At first glance, there’s a lot that Hostinger and Germany-based STRATO have in common: a wide range of hosting options, proprietary AI-powered tools, and big promises about the cheapest prices on the market.
Under the hood, however, there are some significant differences between the two. Differences that can make a big impact on your business. That’s why I decided to test both thoroughly based on their features, pricing, security, performance, and support.
I’ll be upfront. Though STRATO put up a fight, Hostinger’s use of the latest technology, proprietary tools, and scalability makes it the best option for most business owners looking to make the most out of their investment.
That said, STRATO might still be a good option for small business websites, especially those based in Germany. You can get started with Hostinger right now, or keep reading to discover which hosting provider is best for your needs.
Plans and Pricing
Hostinger Is Simply More Flexible
Hostinger offers standard shared hosting as well as specialized managed hosting for WordPress, WooCommerce, and email hosting. For those looking for something more advanced, it also offers cloud hosting and virtual private server (VPS) hosting with configurations for Linux, Windows, n8n, and gaming servers.
STRATO, on the other hand – well, it’s a little more complicated. Available hosting varies depending on your region. In France and the UK, for example, STRATO only offers shared hosting. In Germany (where the company is headquartered), STRATO offers every type of shared, VPS, and cloud hosting that Hostinger does (except for n8n and gaming VPSs), plus dedicated managed and unmanaged servers.
STRATO allows for yearly and monthly payments on its plans, while Hostinger offers billing options for payments made monthly, yearly, every two years, and even every four years. Outside of STRATO’s hosting basic plan, STRATO also charges a setup fee for each of its plans if you choose to pay monthly, while Hostinger doesn’t.
Though the payment flexibility is better with Hostinger, Hostinger’s plans are slightly pricier than STRATO’s equivalents if you pay on an annual basis. Both offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. But if you’re willing to pay for four-year hosting in advance, Hostinger is way more affordable. It still wins this round for payment flexibility and for the value it offers for its price.
In shorter words, Hostinger offers more features for similar prices compared to STRATO.
Features
Hostinger Offers More Features on Comparable Plans
Both STRATO and Hostinger offer features that go beyond your standard hosting plans. Both offer an extensive selection of hosting plans for different businesses and managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting for beginners. Both even have a proprietary website builder with AI-generation features, though Hostinger’s web builder is far better than STRATO’s in my opinion.
Hostinger, however, offers all of its features worldwide. Not to get tiresome with this point, but STRATO only offers its best features in a handful of countries (namely, Germany, the Netherlands, and to a lesser extent, Spain).
Regardless of location, Hostinger’s technology also beats STRATO’s by a slight margin. For example, while STRATO uses simple SSDs for storage, Hostinger uses the newer NVMe SSDs, which provide better speeds. Hostinger also employs more advanced CPU technology for its servers. This is especially important for shared hosting since it involves sharing server resources with other users.
Here’s an overview of the shared hosting features offered by Hostinger and STRATO, so you can easily compare the two providers.
| Hostinger | STRATO | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting types | Shared, WordPress, WooCommerce, email, cloud hosting, and VPS | Shared, WordPress, WooCommerce, email, cloud hosting, and VPS (hosting types vary by region) |
| Free domain name | ✔ (on annual billing and higher, for the first year) | ✔ (on annual billing, permanent) |
| Free SSL | ✔ | ✔ (1–6) |
| Number of websites | 3–100 | 2–75 |
| Storage | 20 GB SSD–100 GB NVMe | 50 GB–200 GB SSD |
| Bandwidth | Unmetered | Unmetered |
| Control panel | hPanel (proprietary) | STRATO Portal and STRATO Server |
| Free CDN | ✔ (from Business plan) | ✘ |
| Email accounts | 1–10 | 1–5 |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | 30 days |
Hostinger also has extra features like a proprietary caching plugin for WordPress and includes AI tools for Elementor and WooCommerce. So, whether it’s about nice-to-haves or underlying server infrastructure, Hostinger wins when it comes to features.
Performance
Hostinger outperforms STRATO
If you’re looking to reach a global audience, there’s no point wasting your time: Hostinger performs better worldwide. Hostinger offers 13 data centers located across Europe, North and South America, and Asia, while STRATO offers 2 data centers in Germany – one in Berlin and another in Karlsruhe.
