10 Best Web Hosting Companies in Kenya

We tested the top web hosting companies in Kenya and world over to see which ones really deliver the best services to website owners. Our comprehensive list was derived from real websites hosted on each of the listed web hosts on this page, with focus on uptime, loading speeds, web disc space and cost.

We also compare several other aspects of web hosting plans such as website security and hidden costs, all to ensure you have more than enough information when choosing a web host.

In a few moments, you will realize that price is just one of the factors to consider when settling on a web hosting service provider for your new website. We have several surprises along the way – some of the most popular web hosts have poor services, while other little known tech firms will exceed expectations.

Below is a comprehensive table of the Top 10 web hosts in Kenya to help you choose the right partner for the most powerful and reliable online presence for your brand/business.

Our Methodology: How We Reviewed the Best Hosting Services

Because there are several features to consider, such as server space and bandwidth, it can be challenging to make one-to-one comparisons. To compile our list of the best hosting sites, we reviewed all of the features and weighed them against their costs. 

For our main comparison chart, we reviewed features provided by each web host at its most affordable tier. However, if you’re willing to spend enough money, almost every host will offer whatever you need.

Our methodology is based on these factors:

• Uptime guarantees
• Server speed and load time
• Disk space
• Bandwidth limits
• Reliability
• Security features
• Customer support

Instant Set up: While several web hosting giants will force you to pay for their services using Debit Cards and PayPal, HostPinnacle makes your journey to own a website easy and fast. All you need to do is choose a hosting package, add a domain and pay via M-Pesa. Your account will be instantly generated, and you can immediately start creating your website using the free One-click Script Installer (Softaculous), WordPress, Joomla, and several other free site building tools and website templates.

Free Lifetime Domain: Every HostPinnacle web hosting package comes with a free domain valid for a lifetime. This applies to the popular .com, .co.ke, and .org TLDs. This is different from what you get from other popular web hosting giants such as Hostinger, Bluehost and GoDaddy that give a free domain for a limited period of time, mostly up to one year. Thereafter, you are required to pay for the domain at the existing rates. With HostPinnacle, you enjoy the free domain as long as your web hosting account remains active. This implies that you save Ksh 1,200, Ksh 1,000 and Ksh 1,500 every year for .com, .co.ke and .org domains respectively.

FREE SSL Certificate: SSL Certificates are no longer an option, they are a must have for every serious website owner. Apart from the protection for visitors’ information, an SSL certificate will boost the search engine rankings for your website, which means you get more traffic to your website. Without the certificate, Google will warn possible visitors that your website is “not secure”. Well, SSL Certificates are normally one of the hidden costs among several popular web hosting companies. This vital add-on normally sells at between Ksh 2,000 and Ksh 4,500. However, HostPinnacle gives it free for every hosting package, meaning you end up saving a lot of money as you start your journey as a website owner.

FREE M-Pesa Integration: Every e-commerce website in Kenya needs this feature. If you are selling products or services online, you need a convenient way to process transactions. Ordinarily, website experts will charge upwards of Ksh 40,000 for the service, which enables a Lipa na MPESA STK-PUSH that allows clients to instantly make payments straight to your PAYBILL or TILL Number. Again, HostPinnacle gives you a fully functional Lipa na Mpesa plugin for your website.

Host Unlimited Websites: Once you subscribe to any web hosting plan at HostPinnacle, you are free to host multiple websites on your account at no extra cost. In simpler terms, you can register several other domains and load them onto your existing web hosting account.

Web Hosting Plans Variety: Currently, the Starter Web Hosting Package costs Ksh 3,000 per year, which translates to Ksh 250 per month. This gives you access to 35GB of NVMe Disk Space, 2GB RAM, and Unlimited Monthly Bandwidth. These features are perfect for blogs, business sites, news sites, school websites and medium scale Ecommerce sites. You can still upgrade to the Standard plan if you need more disc space and RAM. For Ksh 4,000 per year, you get 100GB of NVMe Disk Space, 4GB RAM and Discounted Web Design by an Expert.

Best Reseller Hosting: There are several other web hosting types available at HostPinnacle, among them Reseller Web Hosting for businesses (starting Ksh 3,000/month with 100GB Disc Space, Unlimited Bandwidth, 50 cPanel Accounts and a Free WHMCS License) and VPS Hosting (starting Ksh 3,000/month with four cores, 8GB guaranteed RAM, 200GB SSD Disk Space, Unlimited Bandwidth and Full Root Access).

