If you are looking for a cheap, reliable web host, you have probably come across Hostinger dozens of times in your research. But the question is, is Hostinger a good host for beginners?
Although they are known for cheap web hosting, their services are on par with most other web hosts. Thousands of websites rely on Hostinger’s web hosting services.
BUT is Hostinger a good web host for beginners?
Are their services scalable?
Is there anything you need to know before you host your website with them?
In this article, I will answer these questions about Hostinger once and for all.
If you want a more detailed review, however, you should read my in-depth Hostinger web hosting review.
Hostinger Offerings For Beginners
Hostinger offers many different offerings including shared hosting, cloud hosting, hosting for agencies, Minecraft hosting, dedicated servers, and much more.
Below, I will review the web hosting products that are relevant to beginners:
Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting is the bread and butter of any modern web hosting provider. Shared Hosting packages come with everything you need to launch your small business website.
These plans can handle thousands of monthly visitors.
(As an aside, Hostinger calls their Shared Hosting service Web Hosting.)
The best part about Hostinger’s Shared Hosting packages is that they are made with beginners in mind and are very affordable…
You can launch a new website for your business at the cost of one Starbucks coffee every month.
Hostinger’s plans are very generous and offer all the resources your website needs to handle thousands of monthly visitors.
Even on the Single plan, you get 50 GB storage and 100 GB bandwidth.
Hostinger’s Single plan is only a starting plan. It’s there to give you a taste of what their service is like.
If you are considering their services, we recommend going with either the Premium or the Business plan.
Both of them allow 100 websites, up to 100 email addresses, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited databases.
If you are serious about your business and expect a lot of traffic, we highly recommend going with the Business plan.
It comes with free daily backups, 200 GB storage, and free Cloudflare CDN. A CDN can reduce the time it takes for your website to load by half.
As an added bonus, with the Premium, and the Business Hostinger plans, you get a free domain name for the first year.
If you are interested in Hostinger’s Shared Hosting plans, you might want to read our tutorial on how to install WordPress on Hostinger.
WordPress Hosting
Hostinger’s WordPress hosting plans are optimized for WordPress websites. If you are running a WordPress site, you will see a boost in speed on these plans.
Their WordPress plans look very similar to their Shared Hosting plans and are very generous in terms of server resources.
All the plans except the Single WordPress plan come with a free domain name for the first year. You also get at least 100 websites on all the plans other than Single.
The affordability of these plans and how much faster they make your WordPress site is why Hostinger is one of the best web hosts for WordPress.
Unless you are just testing the waters, we highly recommend starting with at least the Business WordPress plan.
If you start with a smaller plan, you will have to upgrade anyway as soon as your website starts gaining some traction. The Business plan can handle up to 100,000 monthly visitors.
The best part about this WordPress Hosting service is that your site will come pre-installed with LiteSpeed hosting for superior caching.
The LiteSpeed LScache plugin can cut your website’s load time in half. If you want your WordPress site to load fast, you need this plugin.
Cloud Hosting
Cloud Hosting gives you the power of VPS Hosting without all the technical complexity. To manage a VPS, you need a lot of specialized technical knowledge.
On the other hand, Cloud Hosting is basically a VPS server that is managed by Hostinger.
You get the power and resources of a VPS server without learning how to manage it. If your website growing fast, you need Cloud Hosting.
It comes with all the resources you need.
On all Cloud Hosting plans, you can host up to 300 websites. You can also create up to 100 email addresses with a 1 GB mailbox each on these plans.
And best of all, you get a lot of server resources on these plans.
Shared Hosting isn’t powerful enough to handle hundreds of thousands of visitors.
On a shared hosting plan, if your website goes viral and gets a surge in traffic, your account might get suspended for a week or two.
This isn’t a problem with Cloud Hosting. Unlike shared hosting, there are no limits to how much of the allotted resources your website can use.
Another benefit of Cloud Hosting is that you get a dedicated IP address on all plans. If you are running a serious business, hosting your website on a shared IP address is not a good idea.
It devalues your website in search engines if the IP is shared by lots of scammy websites.
The best part about Cloud VPS Hosting is that it is fully managed and comes with a very simple dashboard you can use to manage your server.
VPS Hosting
VPS Hosting gives you complete control over your VPS server. Unlike Cloud Hosting, with VPS Hosting, you get complete root access to the server.
This means you can do almost anything with your server.
The best part about VPS Hosting is that you can scale your website by simply upgrading your plan. Hostinger’s affordable VPS Hosting plans start at only $2.49 per month.
There are 8 different plans you can choose from. Each of them comes with more and more resources.
Although VPS Hosting gives you complete control over your website’s server, it also requires a lot of technical knowledge.
If you aren’t an experienced web developer, you will have a tough time maintaining your website.
I recommend going with Cloud Hosting instead of VPS Hosting if you’re a beginner.
But if you’re okay with learning a few simple technical skills, a VPS can save you a lot of money.
Hostinger Pros and Cons
Hostinger is one of the cheapest web hosts on the market. There are times when Hostinger’s prices drop even lower than what they usually are.
Although Hostinger is one of the best places to start for a beginner, it may not be the best option for every business.
Here are some pros and cons you need to keep in mind before you give your hard-earned money to Hostinger.
Pros
- Free Domain For First Year: Most Hostinger plans come with a free domain name for the first year.
- Free SSL: If you want your visitors to trust your website, you need an SSL. Most browsers will display a warning if you visit a website that doesn’t have an SSL certificate installed.
- 24/7 Support: Hostinger’s support team is available 24/7 to answer all your questions.
- Affordable Prices: There are no other web hosts with plans as affordable as Hostinger’s for a beginner. Most of their plans cost less than a cup of coffee.
- LiteSpeed-powered server for fast-loading websites.
Cons
- Higher Renewal Prices: This is an industry-wide practice to lure-in beginners. Hostinger isn’t alone in doing this. All web hosting companies do this. They offer a steep discount for first-year pricing and then ask for regular prices on renewal.
- Free Cloudflare CDN Not Available on Cheaper Plans: Cloudflare offers a free CDN service that anyone can use. You can enable that service on your Hostinger site with one click. But it is not available on the starter plans.
- Only Live Chat and Email Support: You can’t call Hostinger’s customer support. It’s not a deal-breaker for us.
If you aren’t sure which plan out of all offered by Hostinger is the best for you, read my review of Hostinger’s pricing plans.
In that article, I go through all the Hostinger plans one by one and help you decide which one is the best for your case.
Summary – Is Hostinger a Good Web Host For Beginners?
Hostinger.com is one of the most affordable web hosts on the market. Their cheap plans are how they have gained a foothold in the cutthroat web hosting industry.
Hostinger’s plans come with everything you will need to launch your first website. Their plans come with generous amounts of resources.
And the best part is that you can always upgrade with the click of a button once you start getting more traffic.
Although Hostinger is known for its cheap plans, you probably won’t need to look for another web hosting provider once you sign up even after your website grows to hundreds of thousands of visitors.
If you are ready to sign up, read my step-by-step guide on how to sign up for Hostinger. There are good alternatives to Hostinger out there too.
