Features, Pricing & More – Forbes Advisor UK

What is Hostinger?

Hostinger is a cheap web hosting service available on a custom-built hPanel with advanced features. It is suitable for beginners right through to professionals, and you can build your website from scratch using Hostinger’s Zyro website builder.

Hostinger offers its users a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Also, it will keep you connected with its quick loading speed, dedicated IPs and servers operating on leading CloudLinux, from 10 data centres. You’ll also gain complete control of your server thanks to Hostinger’s full root access.

Hostinger web hosting services

Hostinger offers three plans for hosting your website, each with specific features so you can choose the one suited to your needs. For example, the Single web hosting plan is fine if you want to build a simple website. For more capacity and functionality, such as a WordPress staging tool, unlimited databases and daily backups, your best option is Hostinger’s business plan.

Regardless of your chosen plan, you can always upgrade it as your business grows. Also, Hostinger is flexible, providing a wide range of specialised hosting services. These services include VPS hosting, cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, email hosting and the Hostinger Minecraft server. Hostinger’s range of use cases allows you to scale your website with the specific features you need.

Hostinger also offers a generous suite of resources including email accounts, custom domains, unlimited free SSL certificates and regular backups at low rates.

How does it work?

A website requires specific services to go live on the web. A web hosting platform provides the storage space, security and connectivity your website needs. It also offers features such as email hosting, domain registration, regular backups and DDoS monitoring.

Investing in a web hosting platform such as Hostinger means you can have the benefits of building an online presence without having to manage numerous servers or deal with backend issues.

Key features

A web host typically provides reliable hosting with adequate storage and uptime, quick speed, scalability, security features such as DDoS monitoring and regular backup frequency, as well as support options and cost-saving extras like unlimited SSL certificates.

Below are the most important features a web host should have.

• Reliable uptime: At least 99.9% uptime guarantee per month
• Adequate storage: Enough to handle your website traffic
• Regular backup: Consistent backups every day or week
• Support: With different available contact options
• Security: SSL certificates and DDoS monitoring
• High bandwidth: Sufficient bandwidth to handle your website traffic
• Email: Business-grade email addresses or the ability to connect with your domain
• Domains: Customised domains available for free or at subsidised costs on long-term commitments.

Hostinger provides these necessary resources to support and keep your content secure, and help make your website more trustworthy.

Hostinger pricing

Hostinger offers three shared web hosting plans, ranging from £1.49 to £3.99 per month. There are four VPS plans with pricing between £4.49 per month to £20.49 per month.

Hostinger also provides cloud hosting for those who want to host websites with large-scale projects. For cloud hosting plans, you’ll see rates between £8.99 and £49.99 per month.

Remember that these advertised per-month rates on Hostinger’s website are for those willing to commit for 48 months. Hostinger’s monthly cost can increase from the advertised £2.59 per month to £11.99 for WordPress hosting if you commit for only one month.

The longer you commit, the greater discount you’ll get – as much as 70% off the stipulated month-to-month price. Users can commit to as long as a year, two years or four years. Also, you should note that you won’t be getting discounted rates when you renew.

Single web hosting

Hostinger’s Single web hosting plan is its most basic plan for shared hosting. It is ideal for beginners and comes cheap at £1.49 per month. The plan offers one website, 50GB of allocated Solid-State Drive (SSD) storage, 100GB of bandwidth, two databases and MySQL databases. It also provides unlimited SSL certificates, a file manager and a cache manager.

The Single web hosting plan offers 24/7 customer service. Also, it has a low cost since it exists on a shared server, and you’ll be sharing the cost with other users. Meanwhile, keep in mind that sharing a server with several other users compromises your site speed.

Then, its low rate of £1.49 is only available with a 48-month commitment, jumping as high as £10.99 on a monthly commitment. Also, you won’t get a free domain and can only host one email account on this plan. The plan also lacks daily backups, and there is no Secure Shell (SSH) access enabling safe access from a remote computer.

Premium web hosting

​​Up next is Hostinger’s Premium web hosting plan, which is most suited for hosting personal websites. It offers everything on the Single web hosting plan and adds bonuses such as unlimited databases and free domain registration for the first year.

You can also host up to 100 websites, access 100GB of SSD storage, and get as many as 25,000 visits per month. Also, enjoy free email on 100 email accounts and gain SSH access and Cloudflare Protected Nameservers to shield your website from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Hostinger Premium web hosting pricing starts at £2.59 per month with a 48-month commitment and goes up to £11.99 per month when you pay monthly.

Business web hosting

Hostinger Business web hosting plan is the best option for businesses looking to level up their web hosting. The plan is optimised for small and medium businesses. It packs all the features of the Hostinger Premium plan and adds extra capacity and functionality. The extra features include 200GB SSD storage, daily backups separate from its website storage, two CPU cores and 600,000 inodes.

