Hostinger vs Kinsta – Close Match, but Only One Winner [2024]

You know it’s going to be a challenging comparison when you put two popular hosts like Hostinger and Kinsta against each other, especially when they cater to different needs.

Hostinger is an all-around host that offers a variety of services for personal and business users. Kinsta focuses on top-of-the-line managed cloud-based WordPress hosting solutions.

To properly compare Hostinger and Kinsta, not only did I compare the WordPress hosting offerings, but I also tested both services across multiple parameters. Despite the close results, Hostinger came out the winner for combining budget-friendly rates and robust performance.

Keep reading to discover what makes Hostinger the winner of this comparison.

1. Plans and Pricing

Hostinger Gives You Lots of Budget-Friendly Options

Hostinger has a wide variety of hosting solutions, including shared, VPS, cloud, managed WordPress, email, e-commerce, CMS, and Minecraft hosting. On the other hand, Kinsta only provides managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting. For that reason, we’ll focus on Hostinger’s WordPress plans for the purpose of this comparison.

Hostinger has three WordPress hosting plans for beginners and businesses, whereas Kinsta offers six WordPress hosting packages suitable for small businesses, as well as custom packages for demanding enterprises.

With Hostinger, you can subscribe monthly, annually, biennially, or quadrennially (48 months). Kinsta only allows you to choose monthly or annual billing cycles. However, you get two months for free when you sign up for the annual term.

Hostinger has significantly lower prices (with and without discounts). For example, Kinsta’s smallest plan costs more than double the regular price of Hostinger’s WordPress Starter plan.

Both hosts offer free website migration and a 30-day money-back guarantee; however, you’ll only get a free domain with Hostinger.

The winner? Hostinger easily wins the pricing challenge. It delivers everything you need from a hosting service without blowing your budget. However, if you have a heavily trafficked website and enough room in your budget, then you can go for Kinsta.

2. Features

It’s a Tie! Both Hosts Have Feature-Packed Plans Depending on Your Needs

When you look at Hostinger and Kinsta’s managed WordPress hosting, the number of features can be overwhelming. Let’s discuss some of the most notable ones.

Starting with the similarities, both Hostinger and Kinsta provide SSD-based storage, free CDN, free SSL certificate, site staging, custom control panels (hPanel with Hostinger and MyKinsta admin with Kinsta), and SSH access with all packages.

Now, for the differences.

With Hostinger Managed WordPress hosting, you can host 100 to 300 websites, get 100 email accounts, from 100 GB to 200 GB of disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited FTP accounts, and unlimited Cron jobs.

All plans come with LiteSpeed Cache, WordPress acceleration, WooCommerce, GitHub integration, and a variety of themes and plugins.

Hostinger also provides weekly or daily backups, depending on your plan.

On the other hand, Kinsta lets you host from 1 to 60+ hosted websites, gives you from 10 GB to 100+ GB disk space, and from 20,000 to 1 million+ monthly visits. Unlike Hostinger, all plans come with daily backups.

Kinsta also has a multi-user environment that enables you to assign and manage users by giving them access to your websites and billing. Kinsta hosts all of its WordPress packages on the Google Cloud Platform.

With Kinsta’s 1-click site cloning feature, you’ll be able to clone any of your live websites or staging environments to build a template for your client.

Discover more differences between Hostinger and Kinsta using the following comparison table:

3. Performance

It’s Another Tie! Both Hostinger and Kinsta Deliver Top-Notch Performance

Hostinger operates via server locations in the U.K., France, Brazil, the U.S.A., India, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Lithuania. On the other hand, Kinsta has servers in more than 20 locations all over the world.

Both hosts provide a free CDN (Content Delivery Network) with all plans, placing your website on a global network of cloud servers. Among other benefits, a CDN boosts the loading speed of your website from different locations.

You’ll also get SSD storage instead of the regular HDD storage, which performs faster in website data processing. This speed reflects on your website’s loading speed and overall performance.

Hostinger and Kinsta have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and when tested, showed perfect uptimes and exceeded this promise.

