Both Hostinger and SiteGround appear to be excellent choices, but which one is right for you? This detailed comparison will help you make an informed choice.
Pricing and Features
The most significant difference between these two providers is their pricing strategy. Hostinger is a cheap, simple hosting provider. It has some new tech and decent resources.
However, we orient everything to fit a budget. SiteGround, on the other hand, is a spare-no-expense provider. It has many features and resources. It works with all the newest tech. But, it all costs a lot.
Hostinger’s Pricing
The cheapest single plan from Hostinger has 100 GB of bandwidth, 50 GB of SSD storage, and weekly backups. On the other side, the cheapest SiteGround plan has 10 GB of SSD storage. It has unlimited bandwidth.
You get daily, not weekly, backups. Both plans give free SSL certificates but limit you to one website.
SiteGround’s Pricing
The actual price difference for these plans is minimal. As of today, SiteGround and Hostinger’s cheapest plans are under $2 a month. However, the first Hostinger plan renews at about four dollars a month. SiteGround’s plan goes up to 15 dollars a month. So, in the long run, SiteGround is a much more costly provider.
Additional Features
More expensive Hostinger plans come with a free domain name for a year, which is around ten dollars in value. SiteGround does not offer a free domain name, no matter the plan. This can help save at least a little bit of money given SiteGround’s steep renewal increases.
Email Accounts and Guarantees
Both SiteGround and Hostinger have professional email accounts for your business. However, the cheapest Hostinger plan only allows you one email account.
If you’re unsure about buying hosting, both providers guarantee a 30-day refund. If budget is a constraint, opt for Hostinger’s affordable shared hosting options. If you want to get the most out of shared hosting, no matter the price point, try SiteGround.
Usability and Dashboard Experience
Managing a website on your own can be daunting. But, both Hostinger and SiteGround have custom, modern control dashboards. Seeing them side by side, it’s clear they are similar. They follow the best design and user experience practices.
Hostinger’s hPanel
I prefer Hostinger’s hPanel over others. It seems like everything is in its proper location, creating a cleaner appearance. SiteGround arranges its control panel features in an unconventional manner. Everything seems too large. Compare the main dashboard windows. Hostinger has only what you need. SiteGround has videos and blog posts that you cannot remove.
SiteGround’s Dashboard
One thing I’ll give SiteGround is that its control dashboard is super fast.
Hostinger freezes or takes time to load. I don’t remember any problems with SiteGround. Smooth fabric slides over the surface with a gentle touch. For example, let’s compare the time to go from the main screen to any website’s file manager. And boom, you’re done. While not a major difference, it can start to bug you once you’re managing more than a few websites.
Security
Is Hostinger good at protecting your site?
A cheap hosting provider is useless if your site gets hacked. Luckily, Hostinger isn’t a cheapskate. It gives you all the standard features you would expect. It includes a free SSL for all sites, DDOS protection, and a server-level firewall. It also has two-factor authentication.
Hostinger’s Security
Hostinger offers a solid security package considering how much you pay. One of the most important aspects is good backups.
Hostinger gives you weekly or even daily automatic website copies with every plan.
SiteGround’s Security
SiteGround, on the other hand, pushes security to the max. It has a much more expensive security package. It has all of Hostinger’s features, plus: an AI anti-bot system. a free CDN, a custom web app firewall, and a server monitor that checks status every half second.
On top of that, SiteGround made its own WordPress security plugin. It strengthens all parts of your site.
Performance
The last thing I want to cover in my SiteGround vs Hostinger review is performance. Though they differ in features and pricing, we must find a faster provider.
Performance Testing
Google advises loading within 2.5 seconds for optimal SEO performance.
The average time it takes to load a website can be up to 10 seconds. I installed the same empty WordPress websites on both providers’ cheapest plans. I wanted to compare them. The results: Hostinger took about one second to load. SiteGround took about 0.7 seconds for the same job. SiteGround allocates additional resources, resulting in swifter performance.
Conclusion
Both providers come with a caching solution and a plugin to help you optimize your content. Better SiteGround plans can improve performance even more with a faster PHP setup. While Hostinger falls a tad bit behind, SiteGround wins this performance race.
In conclusion, both providers are on top of their game, for different types of users. Hostinger is the best-shared hosting provider for quality hosting on a budget.
It’s one of the cheapest providers on the market in general. SiteGround is a powerful hosting provider. It’s best for e-commerce or large projects. It likely has the best performance for its price.
That’s it for my Hostinger vs SiteGround comparison. Find a full Hostinger review or a more in-depth SiteGround review. As always, thanks for reading!