Hostinger Review - Fine Balance Between Price and Performance
By Technical - May 16, 2020
Hostinger Review - Fine Balance Between Price and Performance
Hostinger,
with a starting price of $0.99/month, is one of the cheapest hosting providers
in 2020.
Though
cheap, it is FAST. We measured its loading SPEED for 19 months now and here are
the results:
- Ø The server takes about 0.19 seconds
to respond with the first byte of data.
- Ø Then, it needs 0.68 seconds to render
the page fully
Compared
with the loading speed of other web hosts, Hostinger.com is the FASTEST hosting
provider.
Single
shared hosting plan at an affordable price of $0.99/month with decent customer support (24/7),
free SSL, easy to use website builder and control panel (hPanel) make it a
great hosting option for small business sites and beginners who do not need
advanced features.
For advanced
users, Hostinger also has powerful hosting plans that start at $2.89/month.
Along with all the basics, these plans come with a free domain, unlimited
add-on domains, MySQL databases, and
unlimited bandwidth.
Things we
liked / disliked
+ Most Affordable Hosting
+ WP Optimised with LSC
+ US, EU, UK & Asia
Data Centers
+ Realtime DDoS Protection
+ 30 Day Money-Back
Guarantee
-
No
Free Domain on Single Shared Plan
-
Daily
Backups only on $3.99/month and above plans
The first
time I visited Hostinger.com two things struck me: the extremely low prices for
shared hosting and the informative value of the site. Sure, it entices users to
buy hosting with some of the standard marketing tricks, but it also has plenty
of legit info, while the monthly fees are unrealistically low.
Another
thing I noticed while preparing the preliminary research for this Hostinger
review was that this is a host with a strong technical pedigree. However,
technically sound hosts are abundant on the pages of the Hosting Tribunal. More
information was needed.
That’s why I
purchased the Premium shared plan, installed a clean WordPress on it, and began
monitoring its uptime and speed.
After months
of testing, here’s what I can tell you about Hostinger, all summed up in an
unbiased, detailed review.
What Is Hostinger?
Created in
Lithuania some 15 years ago, Hostinger is an international brand with a very
strong presence in many markets. This is a company that doesn’t bow to EIG or
GoDaddy. Instead, it strives to create an empire of its own. Only that this
empire feels surprisingly good.
After all,
Hostinger created and still runs the biggest free website hosting provider.
Now, 000webhost is not without its flaws – far from it – but the fact that it
was conceptualized and realized by the people behind Hostinger, and still
charges nothing because of them counts for something.
1. Great
Uptime – 99.91%
Uptime is
one of the significant indications of a quality web host and Hostinger does
sensibly well.
99.91%
uptime more than a half year of observing is definitely not a terrible outcome;
it falls inside the guaranteed 99.9%.
Up until
this point, just in December 2018, my little WordPress site was disconnected
for more, prompting a 99.63% uptime. Believe it or not, as a result of the
merry period it fell in, I didn't discover an opportunity to document a
grumbling with the host.
Hostinger
guarantees 5% repayment of the month to month facilitating charge at whatever
point the uptime SLA is penetrated. Given that in 4 of 6 the months the uptime
was perfect, I don't hope to have motivation to gripe at any point in the near
future.
In any case,
the guaranteed pay is little
"Hostinger
maintains 99.9% uptime yet guarantees constrained pay, without a doubt."
Normal
Uptime 2018
- Ø October – 100%
- Ø November – 100%
- Ø December – 99.62%
Normal
Uptime 2019
- Ø January – 99.99%
- Ø February – 100%
2.
Amazing Speed
- Ø Incredibly quick reaction times – 0.19s (first)
- Ø Extremely quick stacking occasions – 0.68s (first)
- Ø Stable under burden – 1.17s (eighth)
Note: If you
run speed tests on my space, results may vary a piece. Indeed, even from a
similar testing stage, two tests would regularly show marginally various
outcomes. My Hostinger site is facilitated over the Atlantic, so I tried it
from US areas. All modules and server-side storing were debilitated.
An accord
among clients and experts is an uncommon thing on the web. In any case, a great
many people concur in their Hostinger audits this is a speedy host. The
information I ordered from four diverse benchmark testing apparatuses affirms
so a lot.
Actually, this
is one of the quickest facilitating suppliers I've tried up until this point.
The frontend
speed is absolutely staggering. The Hostinger server takes about 0.19 seconds
to react with the principal byte of information. At that point, it needs just
0.68 seconds to render the page completely.
With such outcomes,
my Hostinger WordPress establishment is the quickest stacking site under
observing, simply edging any semblance of InterServer and Dreamhost.
