Price
is often a factor when it comes to choosing web hosting. However, you may be
tempted to overlook a poor feature set in order to obtain something within your
budget – so doing some research beforehand is paramount. Our Hostinger review
will take a look at this budget-maximizing option, and offer the information
you’ll need to make an informed decision.
In
just over a decade, Hostinger has grown from a small web host to one used by
over 29 million people, which is due in part to its WordPress-specific plans.
On top of that, Hostinger publicly displays its server status, and its uptimes
are consistently solid.
It’s no wonder this is an appealing option to so many new website owners. In this Hostinger review, we’ll look at key elements such as features and performance, to help you decide whether this host is worth your time and money.
Let’s get started
Hostinger Review: Features
To
start hostinger review about its features, let’s take a look at some of the plans Hostinger offers.
You’ll find a full range of options here, including shared,
cloud, virtual private server (VPS), and dedicated plans.
What’s
more, you can opt for a WordPress-specific plan, and get additional support
options and one-click installation. These plans are low-cost, shared hosting –
perfect for a variety of website types. You also have a choice
between single, premium, and business plans, although the business plan is
recommended if you’re using WooCommerce.
If
you’re considering a shared plan to get your site started, Hostinger has you
covered. Some of its features include:
- 24/7 WordPress support in 20+ languages
- One-click WordPress installation
- A free domain name
- Enhanced security features, such as daily backups and a free SSL certificate
- Practically unlimited bandwidth
As
you can see, Hostinger’s shared WordPress plans come with a solid set of
features. For most first-time website owners, you’ll have everything you need.
In addition, all of this is offered at an affordable price, which we’ll get to
in a minute. First, however, let’s look at the support you’ll get.
Customer Support
For
many users, one of the most important hosting features after price supports.
While you’re setting up your website using shared WordPress hosting, you’re
bound to have some questions. While the internet is filled with lots
of helpful hints and instructional posts, a direct line to answer your
specific inquiries is always a boon.
The
good news is that Hostinger’s support team is available 24/7 in 20+ languages.
You can either give them a call or send them a message:
Performance
Above
all else, the sign of a quality web host is how well its servers perform. After
all, having a fast website is crucial for providing a positive user
experience (UX) to your visitors, and keeping your bounce
rate low. Fortunately, Hostinger offers the following performance-specific
features:
Solid State Drive (SSD) hardware
99.9% uptime guarantee
Custom built cache manager
Even
better, unlike many other hosting providers, Hostinger offers public
information on the performance of its servers. This includes uptime
data for the last 24 hours, as well as for the past week and month:
Server
uptime depicts the amount of time a server is fully functional and online. In
general, you want to be as close to 100% as possible, as even.1% downtime means
~45 minutes of downtime per month. Above, you can see that Hostinger’s uptime
can be a little shaky, which is one of the tradeoffs you’ll make for its cheap
prices.
In
this case – with the numbers being as low as 99.3% at times – you can
experience even 10 minutes of downtime per day. No good.
Page
speed tests with Pingdom
Of
course, it’s also helpful to get a real-world take on performance. For that, we
can use Pingdom to test page speeds and Load Impact to
analyze loading times under pressure.
First, let’s do some page speed tests. Pingdom is an effective and popular tool for this, and a basic test is free. To complete our test, we set up a simple website on Hostinger’s servers, loaded with the default theme, a smattering of plugins covering various essential features, and the WordPress Theme Unit Test Data. We then input our site’s URL into Pingdom and ran the test from several different locations.
Overall,
these results are quite good. It’s considered a best practice to keep your page
loading times under two seconds. Anything over that can have a negative impact
on your bounce rate (how many visitors leave after viewing only one page).
Based
on these results, we can see that Hostinger’s servers are performing quite
nicely on either side of the United States, and exceptionally well in London.
What’s more, both of the other locations we tested are within acceptable
limits. From this data, we can conclude that Hostinger is likely to provide
serviceable speed in the majority of the English-speaking world.
Page speed tests with Load Impact
Next,
let’s see how our site handles traffic. For this, we’re going to need a
different tool – Load Impact. This lets you simulate a number of virtual
visitors to your website, and is a great way to see if your website can hold up
under pressure.
Start with Hostinger
Hostinger Review About Pricing
Finally,
we come to the pricing section of our Hostinger review. For many, this will be
one of the most important factors when considering a web host. After all,
awesome hosting won’t do you much good if it breaks your budget.
With
that in mind, Hostinger has some surprisingly low pricing plans for the
services it offers. For example, a single website starts at just $1.99 per month with promotional pricing (which only applies to your first billing cycle):
If
you’re willing to shell out a little more ($2.89 per month), you’ll also get a
free domain name to go along with your hosting. In addition, higher-tier plans
offer free backups and enable you to build unlimited websites on your account.
Along
with the cheap hosting plans for beginners, Hostinger also provides advanced
hosting options including cloud hosting (from $9.99), VPS hosting (from $3.95),
email hosting (from $0.99), Windows VPS hosting (from $26.00), and Minecraft
server hosting (from $8.95).
All
in all, Hostinger is a very affordable option. This is especially true when you
consider its server speeds. For newbies, this is a great place to start, and you
can always look at upgrading your plan as your site grows.
Overall Pros and Cons
To
wrap up our Hostinger review, let’s quickly summarize its pros and cons. After
all, it’s important to consider the whole picture before committing to a web
host.
Pros
- Free domain name and one-click WordPress installation
- Affordable shared hosting plans
- Good performance results for the US and the UK in particular
- Publicly-displayed server status
Cons
- Moderate response times for support
- Modest performance results for locations outside of the US and UK
- Uptime is a little unreliable
Conclusion:-
Overall, Hostinger is a strong choice for both experienced WordPress developers and newbies. It offers fast speeds and knowledgeable customer support. However, while its performance is solid overall, you may experience performance blips now and again on heavy-traffic sites.
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