If you are considering starting your own blog, one of the very first things you need to decide is which web hosting company you’re going to go with.
Failure to choose a good host could result in your website loading slowly, going down, or costing you a lot more money than it needs to.
Hostinger and SiteGround are two of the most popular and reputable hosting providers in Europe, but which one you go with depends on your own unique needs and what kind of needs your website will have.
With this in mind, I decided to create this Hostinger vs SiteGround comparison post to help you figure out which hosting provider you should choose for your blog.
Hostinger vs SiteGround: Which is the Best for Your Blog?
What is Hosting?
If you just starting out in the world of blogging and have no idea what web hosting is, it can seem a little daunting at first.
Basically, in order for your website, it needs a place to live on the internet.
Your hosting provider will provide that place at a monthly cost, a bit like a landlord.
You will still own your domain name (the name of your site) and all of the content on your site, but your web host will provide the space for your blog to exist.
What to Look for in a Good Hosting Provider
When deciding which company to host your website with, you need to consider the four S’s: Speed, Security, Scalability and Support.
These four S’s allow websites to manage the influx of traffic they are expecting.
Speed
Having a fast site should be one of your biggest priorities, period.
This is because, in order for your website to rank on Google, it needs to provide the user with a great experience.
If you have a slow site, people will often leave your site without bothering to wait for the page to load, even if it only takes a fraction of a second longer than it should.
Google notices that people are dissatisfied with your site and will penalise you by not ranking your articles on the first page as a result.
A good web host will ensure that your site runs as quickly as possible, prioritising the user experience and getting you in good standing with Google.
Security
Security is a huge issue these days, and even if you’re just starting out, you’ll want to protect your site as much as possible from hackers.
A good host will provide you with a free SSL certificate.
This ensures all user data is encrypted, and without one, your users will get a message saying that your site is not secure.
It will run regular backups of your site, which is essential.
Just the other week, a WordPress update broke my site and with the help of SiteGround (my chosen host), they restored my website to a previous version and it was up and running again in no time.
A good host will also protect your from spam attacks and login attempts, as well as keeping an eye on your server and nameservers to make sure that everything is as it should be.
Scalability
If you’re considering starting a blog, presumably you want people to actually read it, and maybe even turn that blog into a business further down the road.
However, as your website grows, your hosting needs will too.
Basic plans are great when you’re just starting out, but eventually you will likely need to upgrade to a better plan with more capabilities, and you want to be sure that your hosting provider not only has a plan suitable for your future needs, but that you can afford the higher costs that come with it.
Support
A good web hosting company is nothing if their support team is lacking.
Your site can run at lightning speed, with all of the fancy encryption tools in the world, but if it malfunctions during the middle of the night, you need immediate access to a support team who can get you back online.
When your website is earning you money through display ads or affiliate links, every second that you are offline is costing you money, and so you need that 24/7 support.
Hostinger vs SiteGround
Hostinger vs SiteGround on Speed
Hostinger Speed
Hostinger use Litespeed Web Servers which are known for their incredible performance, as well as a Litespeed Cache plugin for WordPress that helps reduce page load time being available.
SiteGround Speed
SiteGround is well-known for its fast site speeds, and its use of Google Cloud make it one of the fastest out there.
It also uses a SuperCacher which is enabled by default, and comes with a free WordPress plugin called SG Optimizer, which can do everything from compressing and Lazy Loading images to minifying CSS files, combining JavaScript files and much more.
SiteGround also has faster MySQL setup, Brotli Compression and Ultrafast PHP, which make your website load 30% faster on average.
The Verdict
When it comes to speed, both Hostinger and SiteGround perform well.
They also both have a guarantee of 99.9% uptime, which, as we’ve just covered, is essential – many things can result in your website being down, but you don’t want your hosting provider to be one of them.
Overall, SiteGround has a slight edge thanks to Google Cloud, but they both score well on the site speed front.
Hostinger vs SiteGround on Security
Hostinger Security
Here are some of the security features that you will get with Hostinger:
- Daily or weekly backups (without the need of a plugin which will slow down your site)
- Cloudflare protected nameservers
- Free SSL certificate
- Internal server security (the servers are monitored 24/7)
- SSH access
- Spam and threat detection
- Wanguard anti-DDoS traffic analyser and DDoS protection
- Two-factor authentication to protect people with your password from accessing your account
- Bitninja or Imunify360 WAF (web application firewall) on each server
- RAID-10 protection
- Access Manager
- LVE containers for Account Isolation
Siteground Security
SiteGround have a Security-First approach and use incredible technology to keep your website protected.
Here are some of SiteGround’s security features:
- The ability to securely backup your site without a plugin (a lifesaver for me!)
- Free SSL certificate
- 24/7 server monitoring
- Spam and threat detection
- Real-time scanning software for DDoS protection
- Strong WAF to protect you from hacks
- Sophisticated IDS/IPS systems which block malicious bots and attackers
- WordPress Security plugin for additional protection
- Cloudflare CDN for security and site speed
The Verdict
When it comes to having a safe and secure website, both companies nail it.
Hostinger vs SiteGround on Scalability
Scalable hosting is essential for bloggers, because the longer you blog for, the more your traffic will increase, and your hosting needs to be able to accommodate that growth.
Scalable hosting will enable you to easily add extra storage, bandwidth and CPUs.
Hostinger Scalability
Hostinger’s mid-range plan, called the Premium Plan, costs just 2.27 EUR (2.59 USD) per month for the first 12 months and then 7.88 EUR a month (8.99 USD) after that.
