Top 8 Web Hosting Service For South Africa – Best Hosting Companies In South Africa

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Top 8 Web Hosting in South Africa – Best Web Hosting for South African Websites | Hey Guys, Welcome to the latest and fresh article. In this article, I am going to explain to you the best web hosting for South African Websites.

the best hosting companies in South Africa

These top 8 South African Web Hosting lists will help you to choose the right web hosting and start your business website or personal blog and publish your site live on the internet. So, read the complete article.

Are you looking for the perfect web hosting for South African Websites? If your answer is “YES” then you are landing on the right page.

Today, I will share with you the best web hosting in South Africa. We know that choosing the right web hosting is not an easy work without any proper guidance. Especially, when you have thousands of options but you need to choose the right web hosting among them.

For this reason, I am here to help you choose the best web hosting for South African websites. So, Let’s get into it – 

Find the Best Hosting Companies In South Africa

For the best hosting in South Africa, there are a few excellent web hosting companies to choose from. As a web agency with a LOT of web hosting accounts, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what defines a great website host.

We went through all our accounts, analyzed which web hosts are working well for South Africa (using live tracking), and which ones aren’t (and why). Then we decided to create this massive comparison page to share what we found, enjoy!

When it involves finding the proper web host for your website, the list of options is endless. So to save lots of you a while, I will give you my insights and share with you my best web hosting South Africa picks so you can start creating your website sooner!                                       

If you are also looking for the best practices on how to speed up a website, how I ranked each of these hosts, and the different types of web hosting, then you can see more below this list.

Let’s get stuck in!

So using my experience in selecting hosting companies that provide affordability as well as dependability, I’ve waded through many options and narrowed it down to 7 of the best.

Top 5 Web Hosting Companies in South Africa Compared

1. BlueHost: Best Overall Web Host For South Africans

 Load Time: 782ms

 Price: R57/mo

 Uptime: 99.99%

 Storage: 50GB

For anyone starting an internet site in South Africa, my hands-down top recommendation would need to be BlueHost.

They are a web host that I have been using for just over 3 years and are by far the best provider I have ever used. BlueHost is additionally officially recommended by WordPress as their favorite host.                                                                                                                                               

But what makes BlueHost so good for somebody in South Africa making a website?                                                                                              Simply put, BlueHost excels in the 3 most important aspects of a great web host. And those are speed, uptime (the amount of time your website is successfully online), and customer support.                                                                                                                                                         

Let me break down these aspects a bit more.

• Speed from Johannesburg: 782ms
• Uptime: On average 99.99% over 12 month
• Customer support: 1 minute wait time for hosting experts

What also stands out about BlueHost is that they also provide a long list of non-gimmicky extras included in their plans. Some of the most standout ones are:

• Free domain name
• Free SSL certificate
• 1-click WordPress Install
• Unmetered bandwidth 
• Unlimited websites (for the plus plan)

Ok, so BlueHost sounds pretty good, but what about any downsides? Well, the only downside I have come across is the site migration fee, which too is honest, you’ll never have to worry bout.

So what can one expect to pay for a service of this caliber… The price for their beginner plan is $3.96USD/mo which converts to 57 ZAR/mo when signing up for their 3-year plan.

Pros

• Fast connectivity and webpage loading
• Responsive and helpful support
• Recommended by WordPress
• Wide range of hosting services available

Cons

• Renewal price increases
• No free site migration

To activate this pricing, you can click the button below which will give you a discounted rate! To learn more about BlueHost, Click the button below. 

2. SiteGround: Best Web Host For Speed

 Load Time: 615ms

 Price: R71/mo

 Uptime: 99.99%

 Storage: 10GB

Next up on my list is none other than SiteGround. Founded in 2004, SiteGround is one of the premier players in the web hosting industry.

They currently host over 1,000,000 unique websites and are the third recommended web host by WordPress.

But what sets SiteGround apart is that they have some of the best speeds in the market for shared web hosting plans. Having servers in Asia, the US, and Europe, they can deliver up fast speeds to visitors all around the world.

