Since I first heard of the platform sometime two years ago, Hostinger has quickly become one of my favorite website builders. It has a modern, easy-to-use interface and dozens of features that make your website stand out in both form and function (it even has an AI site generator). In a nutshell, it has almost everything you need out of the box. If you’re wondering if this is the right platform for you, keep reading for our in-depth Hostinger website builder review.
Hostinger Website Builder Overview
Our verdict: Hostinger is one of the most full-featured and easy-to-use website builders around, especially if you’re a beginner or new to building your brand presence. It’s a great fit if you want a design-forward website, or even multiple websites because its plans let you build up to 100 sites. On the Business Website plan, you also have tools to build an online store.
Aside from ecommerce, Hostinger also has 150 templates for dozens of website types and industries and an AI site builder that can generate a completely custom site from a few prompts. It also has built-in email, a free domain, SSL security, and integrations with Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Hotjar.
When to Use Hostinger
Hostinger is easy to use and very design-forward, making it a good fit for beginners. It’s also cost-effective and scalable, so it’s suitable for businesses whose primary concern is budget. Here are the best instances for choosing Hostinger as your website builder:
- You’re a beginner getting started with web design. Hostinger is one of the easiest website builders I’ve tried, and its templates and AI site builder can help any beginner get their brand online fast.
- You need to build multiple websites. Hostinger’s cost-effective plans let you build up to 100 websites and even 300 websites on the Cloud Startup plan, all with a custom domain. This makes it a great pick if you handle multiple websites (for instance, if you’re in an agency).
- You need a blog and an online store. Aside from allowing ecommerce and blogging, Hostinger also has an AI content writer (including an AI blog generator), image generator, and AI SEO tools, all of which can help with your blogging. Its online store also allows multiple payment methods and has zero transaction fees.
- You want a modern, design-forward website. Hostinger also has some of my favorite templates and website designs out of the many website builders I’ve tested. Whether you start with a template or use its AI site generator, it can build a modern, visually appealing, and well-designed website.
When to Use an Alternative
While Hostinger has many pluses, it does have some areas lacking, primarily in its limited integrations and marketing tools. All in all, if you want a more advanced website that has more than the basics, it might not be the best fit. Here are some instances when Hostinger may not be the best option:
- You need advanced ecommerce features: Hostinger has basic ecommerce functionality, but it only allows you to list up to 500 products, and its ecommerce features are somewhat basic. For more advanced ecommerce tools, opt for Weebly or Wix instead.
- You need advanced functionality: Hostinger is great for basic website building, but it only allows integrations with Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Hotjar. For any other integrations, you’ll need to add them yourself via code. So if you need integrations with apps like Zapier or CRM tools, you’ll find better support with another platform instead.
- You only need a basic personal website that’s free. If you only need a website for a personal portfolio or blog or a one-time event like a wedding and don’t need a custom domain, a free-forever option like Wix or GoDaddy may be better instead. Hostinger is better built for long-term business use.
- You want email and social media marketing built in. One of the biggest drawbacks of the Hostinger platform is the lack of built-in email and social media marketing tools, which other website builders have. This means you won’t be able to post social media content or send marketing emails from inside the platform.
If you find Hostinger isn’t the best fit for your needs, have a look at some of its best alternatives below instead. To learn more about each, read our guide to the best website builders for small businesses.
Design freedom and advanced SEO | Ecommerce-focused site builder | Email and social media marketing included in all plans |
Free plan available, paid plans from $17/month | Free plan available, paid plans from $10/month | Free plan available, paid plans from $10.99/month |
Hostinger Website Builder Pricing
When it comes to pricing, Hostinger is one of the most cost-effective website builders overall. Its plans start at $2.99 a month and let you create up to 100 unique websites and 100 email addresses. Its highest plan costs no more than $7.99 a month and lets you build 300 websites and access its full suite of features. Learn more about Hostinger’s pricing plans:
Premium Plan | Business Plan | Cloud Startup Plan | Cloud Professional Plan | Cloud Enterprise Plan | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly Cost* | $2.99 (renews at $7.99) | $3.99 (renews at $8.99) | $7.99 (renews at $19.99) | $14.99 (renews at $32.99) | $29.99 (renews at $54.99) |
Websites | 100 | 100 | 300 | 300 | 300 |
Emails | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
Free Domain | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Access to the AI Website Builder and 150 Templates | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Storage | 100GB SSD | 200GB NVMe | 200GB NVMe | 250GB NVMe | 300GB NVMe |
WordPress Installation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Ecommerce for 500 Products; Payments via PayPal, Stripe, and Kevin; 0% transaction fees | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Integrations With Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Hotjar | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
AI Content Writer, Blog and Image Generator, Heat Maps, and SEO Tools | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Blogging With Monetization | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
SSL Security, Malware Scanner, Cloudflare Firewall | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
99.9% Uptime Guarantee | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
*All costs are on a two-year contract. |
All Hostinger pricing plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, which means you can cancel anytime within the first 30 days and get 100% of your payment back. You also get round-the-clock support from the Hostinger team, whom you can contact via email, phone, and chat.
