Hostinger
★★★★★ 4.5
Digital · Compare
A first website, or several small sites, on a tight budget
Read the Hostinger reviewHostinger vs SiteGround
Both entry plans are advertised at the same monthly figure, and neither number is what the plan costs. This comparison reads the two hosts' published plans, terms and refund rules against each other to find where the choice actually sits.
In this comparison: At a glance Table Criteria FAQ
At a glance
The same first-year price on both pages means the decision is about shape rather than cost. Hostinger sells a long, cheap term and a ladder that stays inside one account; SiteGround sells a shorter term and more of the running of a WordPress site.
SiteGround
★★★★★ 4.4
Digital · Compare
A first WordPress site that wants the setup done for it
Read the SiteGround reviewWhat this is based on. The rows below come from what the two companies publish: plan pages for limits, rates and inclusions, and terms of service for the commitments attached to them. No account was opened at either host for this comparison, so every figure here is read from a document rather than taken from a server we ran. Nothing is tagged on the size of a score gap, since two editorial figures a tenth apart settle nothing; a tag means one company's own pages show something the other's do not. The documents behind every row are named at the end, with the date each was read.
Quick comparison
The grid below puts the two hosts on one set of rows: the scores each full review already published, and the facts that decide the purchase. Plan range and scalability is the only row that carries a tag.
| Criterion | Hostinger | SiteGround |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price Checked 15 Sep 2026 | From $2.99/mo (Premium, paid upfront for 48 months), renewing at $10.99 | From $2.99/mo (StartUp, 12-month term), renewing at $17.99 |
| Free plan | No. A 30-day money-back window on hosting that also covers renewals | No. A 30-day money-back window on the shared plans |
| Performance and infrastructure | 4.5 / 5 | 4.5 / 5 |
| Plan range and scalability | 4.7 / 5Best | 4.4 / 5 |
| Support and reliability | 4.4 / 5 | 4.4 / 5 |
| Ease of use and setup | 4.5 / 5 | 4.6 / 5 |
| Price and value | 4.4 / 5 | 4.2 / 5 |
| Best for | A first website, or several small sites, on a tight budget | A first WordPress site that wants the setup done for it |
Scroll the table sideways to see both platforms.
How they compare on each criterion
Every review in this group is scored on the same five axes, so the numbers below are read straight off the two full reviews rather than awarded again. The pair ties on two rows and separates on three, which is why most of what follows is about what the two companies do differently rather than about which one ranks higher.
Performance and infrastructure
What the plans run on, and what either company publishes to show for it.
The two shared ranges run on hardware of a different kind, and that difference explains what each of them can claim. Hostinger’s web hosting runs on LiteSpeed servers over a 1 Gbps network, with a CDN and a certificate supplied on the entry plan rather than held back for the largest, and NVMe storage from the second plan upward; the KVM VPS line is built on AMD EPYC silicon, with a dedicated IP address supplied on every tier. SiteGround rents its capacity rather than owning it, which is where its reach comes from: shared plans run on Google Cloud across eleven data centres and four continents, the CDN is the company’s own at more than 170 edge locations, and the caching runs at several levels beside a firewall that updates itself. Only one of the two puts a speed figure on its own pages: a median 78% faster load for the sites SiteGround migrated in the first half of 2025, measured with Google Lighthouse. Hostinger states the parts of the machine and publishes no result. 4.5 for both, on stacks that are current from the cheapest plan upward.
Plan range and scalability
What the range does when the site outgrows the plan it is on.
This is the tagged row, and it rests on a gap a reader can see on the two plan pages rather than on the marks beside it. Hostinger sells one account with every rung already on it: three web hosting plans at 20, 50 and 100 GB, then cloud hosting, then the KVM VPS line whose four published tiers begin at 1 vCPU with 4 GB of memory and reach 8 vCPU with 32 GB, so every step up is a change of plan inside the same login. SiteGround’s shared range is also three plans, at 10, 50 and 100 GB, sized by the company at roughly 10,000, 100,000 and 400,000 monthly visits, and then the range leaves shared hosting altogether: the next product is a cloud instance starting at $100 a month, and nothing is sold between that figure and $7.99. A site that outgrows GoGeek therefore changes environment rather than plan, and the entry allowance is half the size of the one Hostinger gives at its own entry rung. 4.7 and 4.4, on the distance between one company’s next rung and the other’s.
Support and reliability
What each company commits to in writing when the service fails.
Both desks are open at every hour on every plan, and neither publishes how quickly an answer arrives. Hostinger describes the desk as priority 24/7 and offers no first-response time beside it, so what is promised is that someone answers, not how soon. SiteGround staffs chat, ticket and phone around the clock on all three shared plans, and the top plan’s advantage is queue priority rather than a fourth channel. The uptime documents are where the two part, because each promises 99.9% a month and each pays 5% of that month’s fee, and the two remedies are not the same thing. Whether the mark was missed is decided by Hostinger itself, and the credit it pays is spendable on further Hostinger products. SiteGround’s compensation can only be turned into an extension of the same service, and its exclusions are published in full: scheduled maintenance, attacks, and a plan that has run out of its own resources do not count as downtime. Backups separate the plans along a comparable line, weekly at Hostinger’s entry tier and daily from the second one up, against daily with thirty days of restore points on all three SiteGround plans and a copy on demand from GrowBig upward. 4.4 for both, on commitments that are written down, narrow in different places, and settled in something other than money.
