Hostinger vs DreamHost: Our Expert Recommendation in 2025

Hostinger and DreamHost are among the most well-known names in web hosting. This popularity doesn’t come purely from being extremely marketing-conscious companies (though, to be fair, also that), but mainly because they’re often considered two of the best budget options on the market.

However, when you consider everything you need from a hosting provider, such as consistently good page loading speeds, state-of-the-art security, and good value for money, you’ll probably find that one of these hosts delivers more than the other.

That’s why I took it upon myself to test them. I won’t keep you waiting: I would recommend Hostinger to nearly everyone who’s weighing these two hosts against one another. In fact, there’s only really one case where I might recommend DreamHost over Hostinger.

It’s not that DreamHost is a bad-quality service. In fact, it’s one of the best budget-friendly hosts I’ve come across, which makes Hostinger’s win all the more impressive. Keep reading to find out what exactly makes Hostinger so special – and why DreamHost doesn’t quite measure up.

Plans and Pricing

DreamHost Offers Good Value but Hostinger Raises the Bar

The variety of hosting plans offered by both Hostinger and DreamHost is enough to give anyone decision fatigue. Both providers offer a full suite of plans for shared, cloud, virtual private server (VPS), and managed WordPress hosting. They also both offer agency-friendly hosting. In fact, the only significant difference is that DreamHost offers dedicated server hosting.

DreamHost has a slight edge in terms of plans, however, because of its unlimited features. The aptly named Shared Unlimited plan allows you to launch as many websites as you want, and you get unlimited bandwidth and SSD storage as well. In comparison, Hostinger’s shared hosting plans have storage and site hosting caps. In this regard, DreamHost wins points for its low prices and good value.

But that’s not to say that you should automatically discount Hostinger. Hostinger truly shines with its impressive managed WordPress features. These performance and security optimizations are included with all shared and cloud plans. Hostinger also has the edge on pricing for managed WordPress, too, as DreamHost’s DreamPress plans cost quite a bit more.

But! – I hear you say from the other side of the screen (somehow) – Isn’t “unlimited” better than 25 or 50 websites? Yeah, in theory. While you won’t find unlimited resources with Hostinger, in practical terms, 25–50 GB of storage and the same number of website limits are much more than what the average user will need.

You also have to factor in Hostinger’s superior infrastructure. DreamHost can’t get anywhere near Hostinger’s performance scores, as you’ll see in a bit. DreamHost may make a good option for basic shared hosting, but combine faster, better performance with managed WordPress services, and even the pricier Business plan makes Hostinger the better choice for shared hosting.

If you’ve made up your mind and are ready to commit to either host, I recommend that you sign up for the longest possible term for your chosen plan, which will reduce your month-to-month expenses dramatically. Hostinger lets you lock in your first-term discount for up to 4 years, while DreamHost offers up to 3 years.

Features

Hostinger Has Some Major Advantages Over DreamHost

Hostinger and DreamHost offer free SSL certificates, a free AI-powered site builder, easy-to-use control panels, and generous money-back guarantees. The similar features would naturally make this a close call, right? Ah, but having tested both hosts, I know that’s not quite the case. Hostinger definitely takes the lead with a couple of special features.

First, Hostinger offers unlimited free migrations, which is especially useful for agency plans. DreamHost offers a free DIY migration tool but charges $199/per site migration unless you purchase a DreamPress plan.

Secondly, Hostinger has some cool AI tools. While both hosts give you an AI-powered site builder for WordPress, Hostinger also offers its own AI builder that doesn’t require a WordPress platform. Hostinger’s AI builders also use gen-AI to create content, make SEO suggestions, and source images. And there’s also Horizons, an AI app builder that can generate an app (website, landing page, productivity tools, and more) with just a few prompts.

The third difference is a little technical, and it involves the type of server software and storage used. DreamHost relies on the traditional Apache web server as the main software for its servers. I won’t get too much into the specifics here, but rest assured that this is not a bad thing. Apache has been one of the most popular web server platforms for a reason. DreamHost also uses SSD storage – again, not a bad thing, but not exactly the best option out there.