Subscribing to this plan means that you will also get 30 entry processes and 60 active processes, 128 input/output operations per second and 100,000 visits per month. Hostinger Business web hosting plan starts at £3.99 per month, becomes £8.99 when you renew and goes up to £16.99 when you choose the month-to-month payment.

Promotional pricing, renewals and refunds

Hostinger has various pricing tiers for its shared web hosting and specialised hosting features. The plans are prepaid and not divisible by instalments. Also, they are listed without value-added tax (VAT). These plans can be as low as £1.49 per month. However, you’ll need to commit to a four-year plan to enjoy such discounted rates.

Hostinger also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you’ll get a refund if you don’t get what you signed up for. However, you should note that the money-back guarantee doesn’t cover payments for SEO Toolkit, SEO marketing panel, privacy protection, domain name renewals, VPS license and a few other products. Also, Hostinger won’t refund any product you purchase with digital assets, cryptocurrencies or tokens.

Hostinger specialised hosting services

Hostinger offers more hosting services, including VPS hosting, Cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, Email hosting and Minecraft server hosting. These specialised hosting services enable users with specific needs to host their websites on Hostinger. For example, you can pay for any of its four VPS hosting plans if you need a private server or want to integrate website design features such as Python and Node.js.

VPS hosting

If you’re looking for the best VPS hosting packages, you might like Hostinger. Hostinger offers four VPS plans, giving you plenty of choice for your dedicated server hosting. It has multiple virtual private servers (VPS) across the United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, Lithuania, Brazil and the Netherlands to provide you with close servers and optimum website performance. You can also access data through its Network File System (NFS) and expand your server space with additional remote NFS.

Hostinger’s VPS plans will provide you with your own server, the latest Intel Xeon processors and terabytes of NVMe SSD storage, 512GB RAM and CPU power all within your control. You’ll also get full root access to install supported operating systems (OS), track your resources in real time and configure your server settings. You can also work on resource-heavy projects since you’re not sharing server hosting.

Apart from the speed advantage you’ll get from Hostinger VPS hosting, there is BitNinja’s full-stack server protection, built-in advanced DDoS protection and dedicated IP to keep your server secure. You’ll also get automated backups and manual live snapshots to restore your site if there’s ever a glitch.

Cloud hosting

Hostinger offers cloud hosting to give you more flexibility and speed. All Hostinger cloud hosting packages run on isolated virtual servers, and you can change to any of the online cloud server systems across the world. With instant activation, you will access features on any of Hostinger’s three plans since they all come with a free domain name, automated backups and unlimited free SSL certificates for security.

With Hostinger cloud hosting plans offering you high-speed CPUs, large RAM and a built-in cache manager, you’ll enjoy fast website load speeds that improve user experience. Also, Hostinger takes care of the backend, including site monitoring, maintenance and server uptime 24/7, so you can better focus on getting your website running.

WordPress hosting

WordPress is a content management system [CMS] for building and managing websites. Hostinger offers managed WordPress hosting and support from WordPress experts through its Single WordPress, WordPress Starter, Business WordPress and WordPress Pro plans. All plans include free SSL certificates and access management. They also enable eCommerce Optimisation, Git integration and free migration from other web hosting services.

Hostinger WordPress hosting is powered by LiteSpeed, the fastest web server, which combines with the LiteSpeed Cache plugin to give you speed optimisation.

You’ll also get automated WordPress and security updates. If you choose WordPress Pro, you can further leverage PHP version control, SSH access and MySQL database manager to improve your site’s productivity. You can also use the WordPress staging tool to test new features added to your website.

Email hosting

For as little as 99p per month, Hostinger provides email hosting for users. This service functions separately from website hosting, meaning you can operate the email servers while setting up your website. You’ll enjoy features such as a built-in calendar and contacts, scheduling, follow-up reminders, mail filtering and email and contact imports.

Hostinger also provides email templates, multi-account support, read receipts, and 50GB of email storage. Businesses can send messages using as many as 50 different aliases. They can also call for support at any time of the day.

Hostinger also integrates with Google Workspace to collaborate your messages, documents, meetings and tasks. Access basic emailing features, a custom email address, smart compose and reply, grammar suggestions, unlimited mail filters and advanced security measures that protect your account from cybersecurity threats. Also, access chat messages, emails and voice and video calls on the same platform. Video meetings can have as many as 100 participants, but you won’t be able to record.

For your email hosting, Hostinger also integrates with Titan to provide the necessary tools for maintaining communication and collaborating with your teams and customers. Besides usual email hosting functionality, this hosting service includes a one-click import of existing emails and contacts from a previous email hosting provider. It also enables custom DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), which authenticates your domain ownership.