FREE Site Transfer: If you are not satisfied with the quality of service offered by your current web hosting provider, you can relocate to HostPinnacle in a matter of minutes. If your website has been experiencing constant downtime, or your web host does not offer certain vital capabilities, or you don’t think you are getting value for your money, it’s probably time to transfer your website to HostPinnacle. All you need to do is subscribe for any web hosting package and get in touch with the tech team to migrate all your website files, databases, and email accounts from your previous web host. You don’t have to worry about domain transfer restrictions imposed to lock you inside a ‘leaking house’. Your domain nameservers can be modified to point to the new account on HostPinnacle servers, with an assurance of 100% satisfaction after the move.

Excellent Customer Support: Customer support is essential in every business, but it is even more critical in the web hosting industry. First, you do not have a detailed knowledge of web hosting technicalities. Exceptional customer service is required to help ensure your company is always able to serve visitors to your site. We actually tested the HostPinnacle Customer support service at different times of the day and across the 7 days in a week. We found out that they have excellent response time to queries, with friendly support and swift actions on client concerns.

Unlimited Monthly Bandwidth: Most web hosts will limit the rate at which data flows between your website and your visitors, thereby reducing the amount of web traffic. Limited bandwidth means a slow website, or even a total crash. This means less and sometimes zero business for you. Website visitors do not have time to wait around staring at a loading screen. It is for this reason that you must carefully check the bandwidth limits before deciding on a web host. At HostPinnacle, you get unlimited monthly bandwidth, giving you the assurance of comfortably accommodating large traffic volumes without crashing your website.

Automatic Website Backups: Like every other good and caring web hosting company, HostPinnacle offers regular backup features along with their web hosting plans. With this precautionary feature, an exact copy of your website’s files, databases, and configurations is stored securely in the web host’s cloud, separate from your website’s server. Your website will certainly experience a disaster, then you can log in to your web hosting control panel and restore your website from the most recent backup. HostPinnacle performs regular backups and stores your seven most recent versions, available from an easy-to-use interface. This gives you peace of mind in the midst of increased threats from hackers, malware attacks and human errors.

These and several other benefits make HostPinnacle rank top among the best web hosting service providers in Kenya and the entire East Africa region.

Most Affordable Plans: At Interserver, you are not treated to the monkey business of deceptive advertising by the top ranked web hosting companies. Right from day one, you are fully aware what it will cost you to host your website for several years. Any web guru will tell you that Interserver has web hosting plans with the most transparent pricing structures, with zero hidden costs.

Best Monthly Hosting Plans: At Interserver, you are not under pressure to pay for annual plans. You can opt in easily and get your website running, thanks to the pocket-friendly and flexible monthly renewal plans. This makes it the most friendly web host if you are running on a budget – all you need to get started is Ksh 500 for one month web hosting, plus about Ksh 1,300 for a domain. Better still, monthly plans allow you to test the quality of service and make the right decisions without losing a penny.

Free Add-ons: While several top web hosting companies in Kenya will charge for SSL Certificates and Domain Privacy, these add-ons are available at zero cost for every web hosting package at Interserver. Starters who would love to build their own blogs and simple websites have a rich pool of free website building tools from their cPanel. And for an added level of peace of mind, you have access to weekly website backups to cushion your website files against malicious attacks or human errors.

Unlimited Web Hosting:  Your website will eventually grow in size as you upload more images, create more web pages and blog posts. You want a web host that will give you this freedom to grow without significant cost implications. Interserver offers Unlimited storage, even with the most affordable Standard Plan that will cost you Ksh 500 a month. In addition, at Interserver you get the much coveted SSD Storage, convenient for websites with high traffic volumes and tons of data interactions. This gives you an assurance of better performance and speed for your website.

One Account, Multiple Websites: In addition to the unlimited web disc space, you also get the freedom to pack multiple websites onto a single Interserver web hosting account, again making it one of the best web hosting services available in Kenya and beyond. In better terms, you can add multiple domains to your cPanel, create separate websites that run just fine, generate unlimited business E-Mail accounts for all the domains and enjoy unlimited data transfer and weekly backups for all your websites. This is probably the main reason for the large number of migrations from other web hosts to Interserver.