SiteGround Scalability
SiteGround’s mid-range plan, called the GrowBig plan, starts off at 6.99 EUR (7.98 USD) a month for the first 12 months and then skyrockets to 22.99 EUR a month (26.24 USD).
The Verdict
While both Hostinger and SiteGround have a variety of different plans available, SiteGround’s services are very expensive compared to Hostinger once you get past the basic plan.
Both of these plans offer unlimited websites and unmetered bandwidth, but Hostinger offer 5 TIMES more SSD storage, and are almost 3 times cheaper than SiteGround when it comes to long-term contracts.
In fact, Hostinger are one of the cheapest web hosts on the planet, so if budget is a concern, Hostinger are a great option!
When it comes to cloud hosting, the resources on SiteGround’s Business plan are on par with Hostinger’s Cloud Professional plan, with SiteGround’s plan offering slightly more RAM while Hostinger offer more than double the amount of storage space.
As with the regular plans though, Hostinger’s cloud plans are almost 6 times cheaper than SiteGround’s for the first year, and 3 times more affordable on renewal.
Overall, Hostinger beats SiteGround by a mile on this one.
Pro-Tip: With both companies, it is a lot cheaper to pay for 3 or 4 years upfront, as the renewal price will be much lower if you commit to a longer time period.
Hostinger vs SiteGround on Support
Hostinger Support
Hostinger offer a 24/7 chat support once you’ve signed up for a hosting plan.
If you have any questions prior to signing up, you will have to ask them via an email ticket.
They do not offer any phone support.
Because I have no personal experience with Hostinger’s support, I decided to speak to someone that did, and so I reached out to the Twittosphere.
Paul from Baked Bean Marketing told me that ‘Their live chat support is very quick and responsive and anytime we’ve needed to contact them for any reason they have been super helpful.’
So, as long as you don’t mind live chat as opposed to speaking to somebody on the phone, Hostinger’s support should be up to scratch.
SiteGround Support
One thing that makes SiteGround really stand out is the quality of the support that they provide.
SiteGround’s customer support can take the form of either live chat, a support ticket, or a phone call, and you can choose which one you prefer.
They also have an AI-powered chatbot for the more basic queries you may have.
I always use the 24/7 chat system and have never been disappointed with the service that I’ve received.
The customer success team go out of their way to fix any issues that I might have, or they pass along my problem to someone who can fix it.
They have walked me through tonnes of things that I would never have been able to do by myself, and they always give thorough answers to all of my questions.
The fact that they also offer phone support is great, because some things are just easier to discuss over the phone.
What’s more, SiteGround will call you if you require phone support, meaning no sneaky charges on your phone bill, and no hours wasted sitting on hold.
The Verdict
While Hostinger’s customer support is definitely decent, SiteGround definitely take home the prize for this one.
The fact that you can choose which type of support is convenient for you at any given time combined with the fact that they will call you if you opt for a phone call make them stand out from most other companies out there.
What Else?
While I have covered the 4 S’s of web hosting, I couldn’t write a review of SiteGround vs Hostinger without touching on the additional features and freebies that both companies offer.
Here are some of the things that you will get with a Premium plan on Hostinger, which costs $2.59 per month:
- Free domain name for 1 year
- 100 websites
- 100 domain-based email accounts
- Free SSL certificate
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- Managed WordPress
- Choice of shared hosting, cloud hosting, Linux or Windows VPS hosting (virtual private server hosting which mimics a dedicated server)
- Free website migration
- 24/7 support
- 100GB SSD storage
- Daily automatic backups
- GIT access
- SSH access
- DNS management
- 100 Subdomains
- Unlimited Cronjobs
- 30 day money back guarantee
Now, here are some of the things included on the SiteGround equivalent, GrowBig, which costs $7.98:
- Unlimited websites
- Officially recommended by WordPress
- Unlimited email accounts
- Free SSL certificate
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- Unmetered traffic
- Free WooCommerce installation
- Shared, WordPress, reseller or cloud hosting
- Managed WordPress (automated core and plugin updates, advanced WP tools and specialised WordPress support)
- $30 website migration or a free plugin that allows you to do it yourself
- 10GB – 40GB disk space on shared hosting plans
- Daily backups and backups on-demand
- Free CDN
- Ultrafast PHP
- Staging
- 100% renewable energy match
- 30 day money back guarantee
Overall, SiteGround have more features and freebies included in their plans, as well as having less restrictions when it comes to the number of domains, subdomains, and email accounts you have.
Hostinger does have most of the features that SiteGround has, but is more of a ‘pay to play’ kind of deal, where the features are premium and you have to pay to add them onto your plan.
With that being said, you could argue that as Hostinger is so much cheaper than SiteGround, you are technically already paying for the features that SiteGround offer.
Hostinger vs SiteGround | Final Thoughts
Both Hostinger and SiteGround are excellent choices when it comes to hosting your blog.
Overall, SiteGround is the technically superior option, with better support and faster speeds, while Hostinger has everything you need to get online for rock bottom prices, making it a perfect choice for beginners or people concerned about budget.
In other words, if you are planning on creating multiple high-traffic websites, SiteGround is the better option, but if you are just starting out as a blogger and don’t need all of the high tech that SiteGround offer, Hostinger is more than enough.
I have 3 websites with SiteGround on their most expensive plan, and to be completely honest, I wish I’d started my journey with Hostinger and switched to SiteGround later down the line.
I hope that I’ve managed to provide some useful information that will help you decide which provider to choose when it comes to Hostinger vs SiteGround.
If you have any questions then please let me know in the comments section below and I will do my best to help!
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