Minecraft server hosting

Hostinger’s fully customisable Minecraft server hosting allows you to install and share your preferred mods for the popular block and craft video game with the global player community.

Use Spigot Minecraft plugins or FTP-customised plugins, including Project Rainbow and CraftBukkit, to set up the Hostinger Minecraft server. If you want low latency for players, pick the closest server from the many game servers from different locations. Your customers will enjoy up to 8GB RAM and gain a top-notch experience on the latest Xeon processors. They don’t need your trailing port number, only the IP address.

Hostinger Minecraft server hosting is secure, thanks to its dedicated IP address, which protects users from DDoS attacks. You can also keep your progress intact by restoring automated backups from its control panel.

Hostinger ease of use

Hostinger was designed with exceptional ease of use in mind, so you don’t need to be an expert to use it. From the point of signing up right into the actual web hosting, you will find it easy to navigate its features. Also, Hostinger wizard and its 24/7 customer service are available to walk you through any help you might need.

User experience

Hostinger offers a smooth user experience. Its custom-created hPanel is organised, making it easy for users to navigate. Hostinger’s intuitive interface and drag-and-drop feature make customising websites easy, even for beginners.

Also, Hostinger’s hPanel is localised in 15 languages, allowing anyone to set it up without help.

Installation and set up

Hostinger ranks high when it comes to how easy it is to install and set up. The Hostinger wizard gives users a guided setup, walking them through every step to install and set up their dream website. The dashboard is also user-friendly, with easy-to-read fonts, powerful tools and reliable servers.

Also, you can access the searchable Hostinger knowledge base, with several articles and answers to frequently asked questions.

Hostinger performance

We can’t do a Hostinger review without telling you about Hostinger’s performance, so let’s do that next. Site tests on Hostinger revealed to us that Hostinger keeps its promise of high speed, advanced security, 99.9% uptime and smooth integration with WordPress. For example, it pulled a solid 100% uptime record in over seven weeks of monitoring.

Speed

It’s easy to think that Hostinger’s shared hosting packages will falter in speed since you’re sharing resources with other users, but that’s not the case. Hosting your website on any of Hostinger’s plans will give you the speed you need to host your website, thanks to its technology.

Hostinger has data centers in Europe, Asia, North America and South America to make sure there is a server close to your audience, keeping the overall loading times fast. These servers operate on CloudLinux, the leading operating system (OS) for web hosting providers.

Also, Hostinger uses the LiteSpeed web server, which ranks as one of the fastest web servers. You’ll also get a cache manager for quicker load times and improved speed.

We love that Hostinger keeps renewing its systems with the latest LiteSpeed technologies to ensure users get improved speed and quick site loads.

Uptime

You need your website to stay up as much as possible, as downtimes mean loss of potential sales and bad ranking on search engines. Hostinger promises users a 99.9% uptime guarantee. It uses the leading operating systems to host your website. Also, Hostinger strives to maintain an almost-perfect uptime by regularly renewing its systems against DDoS attacks.

If Hostinger fails to meet its 99.9% guaranteed uptime for any month, you can request for a credit of 5% of your hosting fee for that month. You can use the credit to buy other products without any applicable taxes.

Security

You need adequate security to protect your website content and visitor data from cyberattacks. Thankfully, Hostinger takes security seriously by protecting your website on multiple security levels. For instance, Hostinger protects websites from malware and malicious activities by combining BitNinja with complete DDoS protection, Cloudflare and an in-house firewall.

Hostinger also provides SSL certificates with all website hosting plans to protect your website and encrypt visitor information, thereby protecting them from being compromised. Also, daily or weekly backups are available to ensure the safekeeping of your files and databases.

Integrations and WordPress optimisation

Hostinger has everything you need for WordPress, ranging from LiteSpeed-powered servers, which provide faster load times for better search engine optimisation and user experience and higher conversion rates, to an LSCWP cache plugin for improving your website performance. Hostinger has custom-built advanced WordPress optimisation tools.

For example, all its shared plans come with adequate SSD storage, automatic WordPress updates, expert support and one-click installation for building your website right away.

Hostinger takes care of all technical configurations. Also, it offers a WordPress staging tool that enables you to try out different content types and layouts, which you can publish anytime. WordPress developers can also leverage tools such as PHP version control, Git integration, SSH access and MySQL database manager to enhance their productivity. There’s more – you’ll get automated daily or weekly backups to keep your site files safe.

Customer support

Hostinger’s support team is available 24/7 to navigate you through any inquiries or issues you might have working on your website. The team is available via live chat, but you’ll need to be logged in to your account to communicate with them. There’s also a complete knowledge base of guides, tutorials and video walk-throughs on topics such as site migration, site maintenance and performance. The knowledge base is there to help you answer questions while you await a vetted professional. However, you won’t get phone support on Hostinger.

