Hostinger Reviews and Expert Opinion

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Very low monthly prices accommodate extremely tight budgets.
• Enjoy fast, reliable service with above average uptimes and load times.
• Take advantage of Hostinger’s intuitive drag-and-drop website builder to create a website in minutes.
• Quickly resolve issues via live chat, email and ticketing 24/7/365.
• Clearly defined plans and features make it easy to choose the right package for you.
• Unlimited bandwidth and SSD space in most plans keep your site running smoothly.
• Easily set up e-commerce shopping carts with 1-click installations.

Cons:

• Features that are free with other services, such as free SSL certificates or unlimited email accounts, are only available with an upgrade.
• Hostinger doesn’t offer dedicated server plans.
• Although they have a 1-click installation process for WordPress and are optimized for the platform, Hostinger doesn’t have a specific WordPress hosting package.

Pricing and Payment Methods

Hostinger is known as one of the most affordable web hosting services, though prices tend to vary somewhat based on the company’s current offers. We started our review with the basic Single plan, which starts at $0.80 a month, and were surprised to see the number of features included.

The package gives you up to 100 GB bandwidth and weekly backups along with multiple PHP versions and over 100 1-click installations. The Business hosting plan starts at $3.45 a month and offers more advanced features such as free SSL certificates for your websites and unlimited email accounts.

While their shared hosting plans are indeed very affordable, the company’s Cloud options are well on par with standard market prices. The StartUp cloud plan starts at $7.45 a month and comes with unlimited websites and bandwidth, plus Hostinger’s custom-built speed tools and free domain registration (for the first year). If you need more power, you can choose the Cloud Enterprise plan starting at $27.45, and with 12GB RAM and 160 GB storage included. VPS hosting is also available from $3.95 to $29.95 monthly.

Ease of Use

The 15,000 customers that flock to Hostinger every day might initially come for the low prices, but we suspect they stay because of how simple it is to build and maintain your website with the service. The free website builder is a helpful tool for newbies, though the company’s well-ordered cPanel and over 100 one-click app installations really give beginners a customizable and manageable website.

Even so, users like us that require more advanced tools and more complex functionalities can still benefit from Hostinger. The company offers the option of building a GIT repository with every plan – critical for collaborative teams like ours – as well as multiple PHP language support and phpMyAdmin. Though some features like free SSL certificates or unlimited websites are only available with upgrades, Hostinger’s very low price points put these features in reach without stretching your budget.

Scaling is an important part of any business plan, so we upgraded our test site several times to see how smooth the process was. In each case, upgrades were fast and relatively simple thanks to the expert help of Hostinger’s friendly customer support team.

Load Times and Reliability

With approximately 29 million users to support, we were concerned that Hostinger might not be able to deliver the superior uptimes and load speeds they promise. However, months of testing clearly demonstrated that their uptimes were consistently 99.9% or above, placing them far above the industry average of 99.4%.

Additionally, we found that their load times were incredibly fast at approximately 1s per page. This is at least in part due to the company’s Cache Manager solution, which they claim radically reduces loading times. However, Hostinger’s extensive knowledge base also offers step-by-step instructions for customers to optimize their pages for speed on their end.

Features

Any concerns we had about Hostinger’s low prices limiting the number of features they offer dissipated within the first few minutes of our using the service. Basic packages include all sorts of helpful features like the company’s website builder and 1-click installation tool for over 100 apps, which include WordPress and e-commerce solutions like WooCommerce. Though basic plans come with weekly backups, you’ll have to upgrade if you want daily backups for your site.

We were similarly happy with the many advanced features that even the basic and mid-range packages offer and which gave us more control over our test site. Unlimited FTP accounts (in most plans), a range of PHP versions and tools and remote MySQL empowered us to craft a backend that completely met our needs. Finally, in spite of the low prices, we were very happy with the level of security that went into each account. FTP over SSL, frequent infrastructure updates and BitNinja are just some of the ways that Hostinger invests in account security.

Customer Support

Hostinger claims that customer support is one of its top priorities, and for the most part that seems to be the case. We found that the company’s responses and resolution time were above the industry average for all four communication channels—ticketing, snail mail, live chat, and email.

Just about every interaction with a representative had us paired with a pleasant expert who was able to get to the bottom of our questions quickly.

Perhaps the most wonderful part of Hostinger’s customer service is the fact that we didn’t have to use their services very frequently. Hundreds of informative articles in their knowledge base, frequently updated tutorials on complex technical features and a lively blog helped us find our way through most challenges we encountered using Hostinger.

User Reviews

As always, our expert reviews are based on our technological expertise and experiences. To get a fuller understanding of how Hostinger measures up against its competitors, complement this review with reviews from our regular users.

Conclusion

Our Hostinger expert review helped us understand exactly why the service resonates so strongly with users. Hostinger manages to blend extremely low prices with a plethora of features and utilities, augmenting both with copious documentation and a knowledgeable, pleasant support team. This trifecta of affordability, a rich catalogue of features and robust support makes it a strong choice for customers no matter where they’re at in their web hosting journey. Beginners get the basic features they need to instantly get their websites going, from a website builder to ample bandwidth and more.

While more advanced users don’t have a dedicated server option to give them extra flexibility and control, we found that Hostinger’s shared, cloud, and VPS plans offer many benefits to keep webmasters satisfied. A robust cPanel, over 100 1-click apps installations and access manager can all play a part in allowing you to simply and efficiently customize your website’s behind the scenes.