Even though these hosts differ in server locations, they both got perfect scores when testing loading speeds from various locations (without a CDN).

Check out Hostinger’s detailed performance test results in our expert’s full review. If you compare it with Kinsta’s results, in its detailed review, you’ll find that the global loading speed score is identical.

Both hosts show excellent performance in all related aspects making this round a tie.

4. Security

Hostinger Offers More Advanced Security Features

Even though Hostinger and Kinsta both provide DDoS protection, Hostinger applies this on multiple levels. It uses the Wanguard anti-DDoS traffic analyzer and intelligent firewall rules on switch level, BitNinja or Immunity360 (Web Application Firewall) on each server, and custom web server rules.

In saying that, Kinsta also implements strong firewalls and 24/7 server monitoring.

With the Linux-based shared hosting plans, both hosts use container technology systems. Hostinger uses CloudLinux OS, and Kinsta uses a similar system called LXC containers. Both systems are responsible for two things – securely isolating each account from other accounts on the same server and fairly allocating resources.

You’ll get free SSL certificates with all plans from both hosts, as well as free automatic regular backups. Kinsta performs its backups daily with all plans, while Hostinger takes backups weekly with some and daily with others.

It’s clear that both hosts take security very seriously, but Hostinger’s security measures are more advanced, making it the winner of the security round.

5. Support

It’s Easier to Get Help from Hostinger

Both Hostinger and Kinsta have extensive knowledgebase sections. However, Hostinger’s knowledgebase has more categories and is better organized, making it easier to navigate and find the information you require.

Hostinger provides 24/7 support via live chat and support tickets. I had to wait a while to connect to a live chat agent; however, the support staff was well-trained and knowledgeable. In other words, you will get the help you need.

Kinsta’s support is also available 24/7 via live chat, email, and phone. However, you can only access the live chat once you have subscribed, and the phone channel is one-way, meaning you must request a call-back. Once you’re past these complications, the support staff are responsive and helpful.

Even though it can take some time to connect with Hostinger’s support, it’s easier to seek help than with Kinsta. Plus, Hostinger’s impressive knowledgebase leaves little room for questions.

Both Are Great Hosts, but Hostinger Wins by a Hair

Although both Hostinger and Kinsta are among the top 10 web hosting services, it’s a win for Hostinger in this neck-and-neck comparison.

Hostinger offers an array of hosting plans from simple shared hosting to VPS and cloud hosting, whereas Kinsta only specializes in WordPress and WooCommerce hosting. Kinsta can’t beat Hostinger’s cheap prices and support.

Nevertheless, both services were equal when it came to performance and features with the managed WordPress hosting plans.

Although Hostinger emerges as the victor in this competition, Kinsta presents itself as an exceptional choice for demanding business websites. Your hosting requirements ultimately determine the most suitable option.

FAQ

What is managed WordPress hosting?

When a host offers managed WordPress plans, they are taking most of the technical burden of your WordPress site’s administration off your shoulders. Hostinger’s managed WordPress team will take care of things like installing WordPress for you, automatically updating and caching your site, and other WordPress and server related tasks. Managed hosting is less of a “hosting package” and more of a hosting service.

Is managed WordPress hosting secure?

Managed WordPress hosting is often more secure than simple shared hosting. The reason is the added attention to security that most hosts offer in their managed services. For example, Kinsta’s managed WordPress hosting includes 720 site checks a day.

Do I need managed WordPress hosting?

That depends. It’s true you can install WordPress on most shared hosting plans. And then you are stuck doing the maintenance and updating of your WordPress site on your own. Hostinger’s managed WordPress hosting takes all that away from you. If you prefer to DIY, and have the skills to do so, no, you don’t need managed WordPress hosting. If you don’t have the time or the experience, then the answer is yes.

Which is better for WooCommerce sites, Hostinger or Kinsta?

Both hosts could offer your WooCommerce site a good home. Kinsta offers WooCommerce plans, but in all honesty, they offer the exact same features as its “regular” managed WordPress plans. Hostinger’s advanced security features mean your WooCommerce site and your customers’ data would be well protected. The difference lies in what your site needs and what your budget can support.