When it
comes down to backend speed, Hostinger also delivers.
It is far
from the best performers in this category, but it is equally distant from the
worst. 1.17 seconds average response time to nearly 300 simultaneous requests
is not bad at all.
Average
response time 2018:
- Ø October – 0.13s%
- Ø November – 0.12s
- Ø December – 0.21s
Average
response time 2019:
- Ø January – 0.21s
- Ø February – 0.14s
Fully
loaded page 2018:
- Ø October – 0.71s
- Ø November – 0.59s
- Ø December – 0.60s
Fully
loaded page 2019:
- Ø January – 0.84s
- Ø February – 0.83s
Response
under load 2018:
- Ø October – 1.12s
- Ø November – 1.12s
- Ø December – 1.15s
Response
under load 2019:
- Ø January – 1.27s
"Hostinger
is a seriously fast website hosting provider."
3. Support Could Be Better
If you go to
Hostinger.com, you might be surprised to see that the support team is dubbed
“Customer Success Team”. Sounds grand, but my experience with impressive
marketing terms has been rather uneven.
The moment I
opened the support page, two alarms went off.
First, there
is no telephone number listed anywhere. Oddly enough, the office addresses
of the company in Kaunas and Larnaca are there, so you can, presumably, send a
letter. Both locations are listed with their respective postcodes.
The apparent
lack of phone support is extremely strange, but I wasn’t ready to discount
Hostinger just yet.
Then I saw the
second weird thing under the guise of a vibrant “Let’s Chat!” button that
allows you to… send an email?
Seriously,
you click it, and it takes you to a contact form. I tried it several times,
thinking that maybe it was sending my query to a chat agent who can prepare
adequate answers. What I got was an email that contained a one-line answer to
my one-line question.
In this
regard, it feels like a chat.
Only that it
isn’t.
Mind, I
managed to reach the chat, eventually. It is accessible only at the
Hostinger support page; the page itself is not linked on the home page. I tried
from Hostinger.in and also from the UK version of the host but found no direct
links toward support.
Oh, and it
didn’t work on Firefox.
Anyhow. The
chat button is located at the bottom right corner, and I ended up having a
pleasant, albeit not entirely convincing conversation with a support agent. He
was prompt and friendly, but a bit of poking and probing revealed that certain
advertised features are misleading. More on that in the cons section of my
Hostinger review.
While
wandering around the Hostinger website looking for the elusive for the chat
option, I decided to check the Reddit web hosting threads for some additional
insight.
My search
for the best web hosting often takes me to Reddit where Hostinger also
frequents. The support there is rated rather well, but the apparent lack of a
couple of the main channels of communication is appalling.
"The
support team seems competent, but the lack of phone is a serious omission. The
live chat option could also be delivered in a much more accessible
manner."
Hostinger Pros
The Hostinger
hosting solution hardly qualifies as an outstanding package, but it is
well-rounded and robust. Both newbies and advanced users can find many things
to like.
1.
Insanely Cheap
I will go in
greater detail about the Hostinger fees a bit later on, but let me just tell
you that the company is mere $0.99 away from being dubbed a free website
host. No joke. 99 cents. Not even a dollar.
2.
Dedicated Resources
Hostinger
promises certain CPU and RAM power for each of its three shared hosting plans,
which is excellent news for those who grow and expand. Knowing what you are
paying for and all that jazz.
It is always
difficult to tell how well such precise resource management is implemented, but
seeing an effort to dedicate certain computational power to each user is always
nice.
3. SSD
Across the Board
In terms of
infrastructure, Hostiger keeps up with the latest industry standards. All its
servers run on SSDs. Solid-state drives are much faster than the older HDDs, so
that’s an obvious upgrade.
4.
Built-in Cache
All
Hostinger plans have Nginx caching enabled. Without descending deeper into
technicalities, suffice to say that Nginx is a powerful and fast web server; it
was designed to outperform Apache and duly does so. When server-side Nginx
caching is configured properly (which the Hostinger support assured me is the
case), even content-heavy dynamic sites should perform flawlessly.
5.
Regular Backups
While only
the Business plan guarantees daily backups, each of the shared hosting
solutions backs up your data weekly. Many would consider this the bare minimum
a premium web host must do – I fully agree with this notion – but the truth is
that regular backups are not universally provided. I am looking at you,
GoDaddy.
6. 30-day
Money Back Guarantee
Money back
guarantees are standard practice among the top web hosting companies. Hostinger
doesn’t excel at it but goes with what most providers offer. 30 days are not
that much to test a web hosting service properly but are infinitely better than
nothing. I am looking at you, GoDaddy.
