Hostinger cuts CDN compute load, extends free tier to all plans

Hostinger has overhauled its proprietary content delivery network to reduce backend computing demands, enabling the company to offer the service to all shared-hosting customers without raising prices. The changes, which took effect automatically for existing users meeting specific criteria, have lowered average server response times by 26% fleet-wide and by up to 35% on older SSD-based hardware.

What changed

The company reworked its CDN architecture to cut CPU usage by 45-50%. Key technical adjustments included:

• Replacing RSA certificates with ECDSA, reducing SSL-related CPU load to roughly one-third of previous levels.
• Implementing kernel TLS and improving session resumption to lower the cost of serving returning visitors.
• Consolidating regional processing so that content is fetched and optimized once, then reused across the network via warm, pooled connections.
• Moving bot fingerprinting to native code and eliminating internal lock contention to further streamline operations.

These optimizations allowed Hostinger to extend CDN access to all hosting plans, including its entry-level Single and Premium tiers, at no extra charge. New customers receive the service enabled by default, while existing users were migrated automatically if they used Hostinger DNS, did not run a third-party CDN, and had not opted out.

Impact on infrastructure and customers

The reduction in backend load has had a measurable effect on server performance. SSD-based machines, which previously had less headroom than newer NVMe hardware, saw the most significant improvements. Even customers who did not enable the CDN experienced faster response times due to the overall drop in server pressure.

Load balancing across the fleet also shifted. Before the changes, lower-tier servers operated 20-30% above the average load of Business and Cloud infrastructure. After the optimizations, Premium and Single servers ran 15-20% below that average, indicating a more balanced distribution of computing demands.

Saulius Lazaravičius, Hostinger’s chief product officer, stated that the efficiency gains allow customers to benefit from faster, more resilient websites without additional infrastructure costs. The company did not purchase new hardware to achieve these improvements, instead relying on software optimizations to reduce resource consumption.

What it means for operators

Hostinger’s approach demonstrates how targeted optimizations in encryption, session management, and regional processing can yield substantial performance gains without expanding hardware capacity. The decision to extend CDN access to all plans at no extra cost may pressure competitors to follow suit, particularly in the budget shared-hosting segment where margins are tight.

For professionals managing high-traffic sites or resource-intensive applications, the improvements in load balancing and response times could reduce the need for costly upgrades to higher-tier plans. However, customers using third-party CDNs or custom DNS configurations will need to manually enable the service if they wish to benefit from the changes.