While they, unfortunately, don’t have any servers located in South Africa, their speeds are still quite phenomenal, coming in at an average of 615ms. This is made possible with their free Cloudflare CDN’s, which are located in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Along with having fast speeds, SiteGround also offers up:

• Free SSL certificate
• Free email account
• Unmetered traffic
• Free daily backups
• 1-click WordPress install 
• Famous customer support

The only downside is that SiteGround doesn’t offer a free domain name which will set you back 180 Rand for a .co.za.

SiteGround features a highly responsive 24/7 customer support team that will respond within 10 minutes via live chat, phone, and email.

Pros

• Fast loading time for websites
• CDN to optimize speed for users around the globe
• Good range of security features and daily backups
• User-Friendly dashboard and control panel

Cons

• High cost, even higher renewal costs

All in all, SiteGround is a fantastic web host that delivers blazing fast speeds for those in South Africa, seamless integration with WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and phenomenal customer support.

3. Afrihost: Best South African Based Web Host

 Load Time: 912ms

 Price: R49/mo

 Uptime: 99.92%

 Storage: 2GB

How could I write the best web hosting South Africa list without including a SA based company? That would be criminal!

So let me introduce Afrihost which is a South African own and operated provider that provides a massive catalog of telco and hosting products.

One of their standout products would have to be their Gold shared Linux hosting plan which costs R49/mo which is an outstanding value. But what does one get for this price? And is their service any good?

When looking into their Gold plan, there are many useful benefits such as:

• Free .co.za or .online domain name
• Unlimited web traffic
• 1 MySQL Database
• Up to 75 emails accounts 
• SA based servers out of Bryanston and Gallo Manor

While this list does include some great extras, there are some shortfalls that one should be aware of.

• SSL certificate not included
• No free .com domain available 
• Small limited storage of 2GB

Of the above cons, the most important one is certainly the limited storage of 2GB. This is something to be aware of if you plan on making a large website. However, Afrihost has alternative plans just like the Silver Pro which has 10GB of storage at 107R/mo.

Overall, Afrihost remains an excellent web hosting provider with local based SA servers which will provide low latency and an inventory of great features at a reasonable price!

4. Hostinger: Cheapest Web Host For South Africans

 Load Time: 857ms

 Price: R11/ mo

 Uptime: 99.90%

 Storage: 10GB

Up next on my list may be a web host that’s a fantastic 11 Rand per month. Um, can you say that again, please? Yup, only 11 Rand a month.

But how is this even possible? This is simply because Hostinger is running an unbelievable promotion at the moment that has a 90% discount from the original price of R110/mo.

Even better is that this price is based on their 4-year signup plan, so this enables users to lock in this low price for 4 years. Ok, but what do you get for as far as web hosting is concerned with this service?

Well, to be honest, Hontigers plans and benefits are close to, if not on par with some of the other big players. Here are some of their standout benefits:

• 10GB of storage
• 100GB of bandwidth
• 1-click WordPress install
• Weekly backups
• 24/7/365 support

So as we will see, Hostinger provides the core essentials for a great web host. The only part that is lacking in my opinion is the absent free domain name and free SSL certificate which one would have to bring themselves or pay for with Hostinger domain registration.

Hostinger guarantees an uptime of 99.9% and consistent with our usage monitoring they deliver on this 100%. In case of any issues, you can directly contact the customer support team that is available 24 hours to resolve your issues.

Looking at the value you get for only $0.99/mo, you don’t need to look any further.

Pros

• Fast website loading speeds
• 24-hour customer support
• Very cheap
• A global network of servers
• Easy setup

Cons

• N/A

Overall, Hostinger is a solid web host with an even more solid starting price. For those on a budget looking to create a blog or small business website, this is a great pick!

5. A2 Hosting – Best Hosting for Resellers

Price: $3.92 (USD)

Disk Space: Unlimited

Support: Phone, Live Chat, Tickets

A2 Hosting hosts over 500,000 domains and is more popular for its shared hosting services.

Their cheapest plan comes with 1 website, Free SSL, unlimited SSD storage, Cloudflare CDN, CMS support, cPanel, and staging site that’s usually not available within the basic plans of other hosting services.

A2 Hosting servers are optimized for WordPress websites and provide fast load time. It auto-optimizes the website with caching and compression capabilities to achieve the best performance.

