Hostinger vs. GoDaddy

Hostinger is very affordable and generally considered to be reliable, but the key downsides come in terms of site speed issues and customer support. Some users report performance problems, down time, and slow load times, as well as very limited features on lower-tier plans. And many users report slow, unhelpful, or inconsistent support, particularly with chat support. This can make resolving technical issues more difficult.

Yes. Hostinger has been in business since 2004 and serves millions of customers worldwide. It’s a legitimate, widely used hosting provider with shared, cloud, VPS, WordPress, email, and domain services. Uptime and performance for Hostinger is generally very good, but it can dip on lower-tier plans. The company also provides a 30-day money-back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with the service.

Hostinger has had a few past security incidents, as well as some key customer complaints. The main issues people point to are:

• Past data breaches: Hostinger and its related brand 000WebHost were affected by breaches in 2015 and 2019 that exposed millions of user records.
• Account suspensions and data loss complaints: Some users report their sites or accounts being suddenly suspended for “abuse” or “security” reasons. Users have also claimed they lost access to their data or backups with little warning or explanation.
• Aggressive marketing: Critics have accused Hostinger of pushing extremely low promo pricing while hiding strict limits behind “unlimited” plans and sharply higher renewal fees.
• Support quality issues: A common complaint is slow or scripted support responses when something goes wrong, especially for complex technical or billing issues.
• Reputation in security and spam communities: Hostinger has historically been associated with higher levels of phishing and spam hosting, largely because its low-cost plans made it attractive to bad actors (not because Hostinger endorsed them).

Hostinger is a privately held web hosting company. It was founded in 2004 in Lithuania (originally as Hosting Media) and has grown into a global hosting provider serving millions of users worldwide. In 2021, a private equity firm called ConHostinger acquired a 31% controlling stake in the company, making it the largest outside investor. The rest of the company is held by the original founders, early employees, and internal stakeholders.

Neither Hostinger nor GoDaddy has a stronger uptime guarantee on paper. Both promise 99.9% uptime as part of their hosting agreements. In practice, that 99.9% guarantee comes with limited protection.

Both Hostinger and GoDaddy only offer compensation in the form of a small service credit (typically about 5% of one month’s hosting fee) and only if you notice the outage and file a claim. The credit is applied to future services, not refunded to your card, and it doesn’t cover lost revenue, missed sales, or customer impact. This means that while both companies technically guarantee uptime, the financial consequences for them if they fail are minimal.

If the highest possible uptime is critical to your business, consider hosts that offer higher uptime guarantees (99.99% or more) or stronger compensation terms.

Setting up email hosting with a web host involves three main steps: creating the mailbox, connecting your domain, and configuring your devices or apps. Here’s a quick step-by-step on how to do it:

1. Create your email account
First, log in to your hosting provider’s control panel: Hostinger → hPanel → Email → Email Accounts GoDaddy → My Products → Email & Office → Manage

Create a new mailbox, such as hello@yourdomain.com.

2. Connect your domain to the email service (MX records)
This step tells the internet where your email lives. In your domain’s DNS settings (usually in the same dashboard where you bought the domain), update the MX records to point to your host’s mail servers. (Hostinger or GoDaddy will give you the exact values to copy-paste.)

3. Test webmail
Before setting up phones or apps, make sure it works. Log in with the email address and password you created, then send a test email to Gmail or another inbox and reply back.

To transfer a domain between providers like Hostinger and GoDaddy, you unlock the domain at your current registrar, get an authorization (EPP) code, and start the transfer at the new provider. The process usually takes 5–7 days and does not move your website or email — it only changes who manages the domain registration.

Basic steps:

• Unlock the domain at your current host.
• Request the EPP (authorization) code.
• Start the transfer at the new provider and enter the code.
• Approve the transfer via email.
• Wait for completion and verify DNS settings.

Here are domain transfer instructions for Hostinger and for GoDaddy.