In this unbiased Hostinger WordPress review, I’ll be weighing up the pros and cons of the company’s popular budget-friendly WordPress hosting plans to help you determine whether they’re a good option for your next website.
Throughout my journey toward owning a successful multi-million dollar content website portfolio, I’ve tried out scores of top hosts.
In the process, I’ve learned more than my fair share of insights into what makes the best WordPress hosting, as well as the signs to look out for which may tell you a company isn’t worth the money.
It’s these insights that I’ll be drawing on today as I give you my honest take on how Hostinger fairs in terms of all the things that matter most when choosing a web host, including value for money, performance and reliability, and security.
Here’s how Hostinger performed in all of those key categories, plus more besides.
Who is Hostinger?
Hostinger is an independent hosting company, which means rather than sharing its infrastructure with a handful of other hosts owned by the same parent company, all of its resources are geared toward delivering the best possible service to its own users.
Ultimately, this allows the company to focus exclusively on its customers rather than pleasing shareholders or playing to the whims of some major corporation.
It’s this user-focused approach that helps the company’s wallet-friendly plans stand out from the glut of so-called cheap web hosting options out there.
Indeed, when it first launched in 2011, Hostinger was just one of the countless companies offering rock bottom pricing yet delivering a service that was severely limited in resources, performance, and other key areas.
Since then, the brand has worked hard to reinvent itself, keeping its user-friendly approach and affordable pricing but combining it with a more robust infrastructure and a wealth of valuable services.
The company did such a good job of this that, in 2020, market authority Bitcatcha ranked them as one of the fastest-growing web hosts around, narrowly losing the number one spot to another favorite host of mine, Kinsta.
Hostinger WordPress Review
From there, the company has continued to grow by offering several different hosting solutions to suit every audience, but it’s their specialist WordPress hosting that we’ll be focusing on today:
How Much Does Hostinger Hosting Cost?
Even after updating its servers and investing heavily in improving its service, Hostinger’s incredibly competitive pricing remains its biggest selling point.
Compared to other independent hosts like WPX and the aforementioned Kinsta, they offer some of the most affordable, high-quality WordPress hosting.
Another key thing that I really like about Hostinger is that they’re also one of the few hosting providers around which accept payments in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum along with the standard credit card and PayPal options.
Hostinger Hosting Plans
Hostinger WordPress hosting is available in the following four packages:
| PLAN NAME | PLAN DESCRIPTION | PLAN PRICE |
| Single WordPress | 1 x website 30 GB x SSD storage 10,000 x monthly visits Weekly backups. | $1.99 p/m |
| WordPress Starter | 100 x websites 100 GB x SSD storage 25,000 x monthly visits Weekly backups 100 x free domain-based email addresses Free one-year domain name. | $3.99 p/m |
| Business WordPress | 100 x websites 200 GB x SSD storage 100,000 x monthly visits 100 x free domain-based email addresses Free one-year domain name WordPress staging tool Cloudflare CDN Daily backups. | $6.99 p/m |
| WordPress Pro | 300 x websites 200 GB x SSD storage 200,000 x monthly visits 100 x free domain-based email addresses Free one-year domain name Full developer tools Unlimited FTP accounts Unlimited Cron jobs Plus all features of Business WordPress. | $11.99 p/m |
Which Hostinger Plan is Best?
If I was going to start a new website tomorrow with as little money as possible, Hostinger’s $3.99 p/m WordPress Starter plan would be the one I’d go for as it offers the best value for money of any plan I’ve seen at this price range.
The generous 100 GB of storage, managed WordPress features, and ample bandwidth makes it an ideal choice for those who are starting out with serious ambitions of creating a successful site.
That said, if you’re really looking to spend as little money as possible, the beginner-friendly Single WordPress Site plan is still a great deal at $1.99 p/m.
Hostinger Key Features
Along with generous bandwidth and storage allowances, Hostinger offers a number of key services and features that help them to stand out in the crowded budget hosting market.
These include:
Managed WordPress
If you read my blog regularly, you’ll know what a big WordPress fan I am. In fact, I ranked it number one in my guide to the best blogging platforms thanks to its unrivaled flexibility and top performance.
However, as much as I love WordPress, even I have to admit that keeping on top of it can often feel like a lot of work.
Even if you ignore all the effort you put into creating search-engine-optimized content that drives traffic and engages your audience, you’ve still got to install the platform and manage updates to your core files, themes, and plugins.
