- Best for: Most SiteGround users who want lower long-term cost per site without giving up managed WordPress essentials.
- Avoid if: You want guaranteed phone support included on basic plans or you need strict enterprise compliance options on shared hosting.
- Biggest tradeoff: Hostinger is cheaper at scale, but DreamHost is clearer on uptime guarantees and support process.
I compared these as a buyer decision, not a brand popularity contest. Scope: shared/managed WordPress plans, published pricing, renewal rates, support model, and scaling limits as of February 16, 2026. Limits: I’m using provider-published data, so real speed still depends on your theme, plugins, cache setup, and traffic geography.
Head-to-Head: Tool A vs Tool B
| Decision factor | Hostinger | DreamHost | What It Means in Practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price (promo) | Premium starts at $1.99/mo on a 48-month term | Launch starts at $2.89/mo first year | Hostinger’s front-door price is lower, but only if you commit longer. |
| Renewal price | Premium renews at $10.99/mo; Business at $16.99/mo | Launch renews at $10.99/mo; Growth at $12.99/mo | Renewal gap is smaller than ads suggest; the real difference is plan limits per dollar. |
| Included site capacity | Premium: up to 3 websites; Business: up to 50 | Launch: 25 websites; Growth: 50 | DreamHost gives multi-site room earlier; Hostinger pushes you to Business for larger portfolios. |
| Storage | 20 GB SSD (Premium), 50 GB NVMe (Business) | 25 GB NVMe (Launch), 50 GB NVMe (Growth) | Similar raw storage at comparable tiers; check backup retention and inode limits before migrating. |
| Traffic guidance | No strict visit count shown on these plans | Launch: 40k monthly visits, Growth: 200k | DreamHost gives clearer planning numbers; easier for non-technical forecasting. |
| Uptime guarantee | 99.9% uptime guarantee | 100% uptime guarantee in ToS (with credit terms) | DreamHost is stronger on paper, though credits never recover lost revenue. |
| Control panel | hPanel by default; cPanel/WHM requires VPS + separate license | Custom DreamHost panel | Both avoid standard cPanel on core plans; expect a small learning curve either way. |
| Support model | AI-first chat entry with specialist escalation | 24/7 chat/email; callback is paid on many plans | If you want immediate human routing every time, DreamHost feels less automated. |
SiteGround reference point: StartUp is currently shown at $2.99/mo promo, renews $17.99/mo on annual prepaid terms. That renewal jump is exactly why most users start looking around.
Pricing Breakdown
Date checked for all pricing: 2026-02-16.
Hostinger (WordPress hosting page)
- Premium: $1.99/mo promo for 48 months; renews $10.99/mo.
- Business + AI: $2.99/mo promo for 48 months; renews $16.99/mo.
- Cloud Startup + AI: $6.99/mo promo; renews $25.99/mo.
- Source: https://www.hostinger.com/wordpress-hosting
DreamHost (pricing page)
- Launch: $2.89/mo first year; auto-renews $10.99/mo.
- Growth: $3.99/mo first year; auto-renews $12.99/mo.
- Scale: $9.99/mo first year; auto-renews $25.99/mo.
- Source: https://www.dreamhost.com/pricing/
SiteGround baseline (why alternatives matter)
- StartUp: $2.99/mo promo, renews $17.99/mo (12-month prepaid shown).
- GrowBig: $4.99/mo promo, renews $29.99/mo.
- GoGeek: $7.99/mo promo, renews $44.99/mo.
- Source: https://www.siteground.com/website-builder
Plain-language cost read
For one small site, Hostinger Premium and DreamHost Launch both renew at $10.99/mo. The split appears when you run multiple projects: DreamHost includes more sites earlier, while Hostinger’s Business tier is often the better value once you need daily/on-demand backups and staging in one package. SiteGround remains materially higher at renewal for equivalent shared tiers.
Where Each Tool Pulls Ahead
Pricing (intro + renewal)
Hostinger wins if your goal is minimum total spend over a long commitment. A 48-month promo at $1.99/mo is aggressive. The catch is commitment length and sharper plan jumps when you outgrow Premium.
DreamHost wins on cleaner billing logic. “First year at X, renews at Y” is easy to model, and the 25-site Launch plan removes early multi-site penalties.
Performance
DreamHost has the stronger written uptime position: 100% uptime guarantee in its Terms of Service, with service credits capped at 10% of the next renewal fee. Hostinger advertises 99.9% uptime guarantee, the industry norm.
In practical terms, 99.9% allows roughly 43 minutes of monthly downtime budget. Most sites will never notice that if the stack is healthy, but high-intent stores and lead-gen funnels should care about the difference.
Sources:
Support
DreamHost is more transparent on support mechanics. Their knowledge base states 24/7 support, live chat availability, and typical response targets (minutes on chat, around 1-2 hours via email). Callback exists, but it is paid on many plans.
Hostinger routes support through Kodee (AI assistant) first, then escalates to specialists. That model is efficient for routine issues, less ideal when you want a human immediately for nuanced outages.
Sources:
- https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/218084068-Contacting-support-overview
- https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215721217-Does-DreamHost-offer-phone-support
- https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583780-how-to-contact-hostinger-support/
Control panel/dev tools
Hostinger’s hPanel is mature and fast for day-to-day tasks. But if your team standardizes on cPanel/WHM workflows, Hostinger’s own docs say you’ll need VPS plus separate licensing.
DreamHost also uses a custom panel, so neither is a drop-in cPanel clone. For developers, this is less about “better panel” and more about whether your existing SOPs depend on cPanel conventions.
Sources:
- https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583565-is-cpanel-whm-supported-at-hostinger
- https://www.dreamhost.com/pricing/
Scalability
Hostinger scales harder at the top of shared/cloud entry, including larger website counts and higher-resource cloud tiers. DreamHost scales more predictably in shared with published visit guidance (40k, 200k, 400k tiers), which is easier for planning migrations before bottlenecks appear.
If you run client work, this is the boring part that saves you. Forecasting beats emergency upgrades every time.
The Verdict
Winner: Hostinger for the majority of SiteGround switchers, mainly on long-term value and feature depth per dollar once you step beyond a single brochure site.
Ranked picks by user type:
- Budget-focused blogger or first site: Hostinger Premium.
- Freelancer/agency with many low-traffic sites: DreamHost Growth if you want cleaner multi-site limits early; Hostinger Business if you want stronger bundled tooling.
- WooCommerce or revenue-critical projects: DreamHost if you prioritize uptime language and support clarity; Hostinger Cloud Startup if you need more headroom per account quickly.
- Developer with cPanel-dependent workflow: Neither is ideal on base plans; pick based on willingness to adapt to custom panels.
Switch trigger: move off SiteGround when your renewal is within 30 days and your projected annual hosting bill rises above what Hostinger Business or DreamHost Growth would cost for equal site count and storage.