Hostinger vs Scaleway
A source-aware comparison of pricing, documented capabilities and workflow fit.
Short answer
- Price: not directly comparable — Hostinger is from $2.99/user/mo, Scaleway is usage-based pricing.
- How to start: Hostinger is from $2.99/user/mo, Scaleway is usage-based pricing.
- Where they differ: on what we checked they match — both offer public api.
These lines are generated from the pricing we track, not from a paid placement. How we score tools.
What Hostinger is
Hostinger's managed web-hosting plans combine hPanel, WordPress/PHP/Node.js support, SSL, email trials, backups, migration and AI tools. The lowest displayed monthly equivalents require 48 months paid upfront: current Premium, Unlimited and Cloud Startup offers renew at substantially higher monthly rates. “Unlimited” websites and mailboxes remain subject to storage, CPU, RAM, database and fair-use limits, and included email is free only for the stated first year.
What Scaleway is
Scaleway is a proprietary European cloud with virtual and GPU instances, bare metal, object/block storage, networking, Kubernetes, databases and serverless services. Virtual instances are pay-as-you-go by powered-on time; the advertised compute rate excludes storage and attached public IPv4, while list prices include IPv6 and egress. Savings Plans trade commitment for discounts. On raw instances the customer owns operating-system updates, access, application security, availability and backup design; managed products move only specified responsibilities to Scaleway.
Side by side
| Hostinger | Scaleway | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Hosting | Hosting |
| How to start | $2.99/user/moverified | Usage-basednot a monthly price |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | No | No |
| Open source / self-hostable | No | No |
| SSO (SAML) | No | No |
| Visit | Hostinger ↗ | Scaleway ↗ |
What Hostinger is built to do
- Managed hPanel hosting
- Centralizes websites, domains, databases, mail, files, resource usage and application setup.
- Tiered backups
- Premium has weekly backups; higher current tiers add daily or on-demand recovery options.
- Migration assistance
- Offers automated or assisted incoming website migration after purchasing a plan.
- Developer access
- Provides SSH, WP-CLI, PHP control, Git integration and current Node.js hosting options.
What Scaleway is built to do
- Virtual instances
- Offers development, general-purpose, memory, compute, GPU and other VM families.
- Storage choices
- Attaches local or block volumes and provides object, archive and snapshot services.
- Managed cloud products
- Includes Kubernetes, databases, registries and serverless services with product-specific boundaries.
- Usage and commitments
- Combines hourly use with optional Savings Plan discounts for committed consumption.
Choose Hostinger if
- Small WordPress and conventional code-based sites fitting the exact plan's resource limits
- Buyers able to commit for multiple years and budget the published renewal rate
- Teams that will periodically download independent file, database and email backups
Skip Hostinger if
- A short commitment or stable initial-to-renewal price is required
- The workload needs root access, dedicated resources or exceeds shared/cloud plan CPU and memory limits
- A proprietary Builder/Horizons project requires complete portable source and downloadable backups
Choose Scaleway if
- Development and production VMs whose instance family exists in the required availability zones
- European cloud strategies after legal, residency and disaster-recovery review
- Workloads benefiting from included VM egress and explicit hourly component pricing
Skip Scaleway if
- The architecture requires a service or global region footprint absent from the current catalog
- The team assumes storage, IPv4, snapshots and support are included in the compute price
- No owner exists for instance hardening, OS updates, backups and multi-zone recovery
Evidence and freshness
Where a claim on this page comes from a vendor page, it is linked here.
Hostinger
Official sources reviewed · reviewed 2026-08-24
Scaleway
Official sources reviewed · reviewed 2026-08-24
Hostinger: pros & cons
- Low initial effective price: Multi-year prepayment substantially discounts the first hosting term.
- Managed toolkit: hPanel, SSL, malware controls, backups, migration and application installers reduce routine administration.
- Multiple build paths: Plans support WordPress, website builder, PHP/HTML, Node.js and related developer tools.
- Downloadable backups: Standard hosted sites can export file and database backups for independent storage.
- Long prepayment: The advertised $2.99 rate represents $143.52 paid for 48 months, not monthly billing at that rate.
- Higher renewal: Current Premium renews at $10.99/month; other tiers have similarly material increases.
- Unlimited is qualified: Storage, database, CPU, RAM and fair-use limits still apply, and the Unlimited plan cannot be downgraded.
- Portability differs by product: Website Builder and Horizons backups cannot be downloaded like conventional hosted files/databases.
Scaleway: pros & cons
- Published component pricing: Instance families show hourly and approximate monthly compute rates by availability zone.
- Egress-inclusive VM pricing: Current list rates include outbound traffic and IPv6 for virtual instances.
- European footprint: Products run in named European regions and availability zones.
- Automation options: Console, APIs, CLI and infrastructure-as-code tooling support programmatic operations.
- Compute is not the full bill: Local/block storage, snapshots and attached public IPv4 are separate line items.
- Powered-on time bills: CPU instances accrue charges during startup and standby, not only active workload execution.
- Availability varies: Instance families, SLAs and products differ by region and availability zone.
- VM operations are customer-owned: OS patching, configuration, access control, backups and application resilience are not managed away.
Our verdict on Hostinger
Hostinger can deliver good first-term value, but compare total prepaid and renewal cost, not the monthly badge; verify resource limits and product portability, then maintain independent website, database and email backups before relying on it.
Our verdict on Scaleway
Scaleway is a practical European cloud option when its regional catalog fits; price compute, storage, IPv4 and support together, verify product SLA by zone, and test provisioning, failure and independent restoration with the actual workload.