Hostinger uses LiteSpeed as its main web server software. LiteSpeed offers better static and dynamic content caching performance for sites, especially those built with PHP. The key to this is the integrated LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress (LSCWP) plugin, which sets up advanced caching solutions that you can toggle on and off. When it comes to storage, Hostinger includes faster, newer NVMe storage in its Business and cloud plans.

That’s all to say that if you were to host the exact same WordPress site on both hosts, you would likely get better loading speeds from Hostinger – which we did, as you’ll see in the Performance section below.

Even without the LSCWP plugin, Hostinger would beat DreamHost in this category thanks to its user-friendly hPanel, a proprietary option that I found to be superior to the classic hosting management panel cPanel. hPanel lets you manage all aspects of your account and hosting in one place and it’s easy to use and visually intuitive. It’s great for beginners to learn the ins and outs of hosting while allowing seasoned professionals to do their work more efficiently.

That doesn’t mean that DreamHost’s control panel is hard to use. If it was competing against other web hosts, its ease-of-use features might give it an edge. It’s just hard to beat Hostinger in this category.

Let’s make a brief mention of email, while we’re at it. Hostinger provides free email for your first year on all three of its plans. You’ll receive 2 accounts per domain, with a 1 GB storage limit. On the other hand, DreamHost charges a monthly fee to include email in the Starter package, but the Unlimited plan comes with unlimited email accounts with 25 GB storage limits.

Like I said, it’s hard to beat Hostinger when it comes to features. Few hosts can, and DreamHost certainly can’t.

Here, you can see a more in-depth comparison of the features offered by both hosts:

Performance

Hostinger Outperforms DreamHost at Every Turn

Comparing the number of data center locations in this case almost feels unfair. Hostinger is one of the biggest hosting providers out there, with servers in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. In comparison, DreamHost is much more of a grassroots operation with a handful of servers located across the US.

Hostinger includes LiteSpeed web servers with the LiteSpeed cache enabled by default on its shared and cloud hosting plans. You can see the effect of these optimizations in our GTmetrix test results. Hostinger scored an A, while DreamHost only scored a B. Our Hostinger site was fully loaded in just 0.82 seconds, while it took a full 2.6 seconds for our DreamHost site to load.

In our review of Hostinger, we recorded excellent results with Sucuri’s Load Time Tester, which tests the performance and speed of a site through different servers around the world – these results were from a data center based in the US without Hostinger’s proprietary CDN enabled. Results were excellent in the US, exceptional in Europe, and decent almost everywhere else.

DreamHost, on the other hand, didn’t perform as well. Our in-depth review showed some widely variable results, with performances ranging from pretty okay (a second or so) to atrocious (2-3+ seconds). I wouldn’t recommend this host if your primary audience is based in Asia or Oceania. However, activating a CDN might improve those results.

Both hosts offer what sound like too-good-to-be-true uptime guarantees, with 99% and 100% respectively. The surprising thing is, as far as we have been able to tell, both hosts deliver on these promises.

Still, reliability and high performance are two of the most important aspects of any hosting provider, and Hostinger offers more of both.

Security

Hostinger’s Cloudflare DNS Gives You More Secure Hosting

Hostinger and DreamHost offer free SSL certificates with all plans. An SSL certificate ensures that your visitors will be able to access your website securely, with the added bonus that your site will rank slightly higher in Google’s search results than it would without an SSL.

Hostinger also offers automatic weekly backups on its Premium plan, so you can restore a previous version of your site in the event of a malware infection. You can get automatic daily and on-demand backups, but only on its Business Shared Hosting plan. In contrast, DreamHost offers free automated daily backups for all its shared plans.

Security-wise, these two hosts would be pretty much tied if it wasn’t for the fact that only Hostinger offers a Cloudflare DNS Firewall. This is an extra layer of security for Hostinger’s nameservers, which gives Hostinger an edge. DreamHost also offers an industry-standard firewall (Web Application Firewall), which Hostinger also offers.

