Hostinger review (December 2024): Is it the best web host?

A detailed Hostinger web hosting review to find out if it is the best fit for you.

Choosing a good web host is your first step to starting your blog or business online. No doubt, this is important for anyone looking to establish an online presence, whether it’s for a blog, business, or personal project.

Of course, in this game, Hostinger is often considered one of the most affordable hosting options available, but the big question is: are there hidden costs that may surprise you?

So in this detailed review, we’ll explore Hostinger’s pricing, features, performance, customer service, and potential hidden costs to help you make an informed decision.

Hostinger is the first choice for users who want to start their online presence with budget-friendly web hosting.

I assume that Hostinger is the most popular among beginner bloggers looking to play around with WordPress.

This Hostinger review covers all the ins and outs for you and gives you insight into why you should choose Hostinger.

Let’s go to the topic.

About Hostinger

Hostinger was founded in 2004 as Hosting Media. The company is headquartered in Lithuania and employs about 900 employees.

In 2011, Hosting Media rebranded to Hostinger.

Hostinger is now a leading provider of web hosting solutions, serving over 29 million people in over 150 countries.

Known for its affordable pricing plans and wide range of hosting services, Hostinger aims to cater to beginners and advanced users with various plans and features.

Hostinger is also available in India for Indian users and you can visit Hostinger through Hostinger.in.

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Pricing Overview

Hostinger is one of the most pocket-friendly web hosting providers. They have the lowest web hosting plan for a single website just ₹69.00 /mo for India.

For Global Site, it starts at $2.99 /mo with a +3 months free offer.

Hostinger is often praised for its low starting web hosting prices, making it an attractive option for those on a budget. Here are the details of their main plans:

Hostinger India Site Plans & Pricing

Hostinger India offers its users three types of Shared Web Hosting plans. Here’s a breakdown of their Shared Web Hosting plans:

• Single Shared Hosting: Starting at ₹69.00 /mo, this plan includes 1 website, 50 GB SSD storage, 100 GB Bandwidth, and 1 email account, and is suitable for ~10,000 visits monthly. [View Plans]
• Premium Shared Hosting: Priced at ₹149.00 /mo, it supports up to 100 websites, 100 GB SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, and free domain registration for the first year and is suitable for ~25,000 visits monthly. [View Plans]
• Business Shared Hosting: At ₹249.00 /mo, this plan offers 200 GB NVMe storage, supports up to 100 websites, daily backups, offers various AI tools, and enhanced processing power, and is suitable for ~100,000 visits monthly. [View Plans]

Hostinger Global Site Plans & Pricing

Hostinger Global Site offers two types of Shared Web Hosting plans:

• Premium Shared Hosting: This plan starts at $2.99 /mo for 100 websites. Comes with 100 GB SSD storage, free domain, unlimited bandwidth, and an AI website builder. [Browse Full Features]
• Business Shared Hosting: At $3.99 /mo, this plan offers 200 GB NVMe storage, daily backups, free CDN, and enhanced processing power to run a WooCommerce store. [Browse Full Features]

Hosting Renewal Rates

It is important to note that these prices are promotional rates, usually available for the first term. After renewal, the prices may increase significantly. For example, the Premium Shared Hosting plan renews at $11.99 /mo.

The hosting renewal rates here are more than 3x which is quite high.

Of course, this can burn your pocket.

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Key Features

Hostinger Features Overview:

Rating	⭐ 4.6 Trustpilot rating
Price	Starts at $2.99 /mo
Hosting Types	Shared, WordPress, VPS, Cloud, and Email Hosting
Speed	1.35 sec (India)
Uptime	99.9% uptime guarantee
Free Domain	✅ available for yearly (or longer) hosting plans
Data Centers	USA, United Kingdom, France, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Brazil, Lithuania, and the Netherlands
Website Migration	Free automatic unlimited website migration
Customer Support	24/7 via live chat
Security	DDoS Protection, Malware Scanner, Free Domain WHOIS Privacy, Firewall, Cloudflare Protected Nameservers, Free SSL
Backups	Weekly Backups
Refund Policy	30 days money-back guarantee
???? Coupons	Hostinger coupon 75% OFF +3 months free

1. Various Hosting Types

Hostinger offers a variety of hosting options for small to medium budgets, including:

• Shared Web Hosting: Best for small to medium websites. Shared Hosting plans offer a balance between performance and cost.
• WordPress Hosting: Optimized specifically for WordPress sites, ensuring fast loading times and ease of management.
• Cloud Hosting: Cloud hosting on Hostinger is a managed service that provides robust resources and operates in isolation, ensuring high performance even under heavy traffic.
• VPS Hosting: Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting is perfect for users who need more control and dedicated resources without the cost of a dedicated server.

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2. Free Domain & SSL

Most Hostinger Web Hosting plans come with a free domain for the first year, saving you around $10 to 15. They also offer free SSL certificates, which are essential for securing your website and building online trust.

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3. AI Website Builder

The AI ​​website builder offered by Hostinger is called Hostinger Website Builder. It is a tool that allows you to create a website or an online store without coding or design experience.

