Shared hosting that does not eat the weekend
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Shared hosting is a bunk bed: you share a machine with strangers, the landlord (the host) patches the roof, and your brochure lives in a folder. For a first US local business site, that is enough. A VPS is an apartment you have to plumb yourself. See when you do not need a VPS.
This site’s default is Hostinger shared hosting. We are not Hostinger’s purple storefront. Plan names change. We will not freeze a SKU or a teaser price. Verify current plans and renewals on their site.
What a brochure site actually uses
- A place to put HTML or WordPress
- A domain pointing at it (the domain you already own)
- HTTPS
- A backup you could restore
- Enough CPU and disk that a 20-page site with photos does not fall over
What it does not use in month one:
- Staging, Git, Redis, and a CDN you cannot spell
- Five add-on domains you will not launch
- “SEO tools” sold at checkout
- A second hosting plan “for email”
- Dedicated IP theater
If your site is one page with a phone number, you are not a scale problem. You are a publish problem.
First-year discounts vs the bill that matters
Hosts sell the first term cheap and the renewal at a real number. That is not a secret, and it is not unique to Hostinger. Budget the renewal. If the renewal would make you angry, pick a shorter term or a different product (including a builder).
We will not quote the teaser or the renewal. They move. Look at both on the merchant page. Multi-year prepay can be rational if you keep sites still. It is a bad bet if you might move to Squarespace in nine months.
Auto-renew on a card you watch. A lapsed host is a down shopfront. Same energy as a lapsed domain.
What to leave unchecked at checkout
- Extra domain privacy products if the domain already has privacy at the registrar
- Professional email bundles if you are using Google Workspace or Microsoft 365
- Website-builder add-ons if you came here to upload files
- Backup upsells until you know whether daily backups are already included — then add only if they are not
- “AI site generator” as a substitute for writing your service area and phone number
The same skip-the-pile rule as Start A Site uses at the registrar.
Control panel, files, and WordPress
Hostinger’s panel (hPanel, as they currently brand it) is how you create the site, install WordPress if you insist, manage SSL, and see DNS if you pointed nameservers at them. You do not need to live in it. You need to finish publish.
If you have a static export (index.html and friends), use the file manager or FTP/SFTP as they document. Upload to the public folder they name (often public_html). Confirm yoursite.com loads your page, not their placeholder.
If you install WordPress, create the admin in the shop’s email, not a nephew’s Gmail. 2FA if they offer it. Delete default posts. Put the phone number on the home page before you pick a theme that looks like a restaurant.
Performance, without a synthetic lab
We did not run a 47-host bake-off. We will not invent uptime percentages. Shared hosting is fine for a local brochure. It will feel slow if you install a 4 MB hero video autoplay and twelve plugins. That is the theme, not the host.
Photos: resize before upload. A phone image straight from the camera is how a plumber’s site dies on cellular. HTTPS: on. Caching: one plugin or the host’s cache toggle, not three.
If the site is still slow, the next step is fewer plugins, not a VPS.
Security, without a novelty seal
Updates. Strong admin password. HTTPS. Do not install abandoned plugins. Do not give FTP to a stranger forever. That is the stack.
A padlock badge you pay extra for is theater. Browsers already show HTTPS. Customers care whether the number is right.
When shared hosting is the wrong product
- You need a builder this Saturday and have no files — go back to hosting vs builder
- You need mail, not a site — Business Email
- You have a developer who already named Kinsta, Cloudways, or a VPS — let them
- You need PCI-heavy e-commerce in week one. A plumber does not.
Shared is the default because it matches a one-page trade. Stay there until you can name the failure.