Hostinger’s managed WordPress service helps to lighten the load by taking care of all updates for you, as well as making it easy to launch your site via one-click installation.
The company even pre-installed plugins that boost your site’s performance, and though pre-installed plugins can be annoying, these are of such good quality that they’re worth keeping.
Staging Environment
Testing out new features on your live website always runs the risk that something might go wrong.
At best, that could cause a headache for you. At worst, it could cause a major malfunction at a critical moment when a customer is trying to make a purchase.
Hostinger solves this problem by providing you with a free WordPress staging platform where you can test out new features and only migrate them to the live site when you’re 100% confident they’re ready.
Automated Backups
Even if you’re not testing out new features, there still remains a chance that something unexpected could go wrong with your site.
Whether it’s a WordPress update that causes plugin conflicts or simple human error, it’s always reassuring to know that you can quickly restore your site to its former glory.
Sure, installing one of the best WordPress backup plugins can take care of that problem for you, but that still means taking time to choose the right plugin, configure it, and manually manage the whole backup and restoring process.
This is why I’m so glad to see that Hostinger offers automated weekly and daily backups (depending on which plan you’re on) with effortless one-click restoration, ensuring that no matter what emergency you’re in, you can get up and running again as soon as possible.
Developer Tools
Hostinger may be a great option for new bloggers and first-time website owners, but that doesn’t mean more experienced users can’t also take advantage of the company’s low prices.
All of the following developer tools come as standard with all plans from the Business Plan up:
- WP-CLI
- PHP version control
- SSH access
- Git integration
- MySQL database manager.
While I still stand by my verdict that Cloudways is the best hosting for advanced users, cash-strapped developers will find a lot to like about Hostinger.
Other Key Hostinger Features:
As well as everything listed above, Hostinger’s WordPress hosting packages also include the following:
- Free SSL certificate
- ECommerce optimization
- Free website migrations
- A professional, domain-based email
- Webmail access
- Access manager to manage user roles
- WordPress multisite
- WordPress acceleration tools
- Cloudflare CDN.
Hostinger Performance and Reliability
Low pricing may be the feather in Hostinger’s cap, but if all those cheap fees got you a site that performs slowly and frequently goes offline, then they’re simply not worth the money.
Thankfully, that’s not a problem you have to worry about with this particular hosting provider.
Hostinger offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, meaning they work hard to ensure your site remains online at all times while still accounting for the fact that there may be issues beyond their control that cause moments of downtime.
To be honest, you’re never going to find a web host with a 100% uptime guarantee, and if you do, I’d be very careful about checking if they can back up such a claim.
So 99.9% is still solid, and, what’s more, on the occasions that I’ve used the company (including for the purpose of writing this review), I’ve never seen any evidence that they don’t deliver on this guarantee.
When it comes to performance, on the other hand, Hostinger is disappointingly average at best.
The brand utilizes Litespeed servers (regarded as the fastest in the industry) in combination with HTTP/3 and IPv6 technology and the Litespeed Cache plugin to deliver optimum page load speeds right around the clock.
Elsewhere, the inclusion of the top-rated Cloudflare Content Delivery Network (CDN) helps to distribute your content faster to visitors around the world by loading copies of your pages from their nearest CDN server.
Although it sounds like an impressive combination, in actuality, it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of results.
When I tested my own Hostinger site using the popular free speed-test tool, Pingdom, it took 590 milliseconds to load a 1.3 MB page, giving me an overall performance grade of C.
Don’t get me wrong, any website that loads in just over half a second is pretty good by anyone’s standards. However, to put that into context, when I tested a similar site on Bluehost, it took only 124 milliseconds to load a 1.4 MB website.
To sum up, Hostinger is far from the fastest host on the block, but it’s hardly the slowest either.
How Secure is Hostinger Hosting?
There are some amazing WordPress security plugins out there that do a fantastic job of protecting your site from malware and other threats.
Still, just as with the backups I discussed earlier, it’s always better when you get your host to do most of the hard work for you.
Fortunately, you can get with Hostinger.
The company’s own in-house web application firewall provides ample protection, while its commitment to regular updates and WordPress hardening ensures that any potential vulnerabilities are spotted and patched before they can be exploited.
Elsewhere, I also love that Hostinger offers free anti-DDoS (Domain Denial of Service) protection, a feature that other top companies only offer for an extra charge.
On the flip-side, however, some advanced features like malware scanning and removal are conspicuous by their absence and are only available as an upsell option at the checkout.