7.
Unlimited Cronjobs
You heard
that right, unlimited cronjobs. The smallest plan (that is already with one leg
in the free web hosting category) supports only one cronjob at a time, but the
other two shared solutions can handle as many as you’d like. Cronjobs are
awesome. You can never have too many of them.
8. Git
Across the Board
While we are
at it, let’s geek it out to the fullest. All Hostinger plans come with Git
version control repository. If you don’t know what that is, you probably won’t
be using it anyway, but if you do – awesome, right?
9.
Optimized for WordPress
WordPress
caching plugins and servers ready to accommodate this popular content
management system make Hostinger an excellent home for it.
1-click
installer and automatic updates make the Hostinger WordPress package a rather
tempting offer.
10.
Proprietary Control Panel
Truth be
told, I needed quite some time to decide whether having an in-house built
control panel belongs in the Pros category or not.
While I
admire such initiatives, they rarely are better than existing solutions. I
instinctively wondered why Hostinger doesn’t use cPanel.
However, the
company devs have done a pretty spectacular job. Admittedly, the control panel
looks a lot like cPanel, but that’s not a bad thing; it saves learning time.
It is slick
and functional, allowing enough control and seamless access, which makes it
ideal for novices.
11.
Website Builder
Hostinger
provides a decent amount of 1-click installers, but it also has a decent site
building tool. The Hostinger website builder is included in all plans and has a
functional drag-and-drop interface that can help you craft a web page quickly
and efficiently.
While I am
not a particularly big fan to such website builders, I must admit that this is
one of the better iterations I’ve seen.
12. Did
You Say Discounts?
Now, I
mentioned the introductory prices are ridiculously low, but you can also get
some serious Hostinger discount with relative ease. It feels a bit surreal
typing that as the starting prices are so low to begin with that discounting
them further barely makes sense.
Yet, it is a
very realistic possibility.
13.
Responds to Feedback
Less than
three months after my Hostinger review was published the company reached out to
thank me for pointing out some issues on Hostinger.com.
The first
negative point in the Cons section of my review was about the misleading
phrasing used by the company when describing its plans.
However,
Hostinger took active steps to address the issue and now its plans’ parameters
are described much more adequately. The limitations are clarified with
asterisks, making everything significantly more transparent and less misleading
even for the most distracted of users.
I must admit
that it felt great on personal level as making the web hosting companies fairer
and more transparent is one of the main reasons behind the existence of Hosting
Tribunal.
Naturally,
seeing a host that actually cares enough to take a few simple steps toward
honest marketing is a massive positive sign.
Kudos,
Hostinger.
Hostinger Cons
While
Hostinger has a pretty solid hosting solution, its offer is far from flawless.
1.
Limited for Advanced Users
Hostinger
has a well-rounded shared hosting package, but advanced users might find it
lacking in certain areas. Yes, there is Git, cronjobs, and Curl, but many
goodies available in cPanel are simply absent. Ruby on Rails, Python, and
others are nowhere to be found.
2.
Difficult Migration
Migrating a
site over to Hostinger can be problematic. While the support is ready to help
in any way necessary – advice or direct involvement in the process – the fact
that the host runs a proprietary hosting panel makes it difficult to transfer
existing sites over.
It is
possible, but it is highly likely to be a serious hassle.
3. No
Free SSL
If you want
to ensure your site with an SSL for free, Hostinger isn’t ideal. Only the
biggest of the three plans includes a secure certificate.
Generally, I
find this weird because the lack of SSL impairs SEO and the Let’s Encrypt
solution can be incorporated in most hosting environments with relative ease.
Be that as
it may, if you want to get SSL you’d either have to pay for it separately,
manually procure a Let’s Encrypt one, or purchase the biggest of the three
Hostinger plans.
Hostinger Plans & Pricing at a
Glance
Hostinger has three shared hosting
plans. The fees are stunningly low. I was told that these temporary offers but
preparing this Hostinger review took me the first couple of months of 2019 and
they didn’t change. Still, I will check again next month to make sure the
information stays relevant.
Do I Recommend Hostinger?
Yes, I do
recommend Hostinger for a good number of reasons.
If you are
looking for a cheap hosting solution, that’s probably the best option.
Speed and
performance are impressive as well.
Access to
the support team can be optimized, but the agents are responsive and
knowledgeable.
The lack of
more advanced hosting options and several instances of typical hosting
marketing lingo I mentioned throughout this detailed Hostinger review don’t
change the fact that this company provides great value for money.
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