A2 has unique features that other hosting providers don’t offer at the same price range. It includes server-side caching, staging area, and speed optimization plugins for WordPress.

A2 could be your goto hosting service if you are a new blogger and looking for a medium-priced and reliable service provider.

A2 Hosting has additional perks and features for his or her higher-end plans. It offers a 20X performance boost with their Turbo servers powered by APC/OPcache & Turbo Cache.

The Turbo servers handle connections more efficiently and faster. And the fast loading speeds contribute significantly to SEO and user experience.

A2 Hosting also features a 24-hour customer support team that you simply can access via live chat or phone. There is a waiting period with the live chat feature, however, which can be frustrating.

Pros

• Speedy webpage loading times
• High uptime percentage
• Cloudflare CDN integration
• A comprehensive range of unlimited resources

Cons

• Live chat support can be improved

6. MilesWeb

Milesweb is one of the best web hosting providers that offer best in class features and services such as VPS hosting, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, WordPress hosting, etc. at an affordable price.

MilesWeb is the South African best web hosting company from which you can easily build, host, and manage a website now just at SR 4.70/month.

MilesWeb may be a big hosting provider, offering a full range of hosting services. The company is based in South Africa and uses servers located in datacenters in the United States, UK, Romania, South Africa, and India.

MilesWeb is one among the highest hosting companies in South Africa, with an informative and detailed website, offering a good range of hosting options.

The key features of Web hosting offered by MilesWeb are as follows:

• Free Domain Name
• Free SSL Certificate
• Free Site Builder
• Pure SSD Storage
• Secure Email Accounts
• cPanel
• 1-Click Installer
• Instant Account Setup
• Latest PHP & MySQL
• Global Data Centre
• Free Website Migration
• Malware Scan and Removal

MilesWeb’s dedicated server offer is extremely detailed, with 13 different server configurations to settle on from.

A wide range of hardware platforms is available, from cheap servers based on old Intel Core2 Duo E4500 processors with DDR2 memory, up to high-performance servers based on the Intel Xeon E5-2630v2 with DDR3 memory and SAS storage.

All dedicated servers are connected to a high-speed, redundant network and backed with 24/7 support, proactive server monitoring, and a 100% uptime SLA.

So if you’re looking for the best web hosting company in South Africa then MilesWeb would be the ideal choice for you.

7. Cloudways

Price: 15 (USD)

Disk Space: Unlimited

Support: Live Chat, Tickets, Toll-Free Phone Call

Cloudways is an intuitive, one-click Managed Cloud Hosting Platform. Ecommerce store owners, design agencies, developers, and bloggers host their websites on top of the foremost reliable cloud infrastructure providers – DigitalOcean, Vultr, Amazon, and Google.

The Cloudways Console may be a user-friendly solution for the managed cloud hosting needs of all types of companies. The days of being caught up in server and security management are gone.

Let us handle your security and manage your server and application tasks in just clicks, without the necessity for complex technical procedures.

In this age of digital commerce, no business can afford to be without a web presence. A neat and properly optimized website could offer a big edge over the competition.

This is why every SMB, no matter the budget should invest during a fast loading and delightful looking website.

The performance of an internet site is during a huge part dependent upon the hosting solution. Many SMBs make the mistake of “saving” on their hosting bill, only to regret later when performance issues arise.

Pros

• High-level support
• Pay-as-you-go plans
• One server – multiple apps
• All PHP apps supported
• Free trial 
• Easy scalability

Cons

• No domain registration
• The extra cost for email

8. Hetzner: Another Great South African Web Host

 Load Time: 617ms

 Price: R99/ mo

 Uptime: 99.90%

 Storage: 5GB

Lastly on my list is another SA based hosting provider called Hetzner. Founded in 1996 out of Germany, Hetzner has had quick expansion over the past few years into markets like South Africa.

As for their hosting plans, they start at a moderate R99/mo which gives a user unlimited bandwidth, 5GB of SSD storage, hosting up to 10 domains, and 1 FTP account.

However, the most important advantage that Hetzer has is that they operate servers out of Cape Town which ends up is lighting fast speeds for locals visiting say a little business SA based website.