It comes with a variety of templates and an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to simplify the website-building process.

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4. Bandwidth, SSD Storage & Site Limits

With Hostinger you’ll get unlimited bandwidth and SSD storage to manage your multiple sites (up to 100) at an affordable price.

With these features, they are truly generous. Whereas, most hosts cut hosting resources to cover costs.

But Hostinger offers a lot of resources at its low rates.

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5. Email Accounts

Depending on the plan, you can get anywhere from one to unlimited email accounts. This is especially beneficial for businesses that need a professional email address.

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6. Free Website Migration

They offer unlimited free automatic website migrations for all your sites. All you need to do is choose a web hosting plan at Hostinger and submit a website migration request, and their experts will take care of the rest.

That’s it, Simple!

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7. User-Friendly Control Panel

Hostinger offers its custom-built control panel called hPanel, which is intuitive and easy to use even for beginners.

With this user-friendly control panel, you can manage everything and quickly install popular applications like WordPress, Joomla, and more with a single click.

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8. Enhanced Security

Hostinger offers a robust security suite to make your website secure.

All plans come with a free SSL certificate for all your sites, ensuring secure data transmission and increasing the reliability of your website.

Advanced protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks is included to keep your site secure.

They provide automatic daily/weekly backups to protect your data and facilitate quick recovery in case of problems.

Regular scans are performed to detect and remove malware, keeping your site safe from threats.

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9. Developer-Friendly Tools

Hostinger offers powerful developer-friendly tools like SSH for secure remote access, GIT for version control, and WP-CLI for WordPress command line management.

Choose from multiple PHP versions, allowing you to run older applications or the latest PHP scripts.

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10. E-commerce Compatibility

They offer specialized hosting plans optimized for online stores, and supporting platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, and PrestaShop.

Some plans include a free domain name, helping you set up your e-commerce store most cost-effectively.

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Hostinger Performance and Uptime

Hostinger is known for providing reliable performance and strong uptime for websites. It uses LiteSpeed servers, optimized to handle traffic efficiently and deliver fast loading times. This helps improve website speed and user experience, making it a good choice for small and large sites.

In terms of uptime, Hostinger guarantees 99.9% uptime, which means your website will rarely go offline.

This is crucial because it ensures that your site is available to visitors almost all the time. Hostinger’s data centers are located in various countries, increasing its stability.

Hostinger’s speed and uptime reliability make it a solid choice for those who want a consistent and high-performing web host.

Here is the uptime report for Hostinger:

Months of the year	Uptime
January 2024	100%
February 2024	100%
March 2024	100%
April 2024	99.84%
May 2024	99.86%
June 2024	99.97%
July 2024	100%
August 2024	99.99%
September 2024	100%
1 October 2024	100%

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Hostinger Data Centers

Hostinger data centers are located all over the world. Their web hosting plans offer server locations in the United States, United Kingdom, France, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Brazil, Lithuania, and the Netherlands.

You can choose the server location closest to your target audience, which can improve loading times.

Suppose, most of the users on your website come from the USA then choosing a USA server is the best option to reduce the latency.

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Customer Support

Hostinger delivers 24/7 customer support through live chat and email. Yet, they do not offer phone support, which might be a drawback for some users.

They provide an extensive knowledge base with tutorials, guides, and articles that can help you troubleshoot problems yourself.

Despite a lot of positive reviews for Hostinger support, some users are experiencing issues with it. Overall, the quality of their support is good, but they could further improve their support speed and response time.

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User Experience

Hostinger offers a user-friendly experience for beginners and experienced users. Its interface is clean and easy to navigate, making it easy to find the right tool.

Setting up a website is simple due to its guided steps and one-click installation for popular platforms like WordPress.

The control panel, called HPanel, is well-organized, with clear icons and easy access to essential features like domain, email, and site management.

Hostinger also offers helpful tutorials and 24/7 customer support via live chat, ensuring users can quickly resolve issues or learn new skills.

Response times are generally fast, and support agents are knowledgeable and friendly. Overall, Hostinger prioritizes simplicity and efficiency, making it a great choice for users who want a smooth and hassle-free hosting experience.

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Potential Hidden Costs

The introductory low prices are promotional. Upon renewal, you may find the cost quite high. For example, the Premium Shared Hosting plan for Global Hostinger increases from $2.99 ​​to $11.99/month.

Even, you have to pay an additional $4.99 setup fee for the monthly plan.

For Indian users, the Single Shared Hosting plan starts at INR69/mo and renews at INR399/mo.

All web hosting plans give you big discounts if you purchase for 48 months.

While the first year of domain registration is free with some plans, renewal costs may be higher than expected. It’s important to check renewal rates before committing.

Daily backups are included in the Business Shared Hosting plan only. For other plans, you may have to pay extra for this service. Ensuring regular backups is crucial and could be a hidden cost for many users.

Some plans include free email accounts with 1GB of storage, you will have to pay extra for more email accounts and storage.

These are potential hidden costs.

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Best Hostinger Alternatives & Competitors

It’s a good idea to check out similar web hosting options to see what’s best for you if you want to use Hostinger. Many people use shared hosting because it’s popular, and they often look for easy, quick solutions with templates, and drag-and-drop features.