Compare Hostinger alternatives

Hostinger is a good web hosting platform. However, as it usually is with service providers, in some areas, Hostinger excels more than its alternatives. At the same time, they perform better than Hostinger when it comes to specific features or use. Below is how Hostinger compares to HostGator, Bluehost and DreamHost in areas such as pricing, storage and customer service.

Hostinger vs. HostGator

Hostinger and HostGator provide reliable and fast web hosting services at budget-friendly prices. There is also a 99.9% uptime guarantee and a 30-day money-back guarantee if unsatisfied with their services.

However, in carrying out his review, we’ve found that Hostinger is a slightly more affordable option, with its £10.99 per month payment, which becomes £1.49 with a four-year commitment.

HostGator costs £2.16 ($2.75)* per month for basic shared web hosting Hatchling Plan, which requires a three-year commitment. Otherwise, it runs £9.39 ($11.95)* per month or £3.10 ($3.95)* per month with a one-year commitment.

Hostinger and HostGator are easy to use, and their support team is on standby 24/7. However, you won’t get phone support on Hostinger, and that’s what HostGator gives – agents to help troubleshoot complex issues over the phone.

Hostinger is a better option for anyone looking for an automatic backup service. While Hostinger offers daily or weekly backups depending on your plan, HostGator provides random weekly backups as a courtesy. These backups are not guaranteed, so you’re responsible for securing data, which means more costs.

But if you need more storage capacity, HostGator beats Hostinger with its unlimited storage capacity offered on all plans since Hostinger’s basic plan only provides 50GB of storage. However, in terms of reach, Hostinger has data centers across four continents, while HostGator’s servers reside in the U.S. To route content through additional data centers in other locations, you will need to activate Cloudflare.

Hostinger vs. Bluehost

If you’re on a tight budget, Hostinger is a better choice than Bluehost because it costs less for both short-term and long-term commitments. Hostinger also provides 40GB more storage than Bluehost’s 10GB. Also, while Bluehost offers automatic backups only for its higher plans, Hostinger offers automatic backups for all plans, though the lower plans are once per week. Hostinger’s Business plan offers daily backups of your data.

Both website hosting providers are appropriate for newcomers, but Bluehost offers more help with its well-rounded customer support, which includes phone support. Hostinger and Bluehost offer a 30-day money-back guarantee but keep in mind that Bluehost’s guarantee is nonstandard, leaving you waiting as long as 90 days for a refund on services such as InMotion hosting.

Hostinger offers users a 99.9% uptime guarantee and promises a 5% credit refund if it fails to deliver on the promise. Bluehost does not offer any guarantee. And that’s alongside its undisclosed data center location. You won’t even know if one is around you to augment your site speed.

Hostinger vs. DreamHost

Hostinger and DreamHost offer their features at affordable rates, but DreamHost is a cheaper option. Hostinger costs £10.99 per month when you don’t commit to a year, two years or four years. Yet without discounts, DreamHost is cheaper at £3.89 ($4.95)*.

DreamHost provides features, such as daily automated backups on all plans while Hostinger provides weekly automated backups on its lower tiers. Also, you will start with 50GB of storage on both DreamHost and Hostinger.

Hostinger offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, while DreamHost offers a 100% uptime guarantee – 100% might be stretching it. However, DreamHost buyers don’t need to worry about failed promises since DreamHost offers a 97-day money-back guarantee to anyone unsatisfied with its hosting services. Hostinger gives a 30-day money-back guarantee. Meanwhile, Hostinger boasts of more data centers, which means more coverage and stability.

* conversion correct as of 5 July 2023

Summary: is Hostinger right for you?

Whether you’re just starting your blog, want to shift your business online or swap your web hosting provider for a better one, it is important that you choose the right hosting service. While Hostinger provides good hosting functionality at affordable rates, you need to decide if it is the right fit for your specific needs.

When to choose Hostinger

Hostinger is a great choice if you’re looking to migrate your site from an underperforming or overpriced hosting provider or want to host your new website with a quality yet affordable web hosting service. We also recommend Hostinger for anyone seeking a hosting platform that accommodates beginners.

Also, if you want to build and host your website in one place, Hostinger is a good option since it has website building plans bundled with its web hosting services.

When to consider another hosting service

While Hostinger is easy to use, if you require phone conversations to resolve complex issues, you might want to try another website hosting platform. Also, if you’re not ready to commit to four years, it’s better to stay clear of Hostinger’s plans, which become costlier as your commitment reduces.

For advanced features to run an e-commerce store, consider choosing a different hosting service provider since Hostinger’s highest-tiered web hosting plan is restrictive, leaving no room to grow. For example, it restricts you to a maximum of 500 products.