Hostinger Review – The Best Affordable Web Hosting for 2023

If you’ve come across Hostinger on your hunt for web hosting, you probably already know how affordable their packages are.

If you’re trying to wrap your head around the different features, packages, and overall reliability of their service, you may be having a tough time reading through all those lengthy articles that can make things even more confusing.

Well, fear not.

I’ve reviewed Hostinger to give you everything you need to know in a concise, short, and sweet review that’ll make it easy to determine whether their services are all it’s cracked up to be.

Let’s get into it.

About Hostinger

Having been established in 2007, Hostinger has gone from strength to strength to establish itself as one of the cheapest web hosting services available. 

As the go-to choice for 29 million customers worldwide, they’ve grown and adapted to provide features for a global audience and advertise their hosting packages as some of the simplest solutions for beginners everywhere.

Hostinger Review 

For this review, we’ll look at:

• Pros and cons

• Reliability and performance

• Products and features

• Pricing

• Security

• Customer Support

• Reviews

Now, let’s get into the details. 

Hostinger Pros

With Hostinger, you get to enjoy:

• Cheap shared hosting

• Multilingual support

• Fast loading speeds

Cheap Shared Hosting

When it comes to pricing, Hostinger ranks on the top of the affordability charts. 

It offers cheap shared hosting that allows people to set up a site without having to splurge their wallets. This is especially good for those that want to create a simple site for their hobbies.  

Also, it’s a perfect option for global customers looking for cheaper options to support their small businesses and for individuals looking to market their services online. And these affordable packages already come with a free SSL certificate and a free email address.

Multilingual Support

Multilingual support in 20+ languages makes Hostinger’s support and site management process more accessible to a global audience.

They’ve been praised by people around the world for providing how-to guides and technical information that can be understood by even those whose first language isn’t English.

And if this isn’t impressive enough, Hostinger is making an effort to expand their support centers to improve on their localized customer support. 

Fast Loading Speeds

With Hostinger’s page load speeds at around 435 ms (August 2023), there is hardly any waiting time for your visitors, and that’s despite the low price. With this, you will surely benefit from improved SEO, so you’ll get more chances of ranking first on Google.

What’s more, faster loading speeds means your sites will experience a lower bounce rate, which then leads to more satisfied users.

Hostinger Cons

There are no perfect web hosting services. That said, here are some downsides to Hostinger:

• Uptime could be better

• No free domain name

• hPanel can be confusing

Uptime Could be Better

With an uptime of 99.98% (August 2023), Hostinger does slightly lack when it comes to reliability.

This may be an issue, especially if you're looking to run an online business, as longer downtimes mean more customers will not be able to access your site. In turn, this leads to lost sales and customer loyalty.

Longer downtimes also result in your site being punished by the Google algorithm which will make it harder to get on the front page of Google’s search results.

So though Hostinger’s uptime isn’t bad, it could certainly be a lot better. 

No Free Domain Name

Unlike other hosting providers that often provide a free domain name for the first year, Hostinger has no such feature. You’ll have to pay an additional $10-15 dollars to buy your own domain or get a higher plan.

If you’re getting a Premium or a Business plan, you have to choose a 12-year subscription so that you get the domain free. Otherwise, you still have to pay for an extra domain on top of the monthly fees. 

hPanel Can be Confusing

While Hostinger’s custom hPanel is better optimized for their service, it can make it a bit confusing, especially if you’re accustomed to a regular cPanel interface. There may be a learning curve here.

There are also features present in cPanel that you won’t find in hPanel. Some of those features are a staging environment, advanced email features, and website backup custom schedules. 

If you only want the basic control panel, then these lacking features won’t be a big deal for you. 

Reliability and Performance

As mentioned above, when it comes to reliability, Hostinger’s uptime is a bit lacking. 

But on the flip side, their fast loading speeds do compensate in some respects, especially considering the price.

Multiple server locations will also ensure fast loading speeds no matter where you’re located. I mean, they have server locations catering to the Asian, American, and European markets among others.

You’ll also get lightning-quick SSD storage on all their packages, which is up to 20 times faster than their HDD counterparts.

Products and Features

You'll have to contend with quite a few restrictions on Hostinger’s basic packages.

With storage space of 30GB and bandwidth capped at 100GB, it’s no wonder why Hostinger advertises their basic package as best for under 10,000 page views a month. This, by the way, is more than enough for small websites. 

Despite that, you’ll get a great website design experience with their Zyro website building tool. It has a wide selection of themes that makes it easy to get started with filling in your site’s content.

