Hostinger and Cloudways solve overlapping problems from opposite ends of the market. Hostinger is a budget managed shared host that hides infrastructure entirely; Cloudways is a management layer on top of raw cloud providers you pick yourself.
This comparison is based on 90 days of production use of both platforms with equivalent WordPress workloads.
At a glance
Hostinger wins on price, simplicity and out-of-the-box completeness (email, control panel, AI builder). Cloudways wins on raw performance, scaling headroom, developer tooling and multi-site value.
Who should pick Hostinger
Choose Hostinger if you're launching your first site, running fewer than 100k monthly visitors, want everything in one dashboard including email, and prefer a fixed monthly price you don't have to think about.
Who should pick Cloudways
Choose Cloudways if you manage multiple client sites, run WooCommerce with meaningful revenue, want Redis and Varnish out of the box, or need git deployment and staging as first-class citizens.
Feature comparison
| Hostinger | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Underlying infrastructure | Hostinger's own data centres | DO / Vultr / Linode / AWS / GCP |
| Control panel | hPanel (custom) | Cloudways platform (custom) |
| Object caching (Redis / Memcached) | Not on shared | Included on every plan |
| Staging + git deploy | Business + Cloud tiers | Every plan |
| Email hosting | Included from Business | Add-on (Rackspace / Google) |
| AI website builder | Included | Not included |
Pricing comparison
| Hostinger | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price (advertised) | $2.99/mo (48-mo) | $14/mo (DO 1 GB) |
| Honest ongoing price | $8–11/mo renewal | $14–16/mo flat |
| Multiple sites value | Great on Business+ | Excellent — per server pricing |
| Refund window | 30 days | 3-day free trial, then paid |
Speed comparison
| Hostinger | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| TTFB (EU origin) | 180–260 ms | 90–180 ms (Vultr HF) |
| Sustained load headroom | ~80 concurrent on shared | 300+ concurrent on 2 GB Vultr |
| CDN | Free Hostinger CDN + Cloudflare | Free Cloudflare + optional Enterprise |
Ease of use
| Hostinger | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner-friendliness | Excellent | Moderate |
| Developer tooling | Basic | Full: SSH, git, WP-CLI |
| One-click app installs | WordPress + a few others | WordPress, WooCommerce, Laravel, Magento |
Who should choose each option
- First-time site owners
- Small business sites
- WordPress blogs under 100k visits
- Tight budgets
- Freelancers and agencies
- WooCommerce stores
- Developers who want managed cloud
- Anyone who has outgrown shared
Final verdict
Up to 75% off Hostinger + 3 months free
Reader-exclusive discount on Premium and Business shared plans. · Limited time
Affiliate disclosure: some links on this page earn Golvra a commission at no cost to you.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cloudways really faster than Hostinger?
In our tests, yes — meaningfully so under sustained load. On a single warm-cached page view the difference is smaller.
Can Hostinger host WooCommerce?
Small stores yes; anything doing serious revenue benefits from Cloudways or Kinsta.
Does Cloudways charge more if I add sites?
No — the server price is fixed regardless of how many sites you host on it, within resource limits.
Which has better support?
Hostinger's first-response is faster on average; Cloudways' second-tier engineers are deeper.
Can I migrate from Hostinger to Cloudways later?
Yes — Cloudways offers one free migration per account via their team, and additional migrations via the WordPress Migrator plugin.