Free Website Transfer: Settling at an apartment without basic necessities is stressful, even more excruciating is being locked right there forever. Well, you don’t have to bear the pain and losses caused by a poor web host. You can transfer your website to Interserver for free. All you need to do is subscribe for a web hosting package and raise a ticket with the technical department. They will relocate all your website files without any downtime. Interserver offers website migration services 24/7, with experienced engineers available to transfer all your website files, databases and Email accounts to your new hosting account. Whether your website is running on WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, or coded using any language/framework, you are assured of complete website migration within 24-48 hours.

Money Back Guarantee. The best web hosting service providers are not always good enough. At Interserver, you get your full amount refunded if you are not satisfied with the quality of service or just anything with your subscription. All you need to do is request for a refund, and you have your money back to your bank/PayPal account within 3 to 5 days. This guarantee covers all shared hosting clients for a period of 30 days. Refunds on domain names are however not possible. The money back guarantee is also applicable to website owners who opt in for wrong web hosting packages, and would like to change to the desired package within the 30 days grace period.

Most Secure Servers: Security is a top priority for every website owner. The most lethal security threats will target web servers, which places the heaviest burden on website security on the hosting service provider. Every Interserver web hosting package comes with a Free InterShield Security Solution that features automatic virus scanner, an intelligent Firewall and an updated Malware Database. This guarantees your website the highest level of protection, all at no additional cost.

Excellent Customer Support: Think about a caretaker who abandons you with an erroneously locked door at your hour of need, maybe with clients waiting on a growing queue. Website owners are best described as tenants. A good web host must be available and able to offer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You never know when that small hitch will bring down your website. Maybe on a Sunday evening, maybe on Christmas day, or even on a busy Madaraka day. At Interserver you get Excellent Customer Service, available 24/7 via Live Chats and Tickets, just in case you need any help with your website. The response rate for the tickets is good, giving you an assurance of assistance any time, any day.

Free Hosting for Students: If you are a Computer Science or IT student in Kenya looking for a free web hosting plan for your project, Interserver got you covered. All you need is a .edu email address and you get free yet quality hosting for an entire year, with no limitations on speed or the type of website you can build. Additionally, you can later upgrade from the Interserver student account to a standard hosting account, retaining the high quality website long after the degree/diploma course is over.

Hosting Plans Variety: A majority of website owners are comfortable with Standard Web Hosting. However, Interserver also offers several other solutions such as Cloud Virtual Private Servers for extremely large and demanding online projects. What makes Interserver a go-to Cloud VPS host is the flexibility, affordability and full control you get over your site, with root access that gives you the freedom to install the control panel and operating system without seeking any permission. The customer support team is always on standby, just incase your server breaks down. Other options available at Interserver include Reseller web hosting Plans for businesses and large scale web designers, cPanel Hosting, Email Hosting, Dedicated Servers and WordPress Hosting.

Affordable Plans: A good web host must give starters a plan that is affordable to enable them experiment and test the quality of services, before committing large amounts of money for costly plans. At HostGator, you have access to the hatchling plan that costs Ksh 350/month, with unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, a free domain and a free SSL Certificate. You however must pay for the service for the entire year to enjoy these features and add-ons. This translates to Ksh 5,500 for the entire year, not so costly considering HostGator’s reputation as a reliable web host with uptime guarantees of over 99%.

Money-back Guarantee: While several best web hosting companies offer 30 days money back guarantee, HostGator adds an extra 15 days. You will get a full refund if you are not happy with their service within this period. Well, 45 days is enough time to check and re-check all the features available for your web hosting plan – the storage, security features, website backups, SEO tools, any hidden costs as well as the responsiveness of the customer support department.

Free Domain: If you sign up for a HostGator web hosting plan running for 12 months and above, whether in the Shared, WordPress or Cloud hosting categories, you get a free domain for your new website. This discount will be automatically applied to your cart at checkout, and will save you a good amount as you begin your journey as a website owner. It’s important to note that web hosting plans less than 12 months do not come with the one year free domain. . After the first year, you will pay for your domain renewal at the existing prices. HostPinnacle probably has a better offer, with a free lifetime domain for every hosting plan.

