Hostinger vs. Altervista – Which One Is Actually Better? [2024]

Altervista is Italy’s number one free hosting provider while Hostinger is a popular web host whose shared hosting plans start dirt cheap, which you can say are almost free. I tested both these hosting providers on important parameters like features, pricing, performance, support, and security to help you decide which one is a better choice. I found Hostinger edging past Altervista.

Read on to know how Hostinger beats its competitor in this Hostinger vs. Altervista competition.

1. Plans and Pricing

Free isn’t always better and Hostinger proves it

If you’re looking for free web hosting in Italy, Altervista could be just what you need1. However, when I tried signing up for its free hosting, I couldn’t as an error kept showing. With Hostinger, your options are much varied though – right from shared and WordPress hosting to email and cloud hosting as well as VPS (including Windows VPS and Minecraft server) hosting.

Pricing-wise, Altervista hosting is available for free and even lets you make money (it’s not compulsory though) by hosting ads (with certain restrictions) and monetizing your web traffic. Hostinger’s shared plans are available at budget-friendly rates, with its starting plan being almost free if you opt for the longest (48-month) term. However, its plans renew at higher prices and the monthly term is pricey (with the starting plan costing almost 10X the signup price). However, you’ll get better value for money with Hostinger and a lot more flexibility and features for superb performance.

Despite not being free, Hostinger still scores over Altervista by giving you better value for money.

2. Features

Hostinger’s user-friendly features outshine Altervista

With Hostinger’s 3 shared hosting plans, you’ll get CloudLinux OS, FTP over SSL, free domain (for the first year with annual or longer-term of premium and business plans), free SSL, 1X-4X memory and processing power, custom-developed hPanel, SSDs, LSCache, SSH access (with the 2 higher plans), Cloudflare protected nameservers, 1-unlimited FTP accounts, FTP over SSL, remote MySQL, DNS management, WordPress acceleration (LSCWP), 1-click installer with 100+ apps, and a website builder (free for a month).

For website hosting, Altervista offers you PHP 5 and 7, free SSL certificate, MySQL database with unlimited queries, mod_rewrite and .htaccess management, Cron Jobs, FTP, free Cloudflare CDN, and easy installation of popular CMSes like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!, phpBB, etc. With its WordPress blog hosting, you’ll get exclusive mobile design themes, support for accelerated Google pages, million-pages cache, HTTPs protocol, free and paid domain, and free backup. Hostinger’s WordPress plans come with weekly/daily automated backups, Jetpack plugin (free to premium versions), customizable themes, multiple plugins, SSH access, free CDN (with the 2 higher plans), Git, and WP-CLI.

You can compare these two providers using this comparison table.

Despite its better disk space and bandwidth, Altervista loses out to Hostinger due to the latter’s high-end and user-friendly features like SSDs, LiteSpeed Web Server and LSCache, Jetpack plugin, website builder, etc.

3. Performance

Altervista is no match for Hostinger

Hostinger’s servers are housed in Tier-3 redundant datacenters, which are located across 7 different regions all over the world. In contrast, Altervista doesn’t tell anything about its datacenters. When it comes to using performance-enhancing features, Hostinger races ahead with its SSDs, LSCache plugins, GZIP compression, dual uplinks with multiple ISPs, and Cloudflare CDN. Altervista just uses a million-pages cache and CDN.

Thanks to its great uptime and excellent loading speeds, Hostinger scores an easy win in this round.

4. Security

Hostinger is miles ahead of its competitor

Hostinger all-inclusive security measures include SSL certificate, weekly/daily backups, RAID-10, CDN, LVE containers, Wanguard anti-DDoS protection, prognostic and proactive monitoring of server, and Bitninja/Imunify360 (web application firewall). Except for the HTTPS protocol and Cloudflare CDN,

Altervista doesn’t have any other security measures, which makes someone like me (who’s a security-conscious person) extremely suspicious. Though they’ll fix a bug or security loophole quickly if you let the Altervista team know about it, the sheer chance of its security being so vulnerable makes me ready to give its free hosting services a miss.

Hostinger’s robust security wins this round hands down.

5. Support

Superfast customer support and multiple self-help options help Hostinger score over Altervista

Getting help from Hostinger is easy and quick as it offers 24/7 live chat, ticket, and email support (available for logged-in users). Though Hostinger is pretty quick with its support, those who still hate waiting for a few minutes can opt for its paid “Priority Support”. When I used Hostinger’s live chat, I received super-quick replies, which was extremely impressive.

Altervista offers support only through its forum and you’ll have to log into your Altervista account to post on the forum. Since I couldn’t even create an account, there was no way for me to test its forum support.

Hostinger provides various self-support options, including tutorials, a blog, and a knowledgebase. In contrast, Altervista offers a FAQ and a Wiki that include sections with frequently asked questions about hosting, FTP connection, MySQL database, and more.

Superfast support plus multiple self-help options make Hostinger this round’s winner.

Hostinger Beats Altervista

Free isn’t always the best and this competition proves that being skeptical of anything labeled “free” is justified. Though Altervista may entice you with its “free” hosting, it loses out to Hostinger on every single parameter that I evaluated both these hosts upon including features, pricing, performance, security, and support.

As a result, I’ve no doubt in declaring Hostinger the clear winner. I would suggest it highly to meet your hosting needs (except for when you need dedicated servers, which it doesn’t offer). If you still have doubts before saying “yes” to Hostinger, you may feel a bit motivated knowing that it has made its way to our list of​ the best web hosting services​.

Comparison Table

FAQ

Is ​Hostinger better than ​Altervista?

Yes, Hostinger is the better choice between the two. It offers more features than Altervista and strong performance, which means you get better value for your money. If you’re not sure which host is right for you, don’t miss our list of ​the best web hosting services​.

Does Hostinger offer WordPress hosting?

Yes, Hostinger​ has specialized WordPress hosting plans, with servers optimized for WordPress and additional features to keep your website running smoothly. But before you make any final decisions, you should check our list of ​the best managed WordPress hosting providers​.

Does Altervista offer VPS hosting?

No, Altervista​ does not offer VPS hosting. But no worries – it’s not the only web host out there. If you feel that VPS is the best hosting solution for you, you should check out our list of ​the best cheap VPS hosting services​​ to find a reliable host for a great price.