Ease of use and setup
What arrives with the order, and what keeps arriving after launch.
Both companies sell the same opening move, which is why this row carries no tag. Each plan arrives with a domain for the first year, a certificate that is issued and installed before the buyer does anything, and a panel that puts WordPress on the server from a button. Where they part is everything after that. SiteGround hands over more of the upkeep: a migration the host carries out brings an existing site across, the software updates itself, two plugins the company maintains arrive with the caching and the security already wired in, a staging copy exists from GrowBig upward with Git added one rung above it, and WP-CLI and SSH credentials come with every plan, so the panel is a convenience rather than the only way in. Hostinger’s additions sit elsewhere in the order: a mailbox on the domain comes free for the first year and without a cap above the entry plan, and the AI Builder bundled with the plan is rationed by allowance rather than by month, five credits at the start and fifteen once the plan changes, which is a page layout rather than a site’s worth of work. 4.6 and 4.5, on the work a host does for a site after it is live.
Price and value
What the same entry figure costs by the end of the first term.
Two hosts advertise the same monthly number and mean different things by it, which is the whole of this row. Hostinger’s $2.99 buys a forty-eight month term, settled in one invoice of $143.52, and the figure it renews at is $10.99 a month. SiteGround’s $2.99 buys twelve months, with no longer term offered at a lower rate, and it renews at $17.99, which makes the second term six times the first. Read together, the two pages describe two different bets rather than two prices: one company asks for four years in exchange for the low rate, the other asks for one and charges more on the way out. What can move the bill on either side is narrow. Hostinger’s guarantee runs thirty days on hosting and reaches renewals as well as first purchases, its free domain sits outside that guarantee and can have its standard price deducted from a refund, and nothing can be tried before paying. SiteGround’s window is the same length, the domain costs nothing in the first year only and is charged at the registrar’s rate from the second, and a cancellation takes effect only once every step of the request has been completed, which leaves the service live and its fees running until it is. 4.4 and 4.2, on a first year that is equally cheap and a second year that is not.
Which one should you pick?
Choose Hostinger if the term can be paid in one go
- The renewal is the lower of the two, and it is reached by settling the whole commitment on one invoice.
- The site may outgrow a shared plan, and the rungs above it stay on the same account, so growing is a plan change rather than a move.
- The entry allowance is the larger of the two, which is the room a first site uses up first.
Choose SiteGround if the account has to run WordPress day to day
- The setup continues after launch, with the migration, the software updates and the two maintained plugins arriving as part of the plan.
- A staging copy is available from the second plan up and Git one above that, which starts to matter once a live site is being changed.
- The commitment is twelve months rather than four years, so less is spent before the decision has to be made again.
Choose neither if the site should be sized rather than packaged. Both hosts sell fixed allowances at every rung, so a site whose traffic or memory requirement does not match one of them is better served by a server it can size itself and pay for by the hour. Read the Cloudways review
Frequently asked questions
Which of the two costs less once the first term ends?
Hostinger, on the figures each company prints: $10.99 a month at renewal against $17.99. The timing is the part worth weighing beside it, because the first term on one runs four years and on the other runs one, so the higher renewal arrives in twelve months while the lower one arrives in forty-eight.
Can I move the site to another host later?
On both, the files have to be moved before the account is closed rather than after it. Hostinger does not hand content back, and closing an account starts permanent deletion, so the site needs to be off the server before the request is made. SiteGround handles leaving through the client area, and its terms treat a request as complete only when each of its steps has been finished; termination deletes the account's files, and backup copies may be held for as long as sixty days.
How many websites does one plan cover?
More on one host than the other at the entry rung. Hostinger's starting plan covers three websites, and SiteGround's covers one, which makes a second account a real prospect for anyone running a handful of small sites on the cheaper tier. Both companies remove the limit at their second plan rather than their first, so the choice for that reader is between starting a rung higher or buying the extra site separately. The number of websites is the limit that is easiest to hit and the one least often read before checkout.
Hostinger for the lower renewal and the room to grow, SiteGround for the WordPress workflow
The term is what settles most of this. Our full Hostinger review puts the host at 4.5 out of 5 overall, the higher of the two, and SiteGround's own review puts it at 4.4. A reader who cannot commit four years to one host is choosing SiteGround, and one who expects the site to outgrow shared hardware is choosing Hostinger.
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Sources
Hostinger (hostinger.com), checked 15 September 2026: the web hosting and VPS pricing pages for the plan limits and both rates, with the term each belongs to; the hosting agreement for the uptime commitment and the cancellation terms; and the refund policy for the guarantee and the domain exclusions.
SiteGround (siteground.com), checked 15 September 2026: the shared and cloud hosting pages for the plan limits, the rates and the included features; and the terms of service for the availability commitment, the compensation attached to it, the refund windows and exclusions, and the cancellation clauses.
Every figure traces to a named source
We tell you what we could not verify
No vendor can pay for a score