When it comes to the downsides, Hetzner, unfortunately, doesn’t provide a free domain name or SSL, but these can be found within their services.

Overall, Hetzer as a great web host that has really made a name for themselves as a reputable and dependable web host in South Africa and also around the world.

What did I consider When Writing My Reviews?

Every web hosting provider has its pros and cons. But there are a couple of crucial features that will make a provider stand out from all the remainder.

Here is everything I took into account in my reviews of the best web hosting providers in South Africa, so that you know what you should be looking for.

Fast speeds are a must

Speed is at the highest of my list because it’s necessary for an internet hosting provider. With the pace of the online world these days, if your website is slow, it will fall behind the competition.
When it comes to loading a web page, a few seconds can make a huge difference. Experts have shown that if your page takes even a second too long to load, customers are inclined to lose interest quicker.

That’s why you want to be sure that the web hosting service you are paying for will be as fast as possible. For the most part, dedicated server hosting will be faster than shared server hosting.

But even for shared hosting, a lot of providers out there have faster speeds. I like to run a quick side-by-side comparison of quoted speeds before I make a decision, regardless of hosting type.

Are the prices and renewal prices competitive?

It can sometimes be tough to find the best balance between affordability and quality of your web hosting plan. You don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for your plan, but you don’t want to be stuck with an unreliable server, either.
Consider what type of plan you are buying – I will get more into the different types in the section below – and compare it to plans of other providers to make sure it is competitive before you buy.
It is also really important to pay attention to the renewal price of a plan. That can be where they trick you – sometimes a plan seems super reasonably priced for the first year or so, and then prices spike dramatically with renewal.

Consistent & reliable uptime numbers

The term ‘uptime’ refers to the amount of time that a website spends up and running like normal. Essentially, the better a web hosting provider’s uptime is, the less time it will spend down.
Especially if you are using your website for sales and marketing, downtime can be seriously detrimental to your business. It can also put you at risk of losing data. A good uptime means a more reliable, secure website.

Uptime is generally measured in percentiles, or the percent of the time that a server spends up as opposed to down. I don’t ever consider a server with any less than 99% uptime.
Here is that the key – most web hosting providers will claim 99.9% uptime. To get to the bottom of those claims, I like to read a few neutral reviews of those providers and see if I find the same stat repeated. Some providers that claim 99.9% uptime will be closer to 99.5%, or lower.

What was also included?

You should get more than just a web hosting plan from your hosting provider. All of the providers I considered in my reviews include some additional boosts in even their most elementary packages that help make starting and managing an internet site easier.

A free domain name and email address are the minimum benefits that should be included in a basic plan. These will both help you to get your site off the ground without any additional costs.

Some providers will give you more than one free domain name at the outset.
Another important benefit is a free SSL certificate.

An SSL certificate is crucial for the safety and security of your website. Most basic plans will install your first SSL certificate for free.
Website building tools with one-click installs or simple templates can also help to get your website started – this is a good feature to look out for if you are new to web design.

What amount of storage and bandwidth are provided?

A lot of individuals, especially if they’re a new tech and website building, don’t consider that their website takes up space.

The size of your website directly affects what kind of plan will work best for it.

The best plans have plenty of storage space and bandwidth for a limited price.

Some basic plans include unlimited bandwidth, which may be great for a fast-growing website.

If you’re just starting a little personal site or a blog, you’ll not need the maximum amount of space for storing as a much bigger, data-heavy site. Still, I like to look out for the most storage for the best price – you never know how much your website might grow in a given time.

Great customer support and WordPress experts

Helpful customer support is critical for a web hosting provider. Like I mentioned earlier, downtime can seriously impact your business and be harmful to your data.

If your website goes down, you will want to get to the bottom of the issue as fast as possible.
Customer service is often evaluated based on response time.

Comparing one web hosting provider to another, I like to check reviews and see which provider responds to complaints and questions fastest.

A lot of providers claim 24/7 support – but it is not always the case that the 24/7 support is going to get back to you right away.