Unmetered Bandwidth: Your website traffic will gradually grow from a few visitors to thousands and tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. Experienced website owners and developers prefer HostGator services due to the unmetered bandwidth for all their hosting plans. With this guarantee, you have little to worry about, whether you are running a popular gossip blog, an Ecommerce website or even a government portal serving millions of people.

Good Customer Service: HostGator’s customer support department is available 24/7 via Live Chats for all clients. However, subscribing to high end web hosting plans gives you an additional level of support via Phone. No matter the mode of communication, HostGator has a reputation of a top web host service provider with one of the best customer support departments that quickly responds and acts on your web hosting queries and problems any time, any day. 

Daily Website Backups: You never know when that attack or error will strike down a section or your entire website. Downloading and storing website backups can be tiresome, time and resource consuming. For this reason, HostGator generates an automatic backup for every website hosted on their servers and stores it safely for easy retrieval. You can always access up to three backups every month, and initiate a website restore from your cPanel. The backup feature has no limit on the number of website databases and files.

Advanced Features: Designed with Pros in mind, HostGator plans are endowed with advanced features such as Unlimited MySQL Databases, Server Side Includes (SSI), Support for the latest PHP versions, Access to Raw Log Files, Full CGI Access, Canned CGI Scripts, Reseller & Sub Accounts, Secure Shell (SSH) Access, IPv6 Support, Rails, Python, Perl Support and Unlimited SFTP Users.

Best WordPress Hosting: Setting up your website using the WordPress CMS made easy and faster, with an even easier, simplified control panel. Enjoy enhanced website speeds, thanks to server tweaks that deliver quick loading times. In addition, WordPress hosting plans are HostGator come with security protocols that address WordPress-specific vulnerabilities such as hackers targeting WordPress plugins. The Introductory WordPress Hosting plan costs $5.95/month, where you can host a single website with unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, a free domain for one year and a free SSL certificate.

Most Affordable Plans: The Hostinger All-In-One starter package costs Ksh 240 per month, billed annually (Ksh 2880 on renewal), giving you a cool 50GB SSD storage, unmetered traffic, a free SSL Certificate, 100GB Bandwidth, automatic weekly backups, Managed WordPress, Cloudflare Protected Nameservers and more.

Optimized for WordPress: Considering that a large percentage of websites in the world are powered by WordPress, Hostinger has LiteSpeed-powered servers and advanced WordPress optimization tools that will deliver a super fast website for your visitors. What can you build with a 50GB disc space? Almost anything and everything. Ordinarily, 50GB is enough space for more than 5 medium-sized websites and more than 10 blogs.

Free Web Hosting: If you are looking for a perfect starting point for your website without spending a coin, Hostinger has an offer for you. The free web hosting account comes with 1GB of SSD disk space, 3GB of bandwidth, Free Cloudflare Protected Nameservers and much more, making Hostinger the Best Free Website Hosting Platform. This free plan is a perfect way to test the quality of service, and later upgrade to a Premium plan of your choice.

World Class Security: Apart from the free SSL Certificate that comes with every Hostinger web hosting account, you also get DDoS Protection from a a cloud-based protection service that gives you peace of mind. Whether you are running an ecommerce store, a company website or a personal blog, this protection from threats is of utmost importance.

24/7/365 Support: As earlier mentioned, customer care support is one of the first considerations you want to make before settling on the best web hosting company. Phone conversations are rarely perfect, you may spend an hour waiting for someone to answer. At Hostinger you will quickly interact with real people via live chats and Emails that will be promptly responded to.

Rich Web Hosting Plans: You may not see the need to shift to any other web host after subscribing to any Hostinger plan, thanks to the rich variety of upgradeable plans available here. Right from the free plan, you are able to adjust to better plans as your website needs grow, with an intelligent algorithm that provides suggestions based on your resource demands. For instance, starting with the basic plan that allows 1 website with 50GB storage, 100GB bandwidth and 2 databases and later upgrading to the Premium plan with 100GB storage, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited databases.

Excellent Customer Service: The customer care department at Namecheap is open 24/7 via Live Chats, very important for every website owner. This plus the 30 days money-back guarantee makes Namecheap a choice for many website owners in Kenya and beyond.

