The Best Australian Web Hosts Explained: A Complete Guide

A website is one of the best ways to showcase your business’ offerings and accomplishments. You need a reliable web host to make your website accessible on the World Wide Web.

However, finding the perfect web hosting service provider isn’t easy, especially when new to web hosting.

This blog familiarizes you with the concept of web hosting and its types. You will also learn about Australia’s best web hosting service providers and how to choose the right one.

The Best Web Hosts In Australia

1. Bluehost - Oldest web hosting brand with over 17 years of experience (since 2003)

Features:

• Free SSL certificate

• Plans start from $3.95/Month

• Resource protection

• MySQL databases

• PHP support

• Linux and cPanel

• FTP account and File Manager

• Free tech support

• Unlimited resources

• Cloudflare CDN

• Experienced Company

• Sufficient Storage Space of 10GB

Pros:

• No hidden charges   

• Offers WP-focused hosting service 

• Free domain name for a year at the time of signup

• Easy-to-use and straightforward control panel

Cons:

• It doesn’t offer superior-tech assistance

• It doesn’t support Windows Operating System

• Mixed Sentiments Among Users

• US-Based Servers

2. A2 Hosting - Best Web Host In Australia For Supersonic Server speed

Features:

• Unlimited SSD Storage and Bandwidth

• Unlimited data transfer

• The price starts from USD 2.99

• Customer Support via Helpline, Live Chat, and Tickets

• Free site migration

• Support for Php, Python, Laravel, and Perl

• Single-click installation for WP and Magento

• Free automatic offline backups

• Free SSH tool

• Speed optimized WordPress

• Lighting Fast Server Speed

• Free SSL certificates

• 30-day money-back guarantee

Pros:

• Easy Setup

• Round-the-Clock Assistance

• Specially designed WordPress hosting options

• Turbo speed feature up to 20 x faster than other web hosts

• Four global data centres

• Money-Back Guarantee

• Friendly and Efficient Customer Assistance

• Single encrypted SSL certificate to protect various sub-domains

• Support for WordPress, Magento, Drupal, and Joomla

• 1-month trial

Cons:

• Singapore server location

• Charges in USD

• Paid On-Demand Backups

3. Hostpapa - Professional-grade web hosting at an affordable price

Features:

• Price: $3.95 per Month

• cPanel control panel

• Optimized for both performance and speed

• 30-day money-back guarantee

• Advanced technology

• Reliable servers and 

• Free website transfer

Pros:

• Free domain on signing up for the basic shared web hosting plan  

• Trusted and secure business email 

• Convenient to use apps and tools

• 30-day free trial

• Adequate Storage Space

• Best suited for Beginners

• Quick and efficient support

Cons:

• High renewal prices

• Payment in USD

4. Fast Comet – Best web host for impeccable uptime and support services 

Features:

• Price: $2.95/month

• Daily and weekly free backups

• Driven by cPanel

• Free domain transfer

• Quickly managed website transfers on all types of plans

Pros:

• Secured with Bitninja server security   

• Single-click WordPress installation 

• Free Unlimited email accounts   

• Free application installation and update 

• Free website transfer 

Cons:

• It doesn’t provide a dedicated IP address to shared web hosting users

5. Rocket.net - Best Web Hosting For WordPress

Features:

• Price $30/month (1 WordPress installation, Storage 10GB)

• Safe and quick hosting services through inbuilt HTTP/2, CDN and HTTP/3 assistance and dual web application firewalls

• LIVE malware scanning and patching

• Managed backups with 14-day retention

• Offers Page Speed Insights to help website developers find problems on mobile and desktop devices

• Free automatic daily backups and on-demand backups on all plans.

Pros:

• Specialized WordPress hosting   

• Full-page cache

• Free migration service    

• Staging environments 

• Provide phpMyAdmin for database management

• Easy control panel   

• Over 200 PoP locations worldwide

Cons:

• It doesn’t support email hosting

• Little expensive for beginners

6. GreenGeeks - Eco-friendly Web Host for small Australian blogs and businesses

Features:

• Starting price: $2.95

• 99.9% Upload Time

• One-click WordPress Installation

• Customer Support via Tickets, Live Chat, and Helpline

• Compatible and optimized for WordPress 

• Heightened Security

• Unlimited disk space

• WordPress Acceleration

Pros:

• Eco-Friendly

• Solid State Drives to store web content

• Fast response time

• Unlimited storage

• Affiliate Program

• Offer high security to WordPress websites to boost search engine page rankings 

• LS Cache for WordPress plugin     

• Automatic updates to WP plugins and core 

Cons

• No local servers

• All servers are in Europe and the US 

What Is Web Hosting?

A web hosting service is a service that offers the essentials to host and maintain a website for a client.

Companies that provide web hosting services are called web hosts. They make the client’s website easily accessible on the world wide web.

To offer internet hosting service, a web host needs the following:

• One or more physical or virtual servers that act as the hosts for the websites

• DNS configuration to name a website and point it to the hosting server

• A web server that runs on the web host

• For each website hosted on the server: Space on the server, website-specific configuration, a database, software and credentials to build.

What Are The Types of Web Hosting?

Choosing the best web hosting for small businesses can be a challenge for beginners. 

It depends on the kind of website you want to deploy on the host and your plans while considering resource-intensive features such as e-commerce, forums, and directories. 