When we performed our in-depth testing, Hostinger was one of the best performers amongst shared hosting options, with fully loaded times of 0.8 seconds on average. That’s partly because of performance optimization features like its proprietary content delivery network (CDN), dual uplinks with multiple ISPs, proprietary WordPress optimization tools, and GZIP compression.
Hostinger offers you a 99.9% uptime guarantee (backed by a 5% credit of your monthly fee for downtime). When I tested, its performance was excellent, the details of which are available in our expert Hostinger review.
STRATO delivers very competitive loading speeds within Europe, but its limited data centers and relatively outdated technology make it less appealing in other regions. Depending on your plan, STRATO offers a 99 to 99.99% network availability SLA. However, its performance lagged behind Hostinger’s. Get more details in our expert STRATO review.
So, when it comes to performance, Hostinger wins again.
Security
STRATO Takes the Win When It Comes to Security
Hostinger offers multiple tools to keep hosted sites secure. It includes the essentials like SSL certificates, automatic backups, and a web application firewall. It also uses CloudLinux LVE containers to isolate sites on shared servers to prevent the spread of compromises, proactive server monitoring, and Wanguard anti-DDoS protection.
On the other hand, STRATO offers a similar set of essential features to Hostinger, with a few added extras. It includes STRATO SiteGuard to monitor unauthorized write access and protect your webspace and directories. There’s also STRATO BackupControl that allows you to access backup copies at any time, without needing to request access from the provider. STRATO is also fully GDPR compliant and ISO 27001 certified.
So, though neither company is terrible on this front, STRATO wins on security.
Support
Different Approaches to Support but Both High-Quality
I’ll say this right out of the gate: both Hostinger and STRATO offer great customer support options. I’ve had to contact both services in the past (more than once) for different articles, and my experiences have always been really positive. Emphasis on my experiences.
STRATO offers ticket and phone support, though the latter is only available in German, which I don’t speak. That said, customer reviews from German users seem overall pretty pleased with the quality of its phone support, and its ticket system is not half-bad either.
I tested its ticket system in both English and German. Both times, I got knowledgeable responses in very respectable time frames (German support got back to me in less than three hours), though as you might expect, German support was considerably faster with more in-depth responses.
Hostinger offers live chat and email support for existing customers. When I tried Hostinger’s support, I got a response within a day, and my colleague received a response within 22 minutes.
It’s worth noting that Hostinger’s support relies heavily on redirecting you to its own knowledge base, regardless of which method you use to contact them. How bad or good that is will depend on your taste. The knowledge base is very helpful and it’s filled with detailed articles, but I understand why it might be frustrating to some people.
STRATO also has a knowledge base, though much more limited and harder to navigate. However, it feels like direct support is a lot more efficient. So far, this is pretty much a tie. But the not-so-pleasant recent experiences of other Hostinger users end up tilting this category just slightly in STRATO’s favor.
Hostinger Still Wins in the End
Even in spite of recent controversies, Hostinger offers an overall better hosting experience, with a dedicated hosting panel, more data centers in more locations, specialized tools, and improved performance across the board.
However, in the very specific case that you’re a small-business owner based in Germany, I would recommend STRATO for its more personal touch and specialization in the area. For the rest of the world and for any business expecting to grow a lot, Hostinger remains the clear winner.
In fact, Hostinger delivers such an array of features for a relatively low price that it’s not only my winner in this comparison, but one of the main hosts in our expert list of the best web hosting services in 2026.
FAQ
What are the key differences between Hostinger and STRATO?
Hostinger offers wider worldwide data centers, better server technology, and a larger suite of proprietary features. STRATO delivers quality hosting for Germany-based customers but falls short outside Europe. You can check out our in-depth comparison between Hostinger and STRATO.
Does STRATO offer WordPress hosting?
Yes, STRATO offers a suite of managed and unmanaged WordPress hosting options for Germany-based users. However, its dedicated WordPress hosting falls short when compared to other hosting providers like Hostinger.
Does STRATO offer VPS hosting?
Yes. STRATO offers Linux and Windows virtual private servers but only for customers in Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany. If you’re outside of these regions, I recommend going with a different hosting provider. You can check out our expert list of the top 10 VPS providers in 2026.
Is Hostinger better than STRATO?
The short answer is yes. For most customers, Hostinger’s increased feature selection, worldwide data centers, and faster worldwide speeds will make it a better option. If you’re looking for the best hosting for your website or business, I recommend taking a look at our list of the 10 best hosting providers in 2026.
