Hostinger Review 2024: Sharing My Experience, Performance Test, Pros, Cons & More

Hostinger Hosting Review $2.69

Product Name: Hostinger

• Performance
  (4.7)
• Hosting Features
  (4.8)
• User Experience
  (4.9)
• Support
  (4.5)
• Affordability
  (5)

4.8

Summary

Best For

• Websites with moderate traffic looking for affordable web hosting without compromising on performance.
• Beginners seeking easy hosting management through the simple hPanel interface.
• Customers seeking reliable 99.9% uptime, fair plans with enough resources and features.
• Customers want to save every year with ongoing discounts.

Considerations

• Hostinger servers are based on LiteSpeed, they work most efficiently with the LiteSpeed caching plugin. No other plugin performs better than LiteSpeed.
• Rely on live chat support since phone support is not available for website owners.
• The premium plan works well, but for the extra punch in the power you have to go with at least a business plan.

 

Our Verdict

What caught my eye is how affordable their high-end plans are, giving nice performance without breaking the bank – a big win compared to others. With LiteSpeed, CDN, and global data centers, Hostinger keeps your site running smoothly. But it’s not just about the cost; there are real perks. All plans have enough resources, and their 24/7 customer support is lightning-fast, usually responding within 5 minutes. They throw in free backups, a user-friendly hPanel, and a genuine 99.9% uptime guarantee, plus a setup wizard for easy hosting setup.

Sure, no phone support is a bummer, and they stress using LiteSpeed for top performance. Still, these are minor hiccups compared to the reliability and budget-friendly nature of Hostinger.

• Visit Hostinger

I have been using Hostinger for a couple of years and now I am sharing my experience in a straightforward review.

Is Hostinger a good web host choice for 2024? Let’s find out in this detailed Hostinger Review 2024

Hostinger Review 2024: Fast, Cheap & Easy Web Hosting? 

Hostinger is a well-known web hosting service that was launched in 2004. Since it has connected with over 2.7 million users in more than 150+ countries.

They’re now officially included in the list of recommended hosting providers endorsed by WordPress.org.

They offer services like:

• Shared Hosting
• VPS Hosting 
• Cloud Hosting 
• eCommerce Hosting
• Minecraft Hosting
• Email Hosting

You can also register domains with them.

After looking into it, we found that Hostinger’s high-end plans are affordable compared to other companies’ basic plans. Their good performance is due to LiteSpeed integration, CDN, and many data centers worldwide.

Additionally, Hostinger offers many freebies to attract customers, such as free domains, CDN, SSL, and more. 

For WordPress Users: Hostinger’s basic Premium hosting plan works well for beginner-to-intermediate WordPress blogs or sites.

Besides the main features like easy WordPress installation and faster speeds, there are extra WordPress-specific features such as multisite support, WP-CLI, SSH, auto-updates, and a scanner for vulnerabilities.

For WooCommerce or eCommerce users, The Business plan is good for small shops, allowing up to 100 products. If you need more, the Cloud Startup plan lets you sell up to 500 products and offers advanced features.

Hostinger Pros And Cons

Before exploring Hostinger in detail, let’s have a look at the pros and cons we have found during this review.

Top Hostinger Features of 2024

Let’s now take a look at what Hostinger offers with its subscription.

1. LiteSpeed Performance Optimization 

What are the key factors contributing to Hostinger’s impressive performance? – You might wanna know?

NVMe SSD, CDN, multiple data centers, and LiteSpeed support are the major factors that boost Hostinger’s server performance. Not many web hosts are 100% compatible with any performance optimization plugin.

Usually, web hosts implement server-level caching, which increases costs. However, Hostinger is generous, and they’ve made their servers 100% compatible with the free LiteSpeed plugin, a WordPress plugin that optimizes your site completely.

This is why they have been successful in providing excellent performance even after cost-cutting.

And we’re not saying this just because they mentioned it. Test results have also proven that installing LiteSpeed on Hostinger can provide a 20-30% performance boost. (You can see the test results in a later section.)

Also, they have data centers located around 7 popular destinations of the world (Netherlands, Lithuania, United Kingdom, Singapore, India, USA & Brazil).

Generally people make the mistake of not reviewing the hosting server location during purchase. Well, perfect web hosts are only those who allow users to switch their server location whenever they want. (Hostinger is one of them.)