Scalable Web Hosting Plans: The Namecheap web hosting packages are adapted for all your website needs, whether a beginner, a blogger, a news site owner, or an e-commerce website. So how much do you need to get started? For just Ksh 1527, you get the Stellar Web Hosting plan, a FREE SSL Certificate, and Unlimited Ultra SSD Storage for your website.

99% Uptime: The Uptime levels at Namecheap are 99.9% (and they mostly reach 100%), thanks to their rich network infrastructure that powers their web hosting servers.

Free Security Add-ons: With Namecheap, your website’s security is a priority, with Free domain privacy protection to hide your website information from the public, a Free SSL Certificate for every web hosting package.

Free Migration: Web hosting plans at Namecheap also come with free website migration, in case you need to relocate from another web host. The website migration is entirely handled by the Namecheap technical team with an assurance of less than 15 minutes of downtime.

Unlimited Web Hosting:  Namecheap understands that you will need to own an extra website or two, the reason the Stellar Hosting Plan allows you to host 3 websites on the same account at no extra cost. Hosting multiple websites is a great advantage to bloggers and ambitious website owners. It means you can register extra domains and have them hosted on a single account at no extra charges.

Hosting Plans Variety: Apart from shared hosting, Namecheap also offers Cloud Virtual Private Servers and Reseller Web Hosting plans, making it the best and most reliable web host to both startups and ambitious website owners in Kenya.

Free Web Hosting Plan: Another thing that makes Truehost Kenya outstanding is the almost free web hosting package for new clients in Kenya. Although the Ksh 30/month package has both disc space and bandwidth limitations, it helps starters who are in need of simple landing pages as they arrange for larger sites later. This free package is meant for testing Truehost services before choosing an appropriate web hosting package. It comes 1GB bandwidth, 1GB disc space, and 1 Email account. 

Free Website Migration: Truehost web hosting services attract website owners interested in running blogs, news sites, company websites as well as resellers. .ke Website owners dissatisfied with their current web hosts can transfer their sites to Truehost at no cost.

Rich Variety: At Truehost you will get Shared Hosting, Reseller hosting, Dedicated Hosting, and VPS Hosting packages, all under one roof. This means that you can always upgrade from one package to the other without having to migrate your site to a different web host. The company is also one of the very few web hosts in Kenya offering Windows Web Hosting.

Most Flexible Plans: For Ksh 120/month you get a Silver hosting package with 30GB disc space and unlimited bandwidth. This is the preferred plan for starters, probably bloggers who have just joined the trade. With 30GB of webspace, you can actually set up a large website with several pages and tons of graphics. Truehost will give you a basic Free SSL Certificate, meaning you won’t incur any additional costs. The plan allows you to create unlimited Email Accounts and FTP Accounts. You are also at liberty to generate as many Databases and Subdomains as you may need.

Reseller & VPS Plans: If you are a reseller, for Ksh 2500 per month you get the Silver Reseller Plan which comes with 50GB web space, 1TB Bandwidth, and a maximum of 50 cPanel Accounts. The most affordable VPS Server at Truehost costs Ksh 699/month, with 30GB SSD storage, 1GB RAM, Unlimited domains and 1TB bandwidth.

Quick & Realtime Support: Truehost is a good tenant for your website, with a customer care department available 24/7 via live chats, WhatsApp chats, calls and tickets. Whether you have queries about what each web hosting plan entails, or concerns about the performance of your website.

Affordable Plans: The cheapest shared web hosting package at hostPoa goes for Ksh 3480/yr, with unlimited disc space, a free domain and a free SSL Certificate. The plan also gives you full cPanel access, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited subdomains to enrich your site pages. You are also at liberty to create several databases and store Emails with a 10GB capacity limit, all secured by the free weekly backups.

VPS Hosting: If you are looking for plans that give you full control of your hosting environment and resources (RAM, storage, bandwidth), hostPoa has a variety of VPS hosting options for you. For Ksh 3,480/month, you get the starter VPS 40 plan, with 1 processor, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD NVMe storage and unmetered bandwidth. You can still upgrade to the VPS 80 or VPS 160 plans, with 2 processors and 4 processors respectively. VPS 160 (4 cores) is the best you can get, with 8GB memory and 160 GB SSD NVMe storage at Ksh 6,960 monthly.

