The short answer
If you are registering domains and want predictable renewal pricing, Namecheap is the stronger account to hold. If you want the cheapest working WordPress site and are willing to prepay for years, Hostinger wins on price alone.
Neither is a long-term home for a site with real traffic. That is not a criticism, it is what budget shared hosting is.
Where the pricing actually differs
Both advertise a rate that applies to the first term only. Hostinger ties its lowest rate to multi-year prepayment, so the monthly figure on the pricing page is not what you pay unless you commit up front. Namecheap renewal pricing rises less steeply, which matters more than the intro rate once you are two years in.
Verify both against the official pricing pages before deciding. Prices in this category change often enough that any figure written down goes stale.
Performance and limits
Both run LiteSpeed, which is a genuine advantage at this price and pairs well with LiteSpeed Cache on WordPress. The limits that bite first are not speed but resources: inode counts, process limits and concurrent connections. Bulk imports and automation hit those before traffic does.
Control panel
Namecheap uses cPanel, Hostinger uses its own hPanel. hPanel is friendlier for a first-time site owner. cPanel is more portable, which makes migrating away easier later. Choose based on whether you expect to move.
Who should pick which
Register domains at Namecheap regardless. For hosting, pick Hostinger if the budget is the binding constraint and you can prepay. Pick Namecheap if you want one account for domains and a small site, and you value cPanel familiarity.