I verified this manually. Through the hPanel of Hostinger, you can change the server location in a single click:

Plus, Hostinger can be integrated with Cloudflare CDN for free which means you can replace Hostinger nameservers with Cloudflare. And deliver web pages content from the closest server possible.

But here’s a catch – the CDN is only available for free in the Business and top-tier plans. This issue still exists in my premium plan today. Hostinger should consider offering a free CDN in their premium plan at the very least.

2. Managed WordPress Features Are All In For Beginners

When compared to fully managed web hosting services like Kinsta or Cloudways, Hostinger has put a lot of effort into providing users with a managed WordPress experience. In their hPanel, you can find many features that you can manage without entering technical mode.

For example:

• One-click Force HTTPS feature
• Activating Maintenance mode with a click
• Enabling LiteSpeed with the best configuration
• Buttons for Object Caching & Flush cache
• Enabling Automatic WordPress Updates
• Setting up a staging environment with a single click
• Updating Plugins & Themes within hPanel
• Automated Migration is a significant advantage
• WordPress multisite support and more

I must appreciate Hostinger’s ongoing efforts to make their plans as “managed” as possible at much more affordable rates compared to expensive fully managed WordPress hosting services.

3. Security Features

Range of Security features are assigned to all Hostinger plans. We can’t compromise on Security, right? Hostinger is secure as I didn’t find any breaking news on Reddit or elsewhere. 

• SSL is automatically applied to all your Hostinger sites for a lifetime, free of charge.
• DDoS Protection safeguards against threats and unauthorized access.
• Vulnerability detection in Plugins & Themes is included.
• Cloudflare DNS protection firewall enhances Nameserver security.
• A Malware Scanner offers continuous monitoring.
• Secure Access Manager allows you to control team access.
• Domain WHOIS Protection is an added perk.
• 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) is available.
• IP Blocking and Password-Protected Directories features are supported.

Hostinger offers all the essential security features you’d expect from a budget web host. However, for top-tier security, you might need to explore options like Kinsta or Cloudways.

4. Free Daily to Weekly Automated Backups Facility

Just checked and discovered that Hostinger provides a  free Daily to Weekly automated backup facility. So BIG sites which are supposed to update on a daily basis don’t have to worry about backups anymore.

In Hostinger, the user can:

• Restore a complete website or specific files in a single click
• Generate a new backup manually
• Download/Backup/Restore website files & database separately

All you have to do is to click on the “Manage” option shown under the backups in the main dashboard.

One more thing I really appreciate about Hostinger is that they save your site’s last 30 days backups on a different server rather than a server where your site is hosted – Meaning no impact on the performance & server uptime.

5. Enough Resources For All Types of Websites

When it comes to Hostinger’s resources, they offer SSD storage ranging from 50 GB to 200 GB and unlimited bandwidth. While the allocation of storage is appropriate in their top three plans, I believe the Cloud Startup plan could benefit from a bit more disk storage.

Details about RAM and CPU cores are only available in hPanel after you subscribe, or you can directly discuss them with their customer support agents.

If you’re running a resource-intensive eCommerce website and you’re on a tight budget, the Hostinger Business shared plan is a great option. It provides adequate resources and eCommerce features.

In our experience, regardless of being on a shared server, our sites have usually had sufficient resources. We haven’t encountered any resource-related limitations in the past 2-3 years. After monitoring our resource usage, we found that Hostinger’s resource allocation process is quite effective.

As your resource consumption grows with your site’s growth, they provide clear information through their resource usage panel, making it easy for you to upgrade your plan as needed.

I just discovered another unique feature of Hostinger is the 24-hour plan boost, which doubles your resources temporarily. This is helpful during traffic spikes and when you want to test a higher-tier plan’s performance.

6. Freebies

Hostinger is a favorite among customers because they give away lots of freebies in all the plans. These include a free domain ($9.99 value), CDN, SSL, backups, emails, WHOIS domain privacy protection, free migration,free staging, and more.

The premium plan lacks free CDN which you might consider it a drawback.

Evaluating Hostinger’s Costs

After considering the different needs of users, I can confidently say that Hostinger offers big savings with its very affordable web hosting plans.

