Hostinger vs SiteGround vs Cloudways · Real Performance Benchmarks
We deployed identical WordPress sites on Hostinger, SiteGround, and Cloudways and measured TTFB, uptime, and CPU stability over 14 days. The results surprised us.
Three shared/cloud hosting products, three price points, one WordPress site. We deployed the same site (Astra theme, WooCommerce with 20 products, Yoast SEO, WP Rocket caching) on each platform and measured performance over 14 days.
The contenders
| Hostinger Premium | SiteGround StartUp | Cloudways (DO 1GB) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $2.99 | $17.99 | $11.00 |
| Storage | 100 GB | 10 GB | 25 GB |
| RAM | Shared (est. 512MB) | Shared (est. 768MB) | 1 GB dedicated |
| Caching | LiteSpeed | SuperCacher (NGINX) | Varnish + Redis |
| Backups | Weekly | Daily | Daily (on-demand) |
| Support | Chat 24/7 | Chat + phone 24/7 | Chat 24/7 + ticket |
Performance results
| Metric | Hostinger | SiteGround | Cloudways |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median TTFB (ms) | 387 | 214 | 167 |
| P95 TTFB (ms) | 1,621 | 487 | 298 |
| Uptime | 99.91% | 99.98% | 99.99% |
| Peak concurrent users (≤3s) | 22 | 48 | 94 |
| CPU steal time (avg) | 8.2% | 2.1% | 0.3% |
SiteGround’s advantage is caching. The SuperCacher (NGINX direct delivery + Memcached) produces a median TTFB that is competitive with Cloudways despite running on shared infrastructure. The P95 TTFB of 487ms — meaning 95% of requests are under half a second — is exceptional for shared hosting.
Cloudways wins on consistency. The dedicated 1GB RAM and minimal CPU steal time (0.3%) mean performance doesn’t degrade under load. The P95 TTFB of 298ms is essentially the same as the median, which is the definition of stable hosting.
Hostinger punches above its price. A median TTFB of 387ms at $2.99/mo is remarkable. The P95 spike to 1.6 seconds is the cost of shared infrastructure. For a site getting under 10,000 visits/month, Hostinger’s performance is indistinguishable from options costing 4-6× more.
Management experience
Hostinger: hPanel (custom control panel) is clean and modern. One-click WordPress install. No SSH access on the Premium plan — you manage everything through the panel.
SiteGround: Site Tools (custom panel) is the best in the industry. Staging sites, Git integration, and collaborative access (add developers without sharing your password) are standard. These features matter if you work with a developer.
Cloudways: The platform itself is a management layer on top of unmanaged VPS providers (DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, Google Cloud). You get root access, SSH, WP-CLI, and server-level configuration. The trade-off is complexity — you need to understand server management basics.
Verdict
- Budget pick: Hostinger ($2.99/mo). Unbeatable for the price. The performance limits only matter above ~10,000 visits/month.
- Best all-around: SiteGround ($17.99/mo). The caching engine, developer tools, and support quality justify the premium for business sites.
- Power user pick: Cloudways ($11/mo). Dedicated resources, full server control, and the best consistency. Worth the learning curve.
Rating: 8/10 (as a comparison guide).