Check out this video on how to make a WordPress website for beginners in Hostinger:

You’ll also get WordPress support and access to hundreds of one-click software installs that give you the flexibility you need to run your business and fulfill your eCommerce needs.

And while Hostinger may not be recommended by WordPress, its WordPress hosting plans are still well above average. It’s simple to use and optimized to run efficiently, giving you and your users an excellent site experience.

Sadly, you won’t get access to free CDN and Google ad credits with their basic shared hosting package. 

But their Premium and Business shared hosting packages do come with much more features. They have higher storage and bandwidth limits that make supporting a larger site much easier. (These packages also come with a free domain and Google ad credits.)

Then, you have the option to get VPS and Cloud-based hosting services, which provide you greater flexibility and power for sites that attract heavy traffic.

But again, the basic packages for these hosting services are restricted with limited storage and features.

One last thing. Hostinger doesn’t provide dedicated hosting, so maximum scalability may be an issue in the future.

Packages Pricing

Across the board, Hostinger’s basic packages can be a bit restricting with fewer features and lower limits that restrict the amount of content and traffic your site can withstand.

These prices are also introductory. So after the first year of hosting, on most packages, the pricing can double. 

While these increases in price after the first year are a common sight across the industry, Hostinger tends to jack up prices higher compared to its competitors.

Security 

All Hostinger’s packages come with free SSL certificates from the get-go, giving your site credibility and your users safety.

Hostinger also provides DDOS protection, implementing firewalls to stop any would-be attackers in their tracks before they can take down your site.

Weekly backups are a great addition standard in all their plans. This automatically saves all your content, making it available in the event your site suffers from data loss. You can also access daily backups if you upgrade to their higher-priced options.

Their servers are monitored 24/7 to ensure your files and site remain safe, with backup generators to provide power in the event of an outage.

Customer Support

Multilingual support is a unique selling point when it comes to Hostinger. This integrates into the excellent customer support they provide.

Available 24/7, Hostinger’s experienced customer service reps make life so much easier as they can help you with any questions, concerns, or issues. Plus, they’re available through email, phone, and live chat.

But take note that this is only available after you purchase a package, which can make pre-sale questions a bit difficult to get answered.

Meanwhile, Hostinger also has a knowledge hub, filled with hundreds of useful answered FAQ pages and how-to guides that make solving issues faster, without the need to contact customer support.

What Do Customers Say?

Customers generally appreciate Hostinger’s helpful design tools and speed, with a special emphasis on the great support received from their multilingual customer support.

Here’s one review praising Hostinger:

Hostinger FAQs

Can I pay monthly with Hostinger?

Yes.

Hostinger supports monthly payments but the cost is higher.

On the basic shared hosting plan, you’ll have to pay a minimum of $7.99 a month, in addition to a $4.99 one-time setup fee.

So if you’re looking to set up a site only as a proof of concept or as a small project, these monthly prices may be feasible.

But if you want to stay long-term, then it’s best to subscribe for a year to get some of the cheapest web hosting prices out there. 

Does Hostinger have WordPress-specific plans?

Hostinger has 4 packages for WordPress Hosting. 

WordPress Hosting is ideal for people who prefer to use WordPress for their website. While the Shared Hosting plans have WordPress capabilities, the WordPress Hosting was made to address WordPress-specific features. 

The most affordable plan starts at $1.99 and already includes 1 website, free SSL certificate, 30 GB storage, and one-click WordPress installation. 

Each WordPress plan also has a Managed WordPress setup wherein you get a WP site builder, managed automatic updates, core plug-ins, and a suite of additional plug-ins that you might find helpful to your website. 

How many visitors can Hostinger handle?

Hostinger advertises the estimated monthly visitors its shared hosting plans can handle.

The basic shared hosting plan can support monthly page views of up to 10,0000, which is already excellent for small-scale sites that attract little traffic.

Its premium shared hosting plan advertises 25,000 page views. This can be attractive if you’re managing a small blog or local business site.

Its business shared hosting plan can support 100,000 page views a month. This works great for an established blog or medium-sized business.

Wrap-Up

All in all, Hostinger is a great option for users looking to net cheap yet effective hosting that provides good performance and features for both newbies and experienced techies alike.

Hostinger is also recommended if you’re located around the world or in a developing country, as their prices are more affordable, they have many server locations, and are multilingual friendly.

However, Hostinger is not the best option for established businesses and large sites as reduced uptime and the lack of dedicated hosting can mean trouble.

So if you’re looking to get started with your first blog, market your local business online or create an online portfolio, Hostinger is one of the best affordable web hosting available in 2023.

Have we missed anything?

Comment your thoughts down below

And good luck with your website!