Hostinger is known for the CHEAPEST plans in the competitive market and they actually mean it. We were not offered any extra add-ons during the subscription that would increase our charges. It means, No hidden charges or upselling problems are there. 

Their plans are based on the number of sites & storage needs. For customer well-being, most of the plans included a free domain & free backup, free CDN, free SSL, free migration, and other freebies. Because of such an initiative, Hostinger is able to offer affordable plans.

The above pricing is the result of our coupon code: ANILAGARWAL

If you are a beginner and require web hosting for a single website, then you have to acquire at least a premium plan which costs you $2.69/month (₹134.10/mo). It is packed with 100 sites support, free domain, extra SSD, and the advantage of unlimited bandwidth.

Other than that, you can approach a Business plan ($3.59 / ₹224/mo) if the website monthly traffic exceeds 50k visitors and you require a FREE CDN. And if your site receives 100k or more monthly visitors, the Cloud Startup plan ($8.99/month) is available for that.

You might find this disadvantage, Hostinger plans can only be claimed at the lowest possible pricing if you are ready to commit for 4 years. Investing right now doesn’t risk your money at all because of the attached 30 days money back guarantee policy.

Introductory vs. Renewal Prices

We used to think that existing users get the same discounts as the ones we see on Hostinger’s homepage for new users. But that’s not the case. However, it’s not shocking at all. Most hosting companies offer discounts to new users and charge regular prices for existing ones.

When it comes to Hostinger, renewals are thankfully not as high as some others. For instance, if you renew Hostinger’s premium plan for one year, it will cost you $9.99/month, which is cheaper than Bluehost’s entry plan, with a renewal cost of $11.99/month.

So, the point I’m making is that considering renewal costs is essential when purchasing Hostinger’s plans.

Special Offers and Coupon Codes

Hostinger is also known for its special offers and coupon codes running throughout the year. And at this point too, you will get an amazing offer of 2-3 months of free hosting in Premium and Business plans.

The plans pricing can drop further if you use my special link (mentioned below) and Hostinger coupon code: ANILAGARWAL.

WordPress, VPS and even Cloud plans of Hostinger are the lowest in the web hosting market. Starting from just $2.99, $5.99, $9.99 respectively.

Don’t wait! Want to learn how to install WordPress in Hostinger? Then, this step-by-step tutorial is for you.

Domain Name Pricing

Do you know that Hostinger is a trusted domain name registrar? Well, typically, you get a free domain name for one year with all Hostinger web hosting plans. However, if you only want to register a domain name here, that’s also possible.

Separate domains on Hostinger are available starting from $0.99/year, which is generally the same pricing you’d find with other domain name registrars.

They also offer an impressive tool called the “Domain Name AI Generator,” allowing you to generate unique domain names through artificial intelligence for your website.

Performance Test: Is Hostinger Fast?

The performance analysis of a web host server is like checking the engine of a car before you buy it. You want to make sure it runs smoothly, right?

Well, today we will see the performance results of Hostinger’s most popular plan: Premium Shared.

And finally, I will tell you which data centre (Server location) from Hostinger is the best.

How did we test Hostinger’s performance?

With the help of website performance testing tools, I have experimented with 4 types of tests: 

1. Speed Test 
2. Server Response Time Test 
3. Uptime Test
4. Stress Test

My Test Site Configuration: Premium Shared (WordPress Starter) plan, India (Asia) server.

1. Hostinger Speed Test

Research indicates that the ideal website loading speed should be between 0-4 seconds. Can Hostinger servers meet this benchmark? Let’s explore!

Scenario 1: LiteSpeed – Enabled, CDN – Disabled

Scenario 2: LiteSpeed – Disabled, CDN – Disabled

Words on Speed Test Score:

• According to GTMetrix reports, Hostinger servers achieved an A grade on average with caching enabled and a B grade with caching disabled.

• Turning on LiteSpeed plugin or caching made a big difference in the speed scores. With caching on, the Hostinger premium plan loads in a minimum of 1.2 seconds.

• The loading speed is clearly slower in locations far from the server’s data center. Using a CDN can speed things up in those distant places.

• The Hostinger premium plan has enough resources, like RAM and bandwidth, which makes it better compared to the entry plans of other web hosting services. Even when caching is turned off, it doesn’t slow down as much.