VPS Hosting: If you are looking for plans that give you full control of your hosting environment and resources (RAM, storage, bandwidth), hostPoa has a variety of VPS hosting options for you. For Ksh 3,480/month, you get the starter VPS 40 plan, with 1 processor, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD NVMe storage and unmetered bandwidth. You can still upgrade to the VPS 80 or VPS 160 plans, with 2 processors and 4 processors respectively. VPS 160 (4 cores) is the best you can get, with 8GB memory and 160 GB SSD NVMe storage at Ksh 6,960 monthly.

VPS Hosting: If you are looking for plans that give you full control of your hosting environment and resources (RAM, storage, bandwidth), hostPoa has a variety of VPS hosting options for you. For Ksh 3,480/month, you get the starter VPS 40 plan, with 1 processor, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD NVMe storage and unmetered bandwidth. You can still upgrade to the VPS 80 or VPS 160 plans, with 2 processors and 4 processors respectively. VPS 160 (4 cores) is the best you can get, with 8GB memory and 160 GB SSD NVMe storage at Ksh 6,960 monthly.

VPS Hosting: If you are looking for plans that give you full control of your hosting environment and resources (RAM, storage, bandwidth), hostPoa has a variety of VPS hosting options for you. For Ksh 3,480/month, you get the starter VPS 40 plan, with 1 processor, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD NVMe storage and unmetered bandwidth. You can still upgrade to the VPS 80 or VPS 160 plans, with 2 processors and 4 processors respectively. VPS 160 (4 cores) is the best you can get, with 8GB memory and 160 GB SSD NVMe storage at Ksh 6,960 monthly.

Website hosting services are basically the plot of internet land that your website storefront sits on. If you have a website, it needs to be on the web, and these hosting services are the landlords that put your site and keep it running so your customers can access and see it when they type in your URL.

There are many types of hosting services for businesses of all sorts. Some web hosting companies can do everything from building your website to marketing and selling it; while other providers only provide the space, infrastructure, technical support staff and equipment so you can build a website on your own. 

Depending on your business model and size, you’ll choose a hosting company based on the factors explained below. Once you understand the terminology, you can weigh features and select the service that works best for your company’s needs.

What Are The Basic Types Of Hosting?

The larger or more complex a website, the more comprehensive a configuration package it’s going to need. The main ones are broken down as follows:

Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting is the basic package that services offer. Your website sits on the same server along with many other websites, so you’re sharing the server, and any other resources, such as memory or CPU. These are good for basic website needs such as email sending, file sharing, and base level e-commerce sites. Shared web host plans are the cheapest and, therefore, smartest option for smaller or startup businesses.

VPS

A virtual private server is designated for your direct purposes, more than a shared server. You still may be sharing an actual server, but the service creates a virtual server of your very own. That means all the resources are yours alone, from memory storage to processing power and beyond. This is a safer and much more reliable option that keeps your site separate from the others while still maintaining affordability.

Dedicated Web Hosting

Dedicated hosting is on another level. In addition to getting your own server, dedicated hosting lets you take full control over your server. That means you have full administrative access and can set things up the way you like it. This type of hosting package comes with a royal suite of features that may not be necessary for all types of businesses.

WordPress Hosting

WordPress provides shared hosting plans that cater to a more specialized clientele. The servers themselves are optimized differently and have features that are particularly attractive to performance, such as faster load time, a WordPress installer, security features that work specifically with WordPress sites, and WordPress updates. This is useful for businesses that have websites created on WordPress.

What Is Included With a Web Hosting Service?

With a web hosting service, you’ll get tools to design your site, hundreds of templates, blogging and eCommerce functions, email marketing, analytics & reporting, cloud hosting, and more. Web hosts centralize everything into one service that will let you launch your site online, maintain its smooth running status, and store data securely.

Web Hosting Pricing & Value

Some choose web hosting companies based solely on price. While that’s not a great strategy, you should certainly take pricing into consideration. The best providers offer plans for every budget, and in some cases, signing up for longer subscriptions (rather than paying month to month) will qualify for extra discounts.

Also, leave some room to grow. Choosing a web hosting plan that meets your website’s current needs is great. But, with any luck, your site will grow and expand over time, and your needs may change. Since switching to a new web hosting provider is a major hassle, consider one that offers scalable plans. Meaning, you should be able to upgrade to another plan easily once necessary. Low prices are always nice, but if the low price comes with a limit on space or bandwidth, you need to be sure the deal is really worth it.