Hostinger Features Review
Now comes the most important part of the Hostinger review: an in-depth look at its features and tools. As mentioned above, Hostinger offers all the essential tools you need from a website builder, and they’re all generally simple to use. Here’s a sample look at its drag-and-drop editor:
Hostinger offers two paths to creating your business website: you can choose a template or let the AI designer build a site for you. Both are easy to use and can build a good website, so it’s only a matter of choosing which one you’re comfortable with.
- Using a template: This path gives you more options on the design front, as you will be asked to choose from a selection of about 150 templates. Once you’ve chosen your template, editing your website is as easy as pointing, clicking, and uploading your own images and typing in your website copy.
- AI designer: The AI website generator is one of Hostinger’s most unique features and is a great fit for design beginners who want a fast and easy way to create a professional website. You’ll only need to answer a few questions about the type of website you need, your preferred colors, and styles, and add a few descriptions. Then, it’ll automatically generate a site.
Whether you use a template or the AI site builder, you’ll enter Hostinger’s drag-and-drop editor once you have your basic site ready. This is where you can customize your site’s colors, add in your website text, and upload your brand logo and other images. You can even choose from Hostinger’s library of royalty-free images or generate new ones with AI.
Design-wise, Hostinger also passes our standards. Its templates are some of the most modern you’ll find out of any platform and ensure that your site is professional and credible—and there’s a good enough variety for everyone. We also like that you can customize it further in the drag-and-drop editor.
Hostinger website builder includes some exciting AI features that can help you take your website to the next level. These include a state-of-the-art AI content writer that can help make easy work of website copy, an AI heatmap to predict where visitors will click most, and an AI image generator. There are five AI tools in total:
- AI Content Writer: You can access Hostinger’s AI content writer on the side menu or by clicking on text boxes in the editor. You’ll need to answer a few questions and it’ll automatically prompt a paragraph. On the text box, you’ll type a short descriptive prompt of the text you need. It can generate anything from web copy to social media captions.
- AI Blog Generator: This works similarly to the content writer, but generates a full blog post complete with a title, body, and search engine-optimized keywords.
- AI Heat map: This uses AI to predict which areas of your site users will most likely spend the most time staying and clicking on. This can help you create a better-performing and high-converting site.
- AI Image Generator: You’ll find this in the same menu as the AI Content Writer. To use it, enter a description of the image you need, choose an image style, and your image will automatically be generated. You get up to 50 credits on all plans, but you can purchase more if needed.
- AI Logo Generator: Another nifty AI tool of Hostinger’s is its logo generator that can make a unique logo that represents your business. You’ll only need to type in your business name and description, then choose from the logo selection it generates.
These AI tools are some of the best in the business, but like any other AI tool, they’re not perfect. This means you can’t expect them to be 100% accurate all the time, and you’ll need to do a double-check, especially on its written content, before using it for your business.
Personally, I found Hostinger’s AI site builder the best of its AI tools, with the rest as additional benefits. However, they can still pose many advantages in helping streamline your website building and blogging experience.
Hostinger also has tools to help you manage ads and connect with your site’s visitors. Both Google Ads and Facebook ads are incorporated into the website dashboard. This makes it easier to create retargeting ads–-ads that appear to visitors of your site after they’ve left to entice them to return.
Besides Google and Facebook ads, Hostinger can also connect with Google Analytics and Hotjar to monitor your site’s visitors and session durations. It can also connect with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger for instant messaging. You can also add more integrations via code. To access them, click on the ellipsis button on the sidebar menu in the editor, then choose “Integrations.”
Aside from these integrations, you can also add appointment-booking tools under the Online Store setup section and specify times when you’re available, like your business hours. This is especially helpful if you’re a service-based business, like a spa or real estate agency.
However, Hostinger’s biggest drawbacks are its lack of email and social media marketing—tools that competitors like GoDaddy and Mailchimp have for free. This means you won’t be able to manage your social media and email marketing from inside the dashboard.
Setting up your online store on Hostinger is a straightforward process. Like the editor itself, the store builder is drag-and-drop. Accessing it is simple: just click the shopping cart icon, then click “Manage products,” which takes you into the setup section for your online store.
From there, you’ll be asked a series of questions before adding your first product. After adding your products, you can also add their descriptions, prices, categories, and images, and even offer discounts.
During your online store setup, you can also add your store’s payment methods. Hostinger allows three main payment methods, PayPal, Stripe, and Kevin, which altogether support more than 20 payment merchants including Apple Pay and Google Wallet.
Hostinger provides some basic options for optimizing your website for search engines like Google and Bing. These include setting up your website’s name, meta description, webpage slugs, and primary keywords. Also, you can set alternative tags (aka alt-tags) for all of your images, and even enlist its AI writer’s help to generate search-optimized titles and descriptions.
Hostinger’s templates and websites are also automatically mobile-optimized, which is key in helping you rank higher on search engines. It also uses a global Content Delivery Network (CDN), which helps your site load quickly from anywhere in the world.
You can toggle your site’s SEO settings anytime from the SEO Settings menu from the left-hand menu bar in the editor.