All in all, both hosts provide respectable security overall, with Hostinger taking a slight lead with its Cloudflare-protected nameservers.

Support

Hostinger’s Support Is More Consistent

This is the one category where neither host has that much to brag about. Whereas both Hostinger and DreamHost offer excellent features, performance, security, and pricing, neither host offers remarkable customer service. This has been verified not only by our own extensive internal reviews, but also by a ton of external user reviews.

We’ll start with DreamHost. According to its claims, DreamHost provides round-the-clock live chat support and phone callbacks. However, it can be a challenge to get through to a live support agent, as you need to get through an AI chatbot first.

But as headache-inducing as contacting DreamHost’s customer support can be, the actual support is incredibly helpful. Just be aware that support’s likely to direct you to self-help articles that you could have found yourself.

Hostinger also offers its own version of an AI chatbot, nicknamed Kodee. Unlike DreamHost, Hostinger’s AI “helper” can give advice on which plan to purchase, quickly find any information on features and specs, and help with light technical support. Kodee thoroughly answered my questions within seconds. You’ll still have to verify some of its information, but given how responsive this chatbot is, using Kodee could save you time in the long run.

Like DreamHost, Hostinger also provides 24/7 live chat support, and the situation is quite similar. You’ll have to wade through a bunch of self-help articles before you can contact a live agent. While not excessively long, wait times could be improved and the quality of support is satisfactory.

When we tested Hostinger’s live support, the answers we got were professional, courteous, and – crucially – honest. If there was anything that was beyond the scope of Hostinger’s own support agents, they would say so outright. For that reason, Hostinger edges out DreamHost when it comes to support.

Regardless of your choice, I suggest you first explore the forums and knowledge bases. Both Hostinger and DreamHost provide a wide range of information about how to use their service, with solutions to usual queries, and beyond. If you’re in a tight spot, it’s likely you’ll find helpful details faster this way. You can also try Kodee for AI-assisted searches.

Hostinger Outshines DreamHost in Every Category

DreamHost is a very good hosting provider, with plenty of features and decent performance. If this was a comparison of DreamHost versus most other hosting providers on the market, I’m sure it would have fared better. Overall, its Shared Unlimited plan is hard to beat and especially valuable for web developers managing multiple landing pages and small sites for clients.

Nevertheless, Hostinger offers more. This “more” includes an intuitively designed in-house control panel, quality features for less money, outstanding performance, and excellent value overall. I not only recommend Hostinger here – it also sits atop our list of the best web hosting services in 2025.

Take a look at the comparison table below to see how these two hosts fared against each other:

FAQ

Is Hostinger better than DreamHost?

Both Hostinger and DreamHost are very good hosting providers, especially for small-to-medium websites. However, Hostinger offers customers much more, including better page loading speeds, superior features, and better value overall. Regardless of whether you have a small WordPress website or a budding e-commerce store, Hostinger is the better option because of its free performance enhancements, including LiteSpeed caching.

Is Hostinger better than DreamHost for WordPress hosting?

Both host offer options for WordPress, but only Hostinger offers managed shared plans. We’ve found that Hostinger offers better WordPress caching optimization, and it generally tends to give you a better WordPress setup experience. Because of this, I would recommend Hostinger over DreamHost.

Is Hostinger fast?

The short answer is yes. Hostinger offers some of the best performance out of the hundreds of hosting providers that we’ve tested. That said, the speed of your site depends on more than the server or the software. A well-optimized site with poor hosting will be better than a poorly-optimized one with great hosting any day.

How reliable is DreamHost?

DreamHost offers a very enticing 100% uptime guarantee, and in our tests, we’ve seen it’st able to deliver on this promise. That being said, what’s the point of a reliable site that loads slowly? Hostinger has a 99.9% uptime guarantee and also delivered a 100% uptime in our tests – plus it offers faster loading speeds in the US and worldwide over DreamHost.