Hostinger are an affordable website hosting company that offers hosting from only $2.15 per month. They offer shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and WordPress hosting. As you would expect, the company also sells domain names too.
The company was originally launched as “Hosting Media” back in 2004 in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, Since then they have expanded their customer base to a whopping 29 million users across 178 countries around the world.
In this article I would like to show you what Hostinger has to offer.
What Does Hostinger Offer?
At the heart of any website hosting company is hosting, so let’s take a closer look at what Hostinger offers and how much they charge.
Hostinger’s hosting services can be divided into two main categories:
- Web Hosting (Shared Hosting)
- VPS Hosting
All hosting plans come with a 30 day money back guarantee. Therefore, if for any reason you are not happy with the hosting plan you purchase, you can cancel within 30 days of buying.
Each hosting plan comes with a free website builder, a free SSL security certificate, and a free domain name. Whilst the offer of a free domain is enticing to new website owners, my advice is to always register your domain names separately so that you retain full control of your online properties. Though it is worth noting that their domain registration pricing is very fair.
Customers are also entitled to weekly or daily website backups (daily plans offered on the more expensive plans). This is no replacement for a third party external hosting backup setup, but is certainly useful.
There is a large selection of software installers that can install popular website hosting platforms and services at the click of a button. You also get FTP access, cron jobs, email accounts, and more.
Available Hosting Plans
The cheapest hosting available to website owners is shared hosting. Anyone who is taking their website or business seriously will want a more powerful hosting set up, though they do have their plane.
Shared hosting plans are marketed to new website owners who are just getting started, however I have used them in the past for affiliate marketing projects too. For example, if I was testing the waters with a new affiliate campaign, I would sometimes purchase a cheap shared hosting plan to host the website.
Hostinger’s basic shared hosting plans start from only $2.15 per month (yes, you read that correctly). This plan is suitable for one website and one database and provides 10GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth.
Moving up to the premium plan at $3.49 per month allows you to add as many websites and databases that you want. A free domain is also provided together with WordPress optimisation.
The business plan at $7.95 per month adds daily backups, deluxe live support, and twice as much processing power and speed.
Like all hosting companies that offer shared hosting, Hostinger try and tell the world they offer unlimited storage and bandwidth. Hosting plans at thousands of dollars per month cannot even do this, so a hosting plan at $3.49 per month is not going to offer it.
This is a common marketing technique aimed at new website owners, however I wish hosting companies were more transparent about the fact that account would be closed if they used too many resources.
On Hostinger’s website you will notice that the company also offers WordPress Hosting. However, if you look closely at their sales page you will see that pricing is exactly the same as their shared hosting plans. This is because the plans are the same.
Do not worry about which plan you choose as the same features will be available to you whether you purchase a plan on the shared hosting plan page or WordPress hosting plan page.
A VPS Hosting plan is a more practical solution for most website owners. Virtual Private Servers divide a server into a number of different allocations. Each allocation is given a share of the resources. This ensures that each customer gets a guaranteed amount of storage, bandwidth, CPU processing, and RAM.
A VPS provides extra security because each division of the physical server is treated as if it is a real server (which is where the term virtual comes from). This is in contrast to a shared hosting setup where one website owner can compromise the security of hundreds of websites.
Another important VPS hosting plan feature is that each account is given a dedicated IP address. In a shared hosting set up it is not unusual to have hundreds or even thousands of websites hosted on the same IP address (which causes security and SEO concerns).
All VPS hosting plans are configured in a cloud hosting configuration. A cloud hosting setup allows an unlimited number of physical servers to act as one giant virtual server. This setup is favoured by many as there is no single point of failure. This results in less downtime and allows customers to scale their hosting set up or down according to their needs.
Hostinger VPS plans start from $4.95 per month and go all the way up to $75.95 per month. Each VPS offers SSD storage, a dedicated IP address, root access, IPv6 support, and a 100 MB/S Network.
When you spend more money you get access to more RAM, more burst RAM, and access to more cores using more powerful CPUs.
I was surprised to learn that Hostinger also offer free website hosting through their website 000webhost. According to their website, their free hosting plan offers:
- 1000 Mb Disk Space
- 10GB Bandwidth
- No ads & no banners
- Free Web Hosting Cpanel
- Cloud Hosting Technologies
- Best free Website Builder
- 1 click WordPress Installer
- Full PHP & MySQL hosting
- FTP, Cron Jobs & Email Forwarder
- No hidden fees or setup costs
These free accounts are not limited to charities and non-profit organisations. They are for everyone.
So what’s the catch?
There is no catch.
Large hosting companies can afford to set up servers specifically for non-paying customers as it is an affordable way of driving website owners to their business. It makes sense as when a website owner has outgrown their free account, it is very easy for them to upgrade to a Hostinger hosting plan for just a few dollars per month.
As you can see, Hostinger mainly focuses on the lower and mid end of the hosting market. They do not offer dedicated servers. Instead, they tailor their plans for new website owners and smaller websites and businesses.
When you take a look at their pricing against competitors such as HostGator and GoDaddy, it is easy to understand how Hostinger have established themselves in the hosting market. They are undercutting other affordable shared hosting companies by a few dollars per month.
Final Thoughts
If you are on the lookout for an affordable hosting account, I recommend checking out Hostinger. Their shared hosting prices are ridiculously low and are perfect for new website owners. Experienced developers could find them useful too. For example, you could use one of their $2 hosting plans for a small affiliate marketing website you are developing or you could use it to set up a test area for your projects.
For most website owners, their VPS hosting plans are a better choice. They offer faster response rates, more storage, and much more processing power. By optimising your website correctly under a VPS hosting plan you should be able to get your website loading times under a second.
I encourage you to check out their website to find out more.
Good luck.
Kevin