.52) | $8.99 ($431.52) |
| 24 months | $4.49 ($107.76) | $9.99 ($239.76) |
| 12 months | $4.99 ($59.88) | $11.99 ($143.88) |
| 1 month | $15.99 (month-to-month) | $15.99 (month-to-month) |
Ease of Use
One of the standout features of Hostinger is its user-friendly custom-built control panel known as the hPanel. It is designed to be easy to navigate, making it easy for users to manage their websites, emails, domains, and hosting accounts.
Performance
One of the standout features of Hostinger is its user-friendly custom-built control panel known as the hPanel. It is designed to be easy to navigate, making it easy for users to manage their websites, emails, domains, and hosting accounts.
Hostinger’s servers are optimized for performance, with SSD storage, LiteSpeed web server, and a custom caching system to ensure that websites load quickly. The company also offers a 99.90% uptime guarantee, which means that your website will be up and running most of the time.
One important consideration when shopping for a good hosting provider is the location of their data centers. Hostinger’s servers are located worldwide, so you can choose the closest one and enjoy the best performance.
- Europe (France, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom)
- Asia (Singapore, India)
- North America (USA)
- South America (Brazil)
If you did not find a suitable location, you could have Cloudflare activated for your website – as CDN (Content Delivery Network). A CDN can boost speed, improve website security, and reduce website resource usage. It ensures quick static content deployment by delivering it from the closest location to your visitors. Hostinger offers a FREE CDN with their Business Plan. But if you purchase a Premium Plan, you may still use a free CDN by signing up for a free account with CloudFlare. We can set this up for our clients as part of our services if they choose to enable this on their website.
Another cool feature that they have on the control panel is the ability to run a website speed test. As part of our web design services, we perform a website speed test to optimize our clients’ websites with either https://gtmetrix.com or https://pagespeed.web.dev/. Website speed insights allow checking your website’s performance and will provide helpful information on optimizing your website.
Here is a speed test run of our website with GTMetrix.
And here is the one from the Google PageSpeed Insights tool.
Security
Hostinger offers a range of security features to protect websites from malware and DDoS attacks (using Cloudflare Protected Nameservers, which shields your DNS infrastructure from DDoS attacks). Its security features include:
- Daily or weekly backups (depending on the plan)
- Free unlimited SSL certificates
- A custom-built firewall to block malicious traffic
Customer Support
Hostinger offers customer support through live chat, email, and a comprehensive knowledge base. In addition, its support team is available 24/7 to answer any questions or concerns that users may have.
So far, we are satisfied with the help we have been receiving from their customer support team. We have used live chat and email support, and my issues are resolved promptly. With the live chat, there is a 10-15 minute average wait to get hold of an agent.
Conclusion
To wrap it up, I will perform a process of elimination. BlueHost gets eliminated first, with no email account, no free domain, no backups, and free SSL only on the first year of the Basic plan. However, when I did my review in 2021, they offered much better features. SiteGround gets eliminated next for affordability upon renewal time, although we know that SiteGround has many great features to offer. But there may be better choices than SiteGround for those on a budget.
As with DreamHost, I only recommend it if you have more than 100 websites to build. Their renewal rate still costs more than Hostinger’s Business plan, which includes the automated daily backups and the WordPress Staging tool. In addition, DreamHost’s data centers are limited. They are currently in Ashburn, Virginia, and Hillsboro, Oregon, which is fine if your target audience is US-based.
The Verdict – Hostinger is the absolute winner and my top pick for the best hosting provider in 2023 with its affordable intro and renewal pricing, user-friendly control panel, reliable performance, security features, and excellent customer support.
Whether you’re a blogger, small business owner, or online store owner, Hostinger has a hosting plan to meet your needs. And you can scale any time to their cloud hosting plans as your business grows.