Let’s see what are the alternative web hosts to Hostinger:

GreenGeeks

Since it started in 2008, GreenGeeks has become a top eco-friendly web hosting company. They put back three times the energy they use into the grid as renewable energy. With an experienced team, they offer the best web hosting experience to its customers in over 150 countries.

I have been using their services for over 5 years and they are truly the best alternative web host to Hostinger.

If you want the best support, fast website loading, a 99.9% uptime, and a 30-day money-back guarantee, you should choose GreenGeeks.

Their plans include a free domain, free SSL certificate, free nightly backups, free CDN, and built-in caching features. [Browse Full Features]

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DreamHost

DreamHost is the oldest web hosting provider and domain name registrar based in Los Angeles, founded in 1996.

Their platform is optimized for WordPress, the control panel is easy to use, and you can manage your web hosting without any hassle.

DreamHost (officially recommended by WordPress) is the most popular web hosting provider. However, their Shared Starter plan lacks some features if you want to host a single website.

While DreamHost is suitable for hosting unlimited websites in the Shared Unlimited plan. [Browse Full Features]

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HostGator

HostGator is another best alternative to Hostinger, you can use it for shared hosting. They have various web hosting options including shared, reseller, virtual private server, and dedicated web hosting.

HostGator offers a secure website restoration service and regularly performs site backups, which helps protect your site from accidental damage. Their shared web hosting plans are suitable for small to medium-sized websites. [Browse Full Features]

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Namecheap

Namecheap is a popular and affordable domain registrar and web hosting provider, known for its straightforward pricing and user-friendly services. Founded in 2000, Namecheap offers various services including domain name registration, web hosting, SSL certificates, and email hosting.

Namecheap’s shared web hosting is an excellent choice for budget-conscious users and small businesses looking for a reliable hosting service.

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IONOS

IONOS is known for its web hosting, domain, and cloud computing services. Their shared hosting plans are best for small and medium-sized websites at affordable prices.

IONOS is the best alternative to Hostinger if you’re looking to host multiple websites with exceptional features.

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Hostinger Pros & Cons

Here’s an overview of the pros and cons of Hostinger:

Pros

Hostinger provides essential web hosting features to its users, here is the list of web hosting pros:

• Affordable Pricing: Hostinger is known for its competitive pricing, offering some of the lowest prices in the industry, especially for first-time users.
• Performance and Speed: Hostinger offers fast loading times with LiteSpeed ​​caching and optimized servers, which is important for user experience and SEO.
• User-Friendly Interface: The custom-built hPanel is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy for beginners to manage their websites.
• Free Website Builder: Hostinger offers a free drag-and-drop AI website builder, making it easy for users with no coding experience to build their websites.
• Robust Security: They offer essential security features like a free SSL certificate, DDoS protection, and regular backups.
• Reliable Uptime: They claim a 99.9% uptime guarantee to ensure the accessibility of your website at all times.
• Global Data Centers: With multiple data centers across the globe, Hostinger ensures that users can choose the server location closest to their target audience, improving site performance.
• Money-back Guarantee: They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee to try their services risk-free. If you’re unsatisfied with the services, you can get your money back within 30 days.

Cons

Despite lots of essential features, Hostinger has some shortcomings that may make you unhappy:

• Higher Renewal Rates: They offer the cheapest entry-level hosting plans, but their renewal rates are more than 3 times higher, which can burn a hole in your pocket.
• No Traditional cPanel: Hostinger uses its hPanel instead of the traditional cPanel, which may be a drawback for users accustomed to cPanel’s interface.
• Slow Support Speed: Although they have a lot of useful tutorials, you may face slow responses to your query.
• No Phone Support: It does not offer phone support, which may displease users who prefer to speak directly to a support representative.
• Bad CDN Performance: They launched their own CDN. However, it did not perform as expected. They need to improve this.

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Who Should Buy Hostinger Web Hosting?

Hostinger is the best choice for users who are looking for affordable and reliable web hosting.

For budget-conscious people who want to start a website or blog and want something easy to use at the cheapest price, Hostinger may be perfect.

It’s also a solid choice for small businesses or entrepreneurs who need a straightforward solution to get their site up and running quickly.

If your target users are USA-based then you should choose their web hosting plan with USA servers. Although, they have global data centers.

Overall, Hostinger is the best web hosting, whether you are a beginner or more technical. However, if you can stretch your budget, GreenGeeks, ScalaHosting, and Cloudways can also be powerful hosting solutions.

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Final Verdict

Hostinger is an excellent choice for budget-conscious users, offering a balance of affordability, performance, and ease of use.

However, users may be mindful of potentially high renewal rates and limitations of basic plans. The lack of phone support and traditional cPanel may also be a consideration for some people.

Overall Hostinger is suitable for small to medium-sized websites, especially those just starting.

People’s choices may vary according to their needs, but Hostinger is perfect for starting your website on a pocket-friendly budget with a pack of great features like free domain, SSL, AI website builder, and managed WordPress hosting.

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FAQ’s