• The top speed score for the premium plan is 99%, and the lowest speed score is 68%

2. Hostinger Server Response Time [TTFB] Test

We tested the Server Response Time using two websites located on different Hostinger servers. One website is hosted in the Asia (India) data center, and the other is in the USA data center. The tool we have used for this assessment is the Sucuri Load Tester.

Server response time, which measures how quickly a server responds to a request, plays a crucial role in ensuring fast and efficient delivery of web content, thus enhancing the user experience. It is also called TTFB.

We’ll now see how quickly Hostinger’s servers respond to 10-15 simultaneous requests from various global locations.

Indian servers responded slowly in Canada, Brazil, and the USA, while USA servers were slower in the UK, Australia, and Singapore. In terms of average response time, Hostinger’s India servers perform well. For audiences in the USA or nearby countries like Canada, the US-based data centers are a effective choice.

3. Hostinger Uptime Monitoring Test:

About 12 months ago, we subscribed to Uptime Robot, which checks the uptime of our Hostinger site servers every 60 seconds. Hostinger provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Is this accurate? Let’s check it out…

The reports are clear. Hostinger has lived up to its promise. They offered a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and our reports reflect the same.

In the last 12 months, there have been a total of 23 incidents recorded on our site, which caused my Hostinger site to be down for around 5 hours in total.

This total time is calculated by adding up all the incidents. If we look at the average downtime per incident, it’s around 3-5 minutes, which is neutral.”

We will keep updating this Uptime table in a real time.

4. Hostinger Stress Load Test:

Website Stress test is nothing, but a performance test of a site in a situation of a sudden traffic spike. We used a load tester app Loadster to send a lot of virtual traffic to both of our Hostinger websites. 

Now, let’s see what the results are:

Within 5 minutes, a total of 32,346 requests were sent to Hostinger’s servers as part of the load test, with the heaviest load occurring during the 3-minute interval.

Hostinger’s performance remained remarkable even during traffic spikes. The average response time was recorded at just 2.30 seconds, which is truly impressive.

No errors were observed. Often, when such a heavy load is placed on a server at once, it can lead to server crashes and display a “503 Service Unavailable” error, but nothing of the sort happened here.

After seeing the response time I am sure, Hostinger won’t disappoint us in any “sudden traffic load” situation. The servers never got down during the test and this is proof of the efficiency.

5. Core Web Vitals Test:

The loading speed, server response time, and other factors directly impact your core web vital metrics. The score of core web vital metrics matters significantly in Google ranking factors as it helps Google judge the user experience of your website pages. 

When we checked the core web vital metrics in the search console and saw them in green, our opinion of Hostinger improved.

However, our site’s pages are static, and Hostinger has been successful in performing well in core web vitals. If your website is dynamic and has many scripts loading, it’s possible that Hostinger’s lower-end plans may not perform as well.

My final opinion:

Based on the test results, we claim that Hostinger’s low-end plans are capable of delivering good performance for websites with budget constraints, while expecting decent performance from their web hosting servers.

Also, Hostinger’s performance is completely OK with Core web vitals.

User Experience with Hostinger

In this section, We will thoroughly review Hostinger’s hPanel (Hostinger’s Modern cPanel) and address various user experience-related questions.

If I have to summarize my thoughts on the Hostinger user experience, I would definitely say that I am quite impressed with Hostinger’s complete user interface. 

The initial setup wizard, the design of hPanel, the organization of tabs, the straightforward access to the admin panel & tools, the inbuilt instructions for advanced configurations, the handy search feature, and the auto-installers are just a few of the small but significant benefits that make hosting management a lot simpler for beginners.

1. Hosting & Domain Setup Process

Setting up hosting and domains on any hosting service can often feel burdensome for beginners. From purchasing the right plan to configuring numerous settings before your website goes live, it can all seem overwhelming. Is Hostinger’s setup process also troublesome? Is there a need for some improvements?

Let’s explore.

First and foremost, when it comes to choosing a hosting plan, it wasn’t too challenging for us. Hostinger’s pricing page is quite detailed, making it easy to understand which plan to select.

After choosing the plan, we were required to register an account. This was also straightforward as we used the Google automated signup system to register our account. The payment process was a simple in-and-out experience.  

