Hostinger vs Cloudways
Hostinger and Cloudways compared on measured uptime, response time, pricing and features from our own tests. Hostinger scores higher overall.
By Jennifer T. · Updated
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Verdict
HostingerWins overall
Very cheap on a 48-month term, with an easy custom panel; the entry plan cuts backups and email
DigitalOcean's managed cloud layer: servers from $11 a month on five clouds, billed hourly, staging and caching included
Hostinger wins 3 of the six sub-scores and comes out ahead overall (8.0 vs 7.8).
How do the scores compare?
Hostinger leads on 3 sub-scores, Cloudways on 1. Higher is better.
Which one is faster and more reliable?
Which one costs less?
On renewal, Hostinger is cheaper ($10.99/mo vs $14.00/mo). Intro prices need the listed term.
| Hostinger | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | Premium | DigitalOcean Premium Micro |
| Intro price | $2.99/mo (better) | $14.00/mo |
| Renewal price | $10.99/mo (better) | $14.00/mo |
| Required term | 48 months | 1 months (better) |
| Websites | 3 | unlimited |
| Storage | 20 GB | 25 GB |
| Money back | 30 days (better) | 0 days |
What does each include?
| Hostinger | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Free domain | First year only, on 12-month and longer terms | No |
| Free SSL | Yes | Let's Encrypt certificates on every application |
| Backups | Weekly on Premium; daily on Unlimited and Cloud Startup | On-demand and scheduled server backups with one-click restore; offsite storage billed at $0.033 per GB per server |
| Email hosting | 2 mailboxes per website on Premium, unlimited on the other plans; free for the first year | Not stated |
| CDN | Included on Unlimited and Cloud Startup; listed as available on Premium | Not stated |
| Control panel | hPanel, Hostinger's own panel, with an AI assistant | Not stated |
| AI tools | AI website builder credits: 5 on Premium, 15 on the other plans, one-time | Not stated |
| Ecommerce | Available on every plan | Not stated |
| Fair usage limits | 3 GB per database, 300 databases, 300 FTP accounts, 400 cron jobs | Not stated |
| Uptime guarantee | 99.9% per month; 5% credit of that month's fee, claimed within 30 days | No |
| Choice of data center | 12 regions across North America, Europe, Asia and South America | Not stated |
| Phone support | No | No |
| Windows hosting | No | No |
| Free migration | Not stated | Free migration of existing sites |
| Free CDN | Not stated | No |
| Caching | Not stated | Lightning Stack (NGINX), Object Cache Pro and Redis included on every plan |
| Staging | Not stated | Advanced staging and cloning on every plan |
| Not stated | No | |
| Resource limits | Not stated | A whole server per customer: 1 to 8 GB RAM and 1 to 4 vCPU on the listed sizes, larger sizes and other providers available |
| Data center choice | Not stated | The provider's regions, chosen per server: DigitalOcean 9, Vultr 30, Linode 25, AWS 28, Google Cloud 28 |
| Security | Not stated | Built-in firewall with IP blocking, WordPress vulnerability scanner, bot protection and dedicated firewalls per the pricing page |
| Free trial | Not stated | 3 days without a credit card |