There are many hosting types available such as:

• Shared Web Hosting
• Reseller Web Hosting
• Cloud-Based Web Hosting
• Virtual Private Server (VPS)
• Dedicated Web Server
• Colocation Web Hosting
• WordPress Web Hosting

1. Shared web hosting –

Shared hosting may be a sort of web hosting where one physical server hosts multiple sites. Many users utilize the resources on one server, which keeps the prices low.

Users each get a neighborhood of a server during which they will host their website files. Shared servers can hosts hundreds of users.

2. Reseller web hosting –

Reseller web hosting is an option that involves one company (a hosting provider) renting disc drive space and bandwidth to a special company (small-mid size business), who then rents the space to third parties (entrepreneurs-small business).

Simply put, reseller hosting is the ability to supply hosting to your clients as if you were the online hosting company.

This is typical for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to start their web hosting firm or for current web developers and designers who desire to feature additional services to their brand.

3. Cloud-based web hosting –

Cloud Webhosting is hosting that uses the resources of several clustered servers. This suggests that your website uses the virtual resources of several servers to accommodate all the aspects of hosting your site. … The cluster of servers in the cloud.

4. Virtual private server –

VPS hosting may be a Virtual Private Server and maybe a virtualized server. A VPS hosting environment mimics a fanatical server within a shared hosting environment. It is technically both shared hosting and dedicated hosting.

VPS Hosting is one of several sorts of web hosting accounts you’ll choose between to host your website online. To have an internet site on the web, you would like to possess your website files on an internet server.

Setting up and managing a server can’t only be expensive but difficult too.

Purchasing web hosting allows someone to rent space on an internet server, making it easier for the typical person to possess hosted an internet site online because all they have to do is upload their site files (no server setup is required on their part).

5. Dedicated web server

A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service could even be a sort of Internet hosting during which the client leases a whole server not shared with anyone else. … Server administration can usually be provided by the hosting company as an add-on service.

6. Colocation web hosting –

Colocation hosting may be a sort of service a knowledge center offers, during which it leases space and provides housing for servers.

The clients own the servers and claim full authority over the hardware and software. However, the storage facility is liable for maintaining a secure server environment.

7. WordPress web hosting –

Essentially, WordPress hosting is any sort of hosting that’s been optimized to run WordPress.

The most common sorts of WordPress hosting you will find are managed and shared web hosting, although there are other types available. … you will get a WordPress-optimized hosting platform t that you’re going to be sharing will other users.

Frequently asked questions

1. What is the best web hosting company in South Africa?

SiteGround – it is a No. 1 web hosting company founded in 2004 having headquarters in the USA, UK, Netherlands, and Singapore and currently servicing more than 800,000 domains worldwide.

It provides shared hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated servers. With the impressive customer support and latest offers, SiteGround has earned a special place in users’ hearts till now so this is one of the Fastest inexpensive best web hosting in South Africa.

Features of SiteGround-

• SiteGround uses the latest technology, PHP 7, SSD storage
• Free SSL Certificate
• More speed loading means more happy customers
• Free CDN, etc
• To always load your website as fast as possible and they provide airtight security to protect your website from hackers
• Top-notch support 24/7.
• Affordable price
• Three continent, 4 data centers
• 4.99/5 rating from existing customers.

2. Which is the best web hosting company in South Africa?

List of the best web hosting in South Africa –

1. BlueHost
2. SiteGround 
3. Afrihost
4. Hostinger
5. A2
6. Milesweb
7. Cloudways
8. Hetzner

The Final Word On Choosing the Best Web Hosting In South Africa

All of these hosting companies provide high uptime stats & performance, however, South Africa based companies come in slightly more expensive together with limited features such as storage & bandwidth.

On the other hand, the US-based hosts all offer tons of features with free web builders and more.

The South Africa hosting companies however offer faster connection speeds for websites located in South Africa.

Overall, having all the features & benefits that the US-based companies offer is a big advantage even if it means sacrificing a bit in speed which can be mitigated by having efficient, lean & fast websites.

Hopefully, this guide has shed some light on the top 8 best webs hosting in South Africa. If you feel like I have missed something, or would like me to cover a particular provider, please let me know down in the comments.so if you have further questions, please feel free to drop us a message.

please share your thoughts as it will help others make the right design. Thanks for reading!

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