Along the same lines, you may want to pay attention to how many email accounts are provided. Whether or not you believe you’ll need dozens of email addresses, it’s nice to have the option to create as many as possible down the line. In most cases, larger numbers of email addresses are included in more expensive plans. This feature, while not very important to some, is critical to others.

Should You Consider Free Hosting?

In general, free hosting plans aren’t worth it, as they can create more issues than benefits by cutting corners and compromising your site’s speed, security, and scalability. 

With a free host, the SEO of your site will be impacted by slow run times. Your website may not even show up on the search results page. Your site’s security may also be compromised since free hosts usually don’t have protection against cyber attacks. In the end, there won’t be anybody to turn to for help as customer support is near non-existent with free hosting plans. 

Web Hosting Features You Need

Hosting quality is affected by several factors that are important to weigh during your decision-making process. Some of the most significant factors include:

Uptime guarantee

If you’re looking into web hosting, you’ll hear the term uptime guarantee a lot. That makes a lot of sense, considering it is one of the most important factors when choosing a service. Uptime, which is the percentage of time that a hosting service is up and running, will be guaranteed by various companies with a certain percentage of time to be up. That doesn’t mean they will definitely go down for the other percentage of the time, but they can say without fail that they will be up for at least that amount of time.

The reason this is important is because you don’t want your site constantly being unavailable or unreachable to your customers. Otherwise, why have a website at all? A high uptime percentage ensures that your audience can see and interact with your website more often. Quality brands like InMotion Hosting, HostGator and Bluehost offer a more than 99% uptime guarantee, and that’s really good for your business.

Load time

Load time is also really important. Recent studies show that the average attention span has shrunk over the years to smaller than that of a goldfish! So, if your website takes even a drop too long to load a page, your business is dead before it’s even started. To keep yourself in the running, be sure your hosting service has a fast load time. A2Hosting will deliver a 360ml load time for pages, the fastest in the industry.

Customer support

Because having an issue with your website is nothing to take lightly, you want to make sure customer service is available, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. More on this below.

Location

The number of servers and location plays a huge part in the speed of your website loading and service. Obviously, the more servers available, the faster the service, but where those servers are found in the world will also affect the quality. Look for servers in substantial locations close to you, such as the UK, US, or Israel, depending on your location.

Email hosting

Email hosting is another way to expand your business’s reach online and provide employee-specific mail addresses to all your employees.  Most web hosts have email hosting tools that can help you manage accounts and communications from one spot.

Security Features You Should Look for in a Hosting Package

In the United States alone, 30,000 websites are hacked with malware every day. A large number of those are small business websites which are targeted because they don’t have the cybersecurity protections that large enterprise IT teams can put up. But there is still plenty that small business owners can do to ensure the safety of their accounts. Check if your hosting provider offers any of the following, all of which can help ensure that your account does not become the next statistic.

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Also called multi-factor authentication (MFA), 2-factor authentication adds a second security credential to the login process. If you’re on a managed hosting plan, then you probably know that cPanel is where your technical staff can configure all aspects of their hosting accounts. Because cPanel is so powerful, the risks of a hacker getting in are far more damaging than gaining access to, say, an FTP account or a WordPress backend. That’s why it’s extremely useful if your host offers 2FA on logins to cPanel.

Free SSL Certificates

If your small business operates multiple domain names, then you’ll find it particularly helpful if your hosting provider offers free SSL certificates with their hosting package. An SSL certificate is a guarantee from a Certificate Authority (CA) that traffic to and from the website will be encrypted by Transport Layer Security (TLS). You might be more familiar with this as https:// rather than http:// before certain domain names. Using TLS gives your customers peace of mind that data they send to and from your website will be encrypted over their local networks. Because your customers’ user credentials could conceivably be used to brute force your own digital infrastructure, it’s in your interests too to make sure this is offered.

DKIM, SPF, DMARC

Email spoofing is a real concern for any small business. To combat this, look for a host that offers 3 email authentication tools on its hosting packages: Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Domain-based Message Authentication, and Reporting & Conformance (DMARC). These are configured as DNS records in your cPanel and mean that recipients can see that the email was authenticated by your organization and is not the result of a fraudster impersonating you. 