After that, we were redirected straight to the home dashboard, where we were shown a sign indicating pending setup:

As soon as we clicked on “Setup,” the onboarding process began, and the first question it asked was whether we wanted to create a new website or migrate our existing site.

By the way, one of the best things about the onboarding setup was that we could exit it at any time without losing our progress.

When we chose “Creating a new website,” we were given the option to design a website with their AI Builder or proceed with WordPress installation. The AI Builder approach is a new feature, especially designed for beginners who want to get their site live in under 5 minutes.

We chose WordPress because it still feels like the classical approach, and we were already familiar with WordPress. After that, we were asked for the credentials for a new admin account in WordPress and provided with names of some plugins and themes to choose from, which we decided to skip.

Following this, the process for naming the website began, which was quite easy for us. We were asked whether we wanted to register a new domain or point to our existing domain, which was registered with another web hosting service.

Registering a new domain name is usually a simple task. However, we thought connecting an external domain name to Hostinger might be a bit tricky. Initially, we believed we’d have to reach out to customer support or watch some tutorial videos.

But the reality was different. Hostinger’s user interface now provides step-by-step instructions for pointing a domain name directly to the user. This was not the case for some time. This change in the user interface was introduced just last year, and it is very helpful for beginners. It saves a lot of time.

Our previous nameservers were with GoDaddy, which Hostinger automatically detected, and it provided us with clear instructions on how to point the domain name server from GoDaddy to Hostinger. Fantastic!

This might seem small, but when I entered the website business 10 years ago, tasks like DNS configuration were quite intimidating. However, today, things have completely changed, and I truly appreciate how Hostinger has made website setup so easy for beginners.

Our hosting setup is almost complete once we’ve pointed the domain name. Before finalizing the setup, Hostinger shows a summary to the user and provides options to change server location, CMS, and more.

It’s that simple. If I were to share my experience, it took me a maximum of 20 minutes from purchasing a new plan to completing the hosting setup. I’m sure this time would be cut in half if I opted for the AI website builder approach instead of WordPress.

What about migrating a website to Hostinger? Well, we didn’t need migration, but I thoroughly analyzed Hostinger’s migration process for our users.

The first great thing is that migration is free of cost on Hostinger. The second great thing is that you don’t have to handle any technical configurations yourself. Hostinger’s migration specialists take care of migrating your site from another service provider.

The entire process is automated; you just need to provide some information from your side, such as WordPress (or other cPanel) login credentials, and you’re good to go.

While Hostinger does support migration from major CMS like WordPress, Joomla, and others, But if your existing site is on platforms like Blogger, Wix, or Shopify, you’ll be disappointed to hear that you can’t migrate to Hostinger. Yes, this is one of the few problems I found with Hostinger.

2. Hostinger hPanel Beginner-Friendly User Interface

Hostinger offers hPanel – A modern, user friendly & robust version of cPanel. 

One of the most highlighted things I liked about Hostinger is its user interface. Even most beginners give a first preference to Hostinger because of the simple easy to use hPanel.

Hostinger has released the new hPanel interface with a lot of improvements and the old dashboard is no longer active after Feb 2023.

Compared to the old traditional cPanel dashboard where you get all options arranged in a top to bottom order, Now you can see the better cleaned version where Hostinger put up a separate page for every category. 

This is the new Hostinger hPanel:

This is the old Hostinger hPanel:

(In the new hPanel) By organizing all the functions into the separate tabs, the Hostinger hPanel looks better and is easy to navigate. 

I personally liked the new interface which doesn’t overwhelm the user at all. The “Dashboard” is the unique tab where you will find a quick shortcut to access the most common functions (Backups, File Manager, WordPress dashboard, etc).

3. One-Click CMS Installation & Setup Support

Yes, Hostinger supports one click WordPress installation. 

I found Hostinger’s onboarding process to be quick and smooth. 

No matter which Hostinger plan you opt for, installing WordPress or any CMS is never going to trouble your mind. Using the AutoInstaller function, WordPress can be started running in seconds. Non techies who hate the traditional FTP method can take advantage of the auto installer to install WordPress & other CMS quickly.

4. Quick Access Panels

What you saw above was the Hosting dashboard (hPanel). But now, we are talking about the quick access panels located in the navigation bar. Are these helpful for users?