How Easy is it to Use Hostinger Hosting?
So far, we’ve seen that the company performs reasonably well in terms of performance and security, but if you’re really going to decide whether it’s a good option for you, then the ultimate test is in its usability.
After all, budget hosting plans aren’t worth the money if it takes you forever to find the tools and features you need or if a key feature doesn’t quite operate as it should.
The good news is that this is one avenue where Hostinger really comes into its own.
Despite providing enough developer tools for more experienced users, the hosting provider has set out to make itself as beginner-friendly as possible and, to that end, I say it’s succeeded.
Here’s how easy it is to set up your first site with Hostinger.
1. Head to Hostinger.com and select Hosting – WordPress Hosting.
2. Choose Your preferred plan and click ‘Select.’
3. Create your account and choose your preferred payment method to checkout.
4. Choose your domain name and verify your account.
5. Log in to your Hostinger account and choose Hosting from the top menu.
6. Choose the domain name that you entered during the sign-up process and select ‘Manage.’
7. Click the auto-installer to install your first WordPress site automatically.
If you’re not sure where to go from there, be sure to check out my complete step-by-step guide to creating a WordPress website which will talk you through the installation setup as well as outline how to install themes and plugins and how to configure your new site.
Hostinger Customer Service
Depending on who you talk to, Hostinger’s customer service is either one of the greatest things in web hosting or one of the worst.
First, the bad news.
This company doesn’t offer email and telephone support, so if one of those is the way you’d most like to reach out for help, you might be better off considering a hosting company like Siteground, which offer telephone support free of charge. That includes customers on their lowest-priced entry-level plan, a rarity among web hosts.
If, on the other hand, you have no problem fulfilling your support requests via real-time live chat, then Hostinger will hold plenty of appeal for you.
The company does live chat remarkably well, ensuring that there’s always a knowledgeable support agent on hand 24/7/385.
It’s not just the WordPress expertise and on-demand availability that makes Hostinger’s customer support team so good; it’s the fact that they offer fast response speeds and boast an impressive first-call resolution rate.
Indeed, on the three times that I happened to contact Hostinger (first with a billing issue, then with a site migration problem, and finally for help setting up my SSL), I found that my problem was solved within less than 10 minutes from the time I first accessed the chat.
Hostinger Hosting Reputation
By now, you’ve read all about what I really think of Hostinger, including what I think they do exceptionally well and where I think there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
That’s a great start, but if you’re going to make as important a purchasing decision as deciding which web hosting to buy, then it pays to consider a number of different opinions. That way, you get the most well-rounded picture of how well Hostinger actually does at meeting the needs of their customers.
So, what are other people saying about them?
Hostinger is currently classed as ‘Excellent’ on TrustPilot, with over 8,000 mostly-positive reviews giving them an overall rating of 4.3.
Most of the positive reviews focus on the brand’s affordability, reliability, and great customer support.
Meanwhile, criticisms of Hostinger seem to be targeted mostly towards their VPS (Virtual Private Server) plans, which the company apparently doesn’t do as good a job with as they do with their WordPress hosting.
Hostinger Hosting Pros and Cons
[elementor-template id=”15528″]Is Hostinger a Good Option for Your WordPress Website? My Final Verdict
At the start of this Hostinger review, I promised you my honest, unbiased opinion of this popular budget hosting company, and I hope you’ll agree that I’ve kept that promise.
If you recall, I told you that while I love their remarkably low pricing and an array of features, their security and performance leave something to be desired.
That alone may be enough to help you decide whether or not they’re a good option for your WordPress website, but if it isn’t, allow me to give you my final verdict:
Ultimately, I think that Hostinger is a great choice for beginners, especially those who, despite being at the start of their journey, have all the determination needed to make a real success of their new project.
Why do I say this?
It’s because those great low prices combine with an exceptionally simple-to-navigate user interface and ample resources to grow a website to a solid level of traffic.
Don’t let those slower-than-average site speeds put you off, either. 590 milliseconds is still remarkably quick; it’s just not quite as quick as other top WordPress hosting companies like WPEngine can provide.
If that’s all good by you, I say try Hostinger.
If, on the other hand, you’re a more experienced user running a large-scale enterprise site or high-traffic multi-site network, you may find that WPEngine or Cloudways are a better fit.
Whatever you decide, to learn how to grow your WordPress site after you’ve installed it, check out my guides on the best ways to promote your blog and the best ways to make money from your blog.