Hostinger also has a blogging platform that lets you publish unlimited blogs. You can access it by going inside the editor, clicking on the pencil icon, and following the instructions to start a blog. Choose from different blog formats, and your blog posts will automatically be set up for you. You’ll only need to edit their titles, cover images, and their content. You can also add image galleries and videos.
As mentioned, Hostinger also has an AI blog generator and SEO tools that can help you out. The blog generator can create a full-length blog post you’ll only need to tweak and copy-edit, while the AI SEO assistant can suggest search-optimized titles, descriptions, and keywords.
In all, Hostinger offers a well-rounded suite of features that’ll satisfy any business owner or freelancer building a first-time website. The features it lacks most are in its integrations—there are very few available (although they cover the essentials)—and in its marketing tools that don’t include email or social media. Otherwise, it’s a worthy platform with plenty of tools at low costs.
Hostinger Ease of Use Review
I’ve mentioned time and again how one of Hostinger’s biggest benefits is how easy it is to use, even for beginners. Its platform is one of the most intuitive I’ve tested, with both a template editor and an AI website generator, plus a drag-and-drop editor for customization. Upon entering the platform and choosing a plan, I was able to create a professional-looking website and even set up an online store, all in about an hour, with no coding necessary.
Probably the biggest learning curve you’ll have with Hostinger is figuring out where all the menus are inside the drag-and-drop editor, like its SEO settings and integrations, and how to best use its AI tools. Once you’ve figured out where everything is, though, it’s all smooth sailing. There are helpful menus and prompts everywhere to guide your way up until you’re ready to publish your website, and you can even edit on-the-go via mobile.
I’ve outlined more about the process in my step-by-step Hostinger tutorial, which also has a video you can watch below.
Hostinger Customer Support
Hostinger’s customer support is predominantly chat-based. The chat line is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by experts who know the ins and outs of the Hostinger website builder. Alternatively, you can also contact the team via phone and email, who can assist you in multiple languages.
If you don’t need to speak to the team, Hostinger also has a knowledge base with hundreds of articles you can read. It covers everything from how to set up your website to how to manage your CPanel (control panel). It’s a good idea to check these resources out first if you have any queries to see if they cover your concerns.
Overall, we find Hostinger to have one of the most comprehensive customer services around, and many former clients also highlight the team’s customer service in reviews.
Hostinger User Reviews
Many Hostinger reviews from former (and current) users praise the platform’s ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and, most of all, its customer service. On the negative side, some customers have complaints about hosting and website speed and limitations on the online store. Here are some Hostinger website builder reviews and ratings from other users:
- G2.com: 4.4 out of 5 stars based on over 600 reviews
- Capterra: 4.6 out of 5 stars based on over 200 reviews
- Trustpilot: 4.6 out of 5 stars based on over 29,000 reviews
Our Expert Opinion
Overall, I find Hostinger to be one of the most full-featured yet easy-to-use website builders around. Our Hostinger website builder review went deep into the ins and outs of the Hostinger platform, and I found it a predominantly positive experience, even for website design beginners. I particularly like that it lets you choose between starting with a template or using the AI site generator and then customizing it further in a drag-and-drop editor.
Although there is no free plan with Hostinger, it’s still one of the most cost-effective platforms around, as you can build up to 100 websites starting at $2.99 and even up to 300 websites on the highest plan. This also makes it a good choice for agencies handling multiple businesses. While it doesn’t have as many integrations or marketing features as some other platforms, the features it does have cover all the essentials.
If you need a solid, reliable, and beginner-friendly platform to build your business website on for the long term, Hostinger is a top-five option. It’s one of the best all-around website builders for small businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes. Hostinger is one of the best website builders for small businesses, freelancers, or web design beginners. It’s also one of the most cost-effective platforms with plans for building 100 websites starting at $2.99. It also has options to use an AI site builder or start from its 150-some templates. Both options can build you a professional and fully functional website. All plans also come with AI tools, marketing and SEO features, and a blogging platform.
The main disadvantage of Hostinger is the limited number of integrations available that you can add to your site. Currently, it only allows your site to integrate with Google and Facebook’s tools, as well as WhatsApp and Hotjar, compared to other site builders that have hundreds of integrations. Another disadvantage is that it doesn’t allow email or social media marketing from within the platform, making it less convenient.
The Hostinger website builder costs $2.99/month for the Premium Plan, $3.99/month for the Business Plan, and $7.99/month for the Cloud Startup plan for the first year, which all renew at higher costs. The first two plans let you build up to 100 websites, while the Cloud Startup plan lets you build 300 websites. All plans let you access the Hostinger website generator and templates, website security, WordPress installer, and marketing integrations.
Bottom Line
Throughout our Hostinger review, we found it an overall reliable platform for building your website, whether you’re a design beginner or a seasoned professional. Creating a business-ready website, online store, or a blog is easy using its templates or AI website generator. It’s also cost-effective with a starting price of $2.99 a month. If you’re looking for a reliable website platform for the long term, Hostinger is a very capable candidate.