HOSTINGER REVIEW - THE BEST WEB HOSTING PROVIDER FOR 2023
In October 2021, I posted a blog on the Top 3 WordPress Web Hosts 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 what I paid. As a result, I 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.
I am happy to share that I made the switch to Hostinger.
Below are the topics I will be discussing in this blog
As a disclaimer, I am an affiliate of Hostinger, DreamHost, BlueHost, and SiteGround. 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.
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. But, first, here’s a reference to my old blog post on the Top 3 WordPress Web Hosts for New or Small Businesses, comparing their prices and features to look for when shopping for a reliable web hosting provider.
Plans and Features
Below is a list of features for the Single, Premium, and Business plans Hostinger offers for Shared Hosting.
Single
- 50 GB SSD Storage
- 100 GB Bandwidth
- 99.90% Uptime Guarantee
- 1 Email Account with 1GB Storage
- Free Automated Weekly Backups
- Free Domain
- Free SSL Certificate
- Malware Scanner + Cloudflare Protected Nameservers
- 24/7 support (Email, Live Chat, Phone)
- 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
Premium
- 100 GB SSD Storage
- Unlimited Traffic / Bandwidth
- Free Email Account up to 100 domain-based email addresses
- Free Automated Weekly Backups
- Unlimited Free SSL Certificate
- Free Domain - 1st Year
- Includes all other features on the Single plan
Business
- 200 GB SSD Storage
- Free Automated Daily Backups
- WordPress Staging Tool
- Includes all other features on the Premium plan
The Premium plan is their most popular one, which is ideal for small business owners, especially since it comes with a free domain for the first year. The Single website plan does not come with a free domain. The Premium plan is the one that I recommend to my clients. The only concern is the weekly backups. If you have a blogging website and post daily or several times a week, having a daily backup of your site would be ideal. If this is the case, you can subscribe to their Business plan, which takes care of that. It is also worth mentioning that with their Single or Premium plan, Hostinger offers an add-on for daily backups, which costs $2.09 (at the time of this writing).
I will discuss the plans, pricing, and features later in the page, comparing Hostinger with BlueHost, DreamHost, and SiteGround. These are the top 3 web hosts recommended by WordPress. This comparison will assist you in deciding which is the right hosting provider for your website.
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
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.
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Europe (France, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom)
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Asia (Singapore, India)
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North America (the USA)
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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. Most web hosting providers offer this feature, including Hostinger. I set this up for my clients for free as part of my 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 my web design services, I perform a website speed test to optimize my 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.
Below is the result of running a speed test on my website at gtmetrix.com. It is comparable to my website’s performance when hosted by DreamHost.
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, I am satisfied with the help I have been receiving from their customer support team. I 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.
Web Hosting Plans and Pricing Comparison
Hostinger offers various hosting plans, including shared hosting, cloud hosting, and WordPress hosting. But in this post, I will focus on Shared hosting or WordPress 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.
I have built two comparison tables for a Single Website and Multiple Websites Shared Hosting plans, showing their current plans and pricing (at the time of this writing).
Single Website
Single
- 1 Website
- 50 GB SSD Storage
- 100 GB Bandwidth
- 99.90% Uptime Guarantee
- 1 Email Account with 1GB Storage
- 24/7 support (Email, Live Chat, Phone)
- Free Automated Weekly Backups
- Free CDN
- Free SSL Certificate
- Free Domain
- Malware Scanner + Cloudflare Protected Nameservers
- 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
Starter
- 1 Website
- 50 GB SSD Storage
- Unlimited Traffic / Bandwidth
- 100% Uptime Guarantee
- Free Email Account (Extra $1.67/month)
- 24/7 support (Email and Live Chat)
- Free Automated Daily Backups
- Free CDN
- Free SSL Certificate
- Free Domain - 1st year
- Built-in Security Features
- 97-Day Money-Back Guarantee
StartUp
- 1 Website
- 10 GB SSD Storage
- Unmetered / 10k Visits Monthly
- 99.99% Uptime Guarantee
- Unlimited Email with 10 GB storage
- 24/7 support (Email, Live Chat, Phone)
- Free Automated Daily Backups
- Free CDN
- Free SSL Certificate
- Free Domain - 1st year
- Built-in Security Features
- 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
BlueHost
Basic
- 1 Website
- 10 GB SSD Storage
- 15k Visits Monthly
- 99.9% Uptime Guarantee
- Free Email Account
- 24/7 support (Email, Live Chat, Phone)
- Free Automated Backups
- Free CDN
- Free SSL Certificate (1st year)
- Free Domain - 1st year
- Malware Scanning
- 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
Multiple Websites
Premium
- 100 Websites
- 100 GB SSD Storage
- Unlimited Traffic / Bandwidth
- Free Email Account with 1 GB storage per website
- Includes all other features on the Single plan
Unlimited
- Unlimited Websites
- Unlimited Storage
- Unlimited Traffic / Bandwidth
- Unlimited Email
- Includes all other features on the Starter plan
GrowBig
- Unlimited Websites
- 20 GB SSD Storage
- Unlimited Traffic / 100,000 Visits Monthly
- Unlimited Email with 10 GB storage
- Includes all other features on the StartUp plan
Plus
- Unlimited Websites
- 20 GB SSD Storage
- Unlimited Traffic / Bandwidth
- Free Email Account
- Free SSL Certificate
- Includes all other features on the Shared Basic plan
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 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.