Home: Provides users with quick one-click access to all installed Hosting, Domains, and Emails. An added benefit is that it offers a reminder of pending payments, which is often overlooked by website owners.

Websites: Displays all the websites you have set up through Hostinger. Additionally, if you wish to migrate a website, there is a separate section provided for that purpose, which can be quite helpful.

Hosting: Lists all subscribed hosting accounts. Plus shows the used resources within the account – Another plus point.

Emails: Shows configured Email hosting accounts.

Domains: Provides a view of installed domains and allows quick domain registration or transfer.

Quickly accessing hosting accounts, websites, and other services in separate dashboards is now much easier. It eliminates the confusion of locating these things as seen in the previous cPanel. The best part is that in these tabs, users now have easy access to Hostinger migration and domain transfer options.

5. AI Website Builder

A website builder is attached to all Hostinger plans. Have you noticed it?

With Hostinger AI website builder, Hostinger is able to provide professional editable templates that users can use to create their site in no time.

I prefer page builders plugins like Elementor, but they are available inside WordPress. 

So for people who aren’t looking to start a blog (site) on WordPress CMS can use Hostinger website builder to create any possible site (eCommerce store, Blog, etc). 

There is no learning curve involved in Hostinger website builder. You just have to drag and drop elements included in the given templates and your site can be generated in a much lesser time.

My final opinion: Using Hostinger website builder or not is a subjective choice. It offers great benefits but would be useless if WordPress CMS is your preference.

Hostinger Customer Support 

Hostinger sets itself apart by offering outstanding support or not.

When looking at Hostinger’s plans, you’ll see that priority support is only available in their cloud plans. But since our websites are on their premium plan ($2.99/mo), which isn’t considered top-tier, It was important for us to check how good their customer support is.

Hostinger offers customer support in 3 ways:

• 24*7 Live Chat,
• Email 
• KnowledgeBase

We tested Hostinger’s customer support through Live Chat and email. We started with simple questions and later asked more technical ones related to website security, performance, DNS, and email issues. This helped us assess the quality of Hostinger’s customer support.

Hostinger Customer Support Evaluation Overview:

My final opinion: Hostinger’s customer support is quite good. They respond quickly through Live Chat and email, and their agents are helpful and patient.

However, they mostly use English, which might not work for everyone. While they provide guidance, users often have to do the fixes themselves, especially for complex issues. 

Overall, it’s 4.4/5, but they could improve by offering support in more languages and assisting with hands-on solutions.

Hostinger Vs Other Web Hostings

Hostinger is first picked by the majority when the pocket is tight and the aim is top-notch performance. Even I mentioned it at the top of a list of best web hosting for beginners.

Out of that list, here are the 3 most popular Hostinger alternatives you might want to consider:

1. Bluehost

Hostinger plans start from $2.69/mo while Bluehost begins from $1.99/mo. Compared to Hostinger’s average loading time of 2.014 seconds, Bluehost loads a little bit slower and hence recorded an average of more than 3 seconds. Hostinger leads with Performance but Bluehost customer support is unbeatable. 

2. GoDaddy

GoDaddy is another popular web hosting service that starts from $5.99/mo. In comparison, GoDaddy is ahead of Hostinger in terms of Phone support. Hostinger takes the lead in terms of Features, Pricing, & Performance.

If you’re comparing GoDaddy vs Hostinger, this guide will help you choose the right hosting service for your website.

3. HostGator

HostGator is standing with the high pricing ($3.75/mo) but offers the benefit of unlimited storage. This would be the primary factor where HostGator takes a lead otherwise it is tough to beat Hostinger in pricing, freebies, number of data centers, and user-friendly advantage.

Final Words: Hostinger Is Worth Every Single Penny

In recent years, Hostinger has supported us greatly in our blogging business. Earlier there were issues in performance but from the past year, Hostinger has improved amazingly.

In a nutshell, Hostinger is one hundred percent worth it. I recommend both small and big sites to try Hostinger and save their money compared to other web hosting services.

If you’re not 100% satisfied with Hostinger, you can also ask for a full refund of your payment as they offer a hassle-free 30 days money-back guarantee.  

So what are your thoughts about Hostinger web hosting? Did you find our in-depth Hostinger review helpful? If you have any questions, let us know in the comments.

FAQs

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