Easy Update Manager

If your small business is using some popular web-hosted scripts such as the WordPress Content Management System (CMS), then you should know that you’re wide open to any vulnerabilities in the code base. Because of how widely these systems are deployed, they’re lucrative targets for hackers. A one-click script installation and manager means that you can ensure that any such cloud-hosted programs are updated automatically and at regular intervals—without having to ask your IT staff for help.

How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Company?

Without the best web hosting, your ability to run a successful website is going to be seriously hindered. There is a dizzying array of web hosting providers competing for your business. How can you pinpoint the best one? Start by keeping the following points in mind:

1. Bandwidth

The first thing you need to do when shopping for a web host is to evaluate your disk space and bandwidth needs. If your site features lots of graphics, dozens of pages, and large amounts of traffic, you’re going to need unmetered bandwidth and disk space. Unlimited plans are available, and they make life easier. If your site is going to be simple and not generate a huge amount of traffic, you should be able to get away with less disk space and bandwidth.

2. Compatibility

Keep compatibility in mind, too. In the excitement of looking for a website hosting provider, you might overlook one critical thing: the type of operating systems that are supported. You’re not going to want to switch operating systems, so double-check this point before settling for a provider.

3. Reliability

Reliability and availability are critical characteristics to consider when shopping around for web hosting. The best web hosting companies offer availability rates of 98 and 99%, frequently referred to as “Uptime.” It’s easy to make such claims, though, so make sure to see if they make good on their promises.

4. Security

Security is also an essential concern. Choosing a web hosting provider without learning about its available security features is a big mistake. Things like firewalls, daily backups, free SSL certificates and user authentication should all be included and easily accessed in the control panel. It’s also nice to receive notifications whenever changes are made because they can alert you to suspicious activity.

Take a look at how we choose the best web hosting sites in the industry in order to make a better decision about which is right for you.

What Extras Are Available Beyond Web Hosting

While providing the basics like bandwidth and disk space are a given, good web hosting plans will also have at least a few extras. 

If you’re running an online store, keep an eye out for providers that supply Ecommerce solutions. If you want to be able to implement quick and easy updates, find a provider that offers content management systems. Make sure that they’ll give you access to statistics about your site, as well.

Another feature you may want to pay attention to is how eco-friendly a web host is. Data centers use intense amounts of electricity. There are a few web hosts today that run their platforms using green technology. 

What are website builders and do I need one?

• Uptime guarantee
• Speed and load time
• Customer support
• Bandwidth and disk space
• Reliability and speed
• Security features

Investigate Hosting Providers’ Customer Service and Support

Even if you’re a natural at setting up websites, it’s nice to know that help is available if you need it. Confirm that the web hosting provider you choose has 24/7 support and make sure that there are several ways in which to get support, too. The most reliable providers will provide support through email, phone, and online chat, giving you the choice of convenience.

The best support plan includes customer freedom. Review the providers’ policies to ensure that there is a clear, money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with the product. After narrowing down the search to just a few candidates, search for online reviews about each of them. Ideally, the reviews should come from actual customers on review sites and not a list of published testimonials on the web hosting providers’ own websites. It should be pretty easy to get a feel for how a web hosting provider treats its customers from the word on the street.

Other Web Host Services We Reviewed

We have some good news for you if you feel like your web host search isn’t over. Our web host experts went beyond the 10 brands featured and reviewed on this page. Check out these additional brands to get a better idea about all your web host options:

• Cloudways
• FatCow
• Hibu
• Jimdo
• WordPress

Still couldn’t find what you were looking for? We have plenty of other reviews for you here.

We Thought You Might Find These Articles Interesting

We have you covered no matter if you’re new to web hosting or are trying to find streamlined ways to improve your existing site setup. All things considered, take a look at these articles our hosting experts wrote and find the best ways to manage your site online.

• Best Web Hosting for Small Businesses
• How to Choose a Web Hosting Service
• 10 Tips for Determining Your Website’s Bandwidth Requirements
• Our Essential Guide to Shared Web Hosting
• The Best WordPress Hosting Services

Conclusion

As tempting as it may be to choose a web hosting provider quickly and just get on with your life, it’s undeniably better to take your time. In doing so, you’ll be able to find a provider you can stick with for the long haul.