So, here is a list of the most common web hosts in Australia, helping you decide on the best web hosting for beginners.

Shared Web Hosting 

It is where your website shares resources with other sites on the same physical server. If you are looking for the best cheap web hosting in Australia, this could be the best option. 

Shared web hosting is for smaller sites or blogs. With this hosting type, users do not have to worry about maintenance. Everything is taken care of by the service provider.

However, the service has a few potential drawbacks, such as access to limited resources, greater security risk, no flexibility to install custom applications, and more. When using a shared hosting service, ensure that the data centre lies close to your web visitors.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Does your business need high performance, uptime, stability, and reliability? If yes, dedicated hosting could be the best option. It is for large e-commerce sites, forums, and real estate directories. 

In this hosting, your website is on powerful servers that are fully dedicated to your website and provides an incredible amount of server resources. However, due to these privileges, this hosting is the most expensive and has a complex and complicated setup.

Virtual Private Server Hosting (VPS)

VPS hosting is similar to having a dedicated server in a shared hosting system. In other words, a physical server divides its capacity into different independent virtual servers. Each VPN runs its operating system and has dedicated RAM, CPU, and SSD storage.

It is the best-value Australian web hosting arrangement that gives you the benefits of a powerful dedicated server at a low cost. Moreover, the hosting gives you control of the server.

Cloud Hosting

In cloud hosting, the website sits on hundreds of different servers. Due to this, it offers a fast-loading time, scalability, and flexibility to users. 

Unlike shared and dedicated hosting, your website can access multiple servers. So, even if one of the servers fails, your website will keep running without any data loss or operational delay.

Moreover, with dedicated server resources guaranteed, your information remains secure and private. Cloud hosting is for those whose requirement is uptime and the ability to scale

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is popular among web agencies. In this type, web hosting companies buy high-capacity servers in bulk and then sell them to their clients. They also perform web hosting arrangements, deploy the client’s website, and bill them annually or monthly.

The benefit of reseller hosting is that it gives greater control to web designers. The entire setup and execution of reseller hosting require vast technical knowledge of hosting aspects like the cPanel.

WordPress Hosting

A lot of businesses and bloggers nowadays use WordPress websites. This hosting offers peace of mind to people who don’t want to deal with the technical aspects of maintaining or running a WordPress site.

You will find two versions of WordPress available - WordPress.org and WordPress.com. With the .com version, your site resides on WordPress.com, and you need not worry about hosting. On the other hand, WordPress.org allows you to host your WordPress site.

WordPress hosting is an all-in-one service with plenty of features such as no downtime, additional WP-specific security, automatic plugins, WP core updates, regular back-ups, premium support, and superior performance.

How To Select The Best Australian Web Hosting For Small Businesses?

A hosting provider is necessary to launch a website. It can be overwhelming with numerous options for finding the right web hosting company. 

A better understanding of the current and future website needs and objectives can help you plan and choose the best web host.

Here are some aspects that will help you compare web hosts:

• Easy to use

• Built-In E-Commerce and Marketing tools, such as Shopify and Wix

• Uptime/Reliability

• Automatic backups and one-click restore

• Site Speed

• Adequate Disk Space /Storage space 

• Data Transfer and Bandwidth 

• Scalability

• Price

• Server Security measures such as sturdy firewalls, SSL certificates, vulnerability tests, and backups

• Location (the website hosting location should be closer to your target market) 

• Operating System (Windows or Linux) - Windows-based host offers high flexibility and can run complex programming scripts such as ASP.Net, PHP, My SQL, etc. Linux Hosts are the industry standard offering more reliability and are less prone to crashes than the former.

• Customer Support

What is Domain Hosting?

An online business needs both web hosting and domain hosting. The domain name is the address that users use to locate a website.

Domain hosting is a service that sells domain names for websites and registers them to the website owner in exchange for an annual subscription fee. The cost of domain hosting varies based on the types of domains, and locations served.

Can I Self-Host My Website?

Some shared hosting providers give this facility to users to host their websites. However, before you take this challenge, understand its limitations with it. It takes time, effort, and money to maintain your server.

Also, you cannot access customer support if you host the website. It could land you trouble if you didn’t solve problems yourself.

What Not To Do When Choosing a Web Hosting Service?

• When selecting the cheapest host available in the market, your craving for saving a few bucks might cause you pain and heartache later. Such low-cost and low-quality hosts may lead to potential security breaches.

It is also possible that most of the sites on that IP address are spammy and dangerous, which could lead you to real trouble and will damage your website.

• Going for a CMS platform instead of WordPress 

• Forget reading the fine print to understand the legal loopholes hosting providers need to disclose.

• Pay for a Secure Socket Layer certificate, as many genuine hosts provide it free to their clients.

• Choose an expensive plan at the starting stage of the business. Beginners generally make the mistake of choosing a costly hosting option while their website is still at its early stage and doesn’t demand extensive resources. The right strategy is to start with the lowest hosting plan and gradually upgrade it to a more scalable service plan as the website outgrowths its existing capacity.

• Getting carried away by the “Unlimited Bandwidth” offer: These offers may look attractive but check the applicable conditions.

The hosting company can cancel your account if a website uses more bandwidth than a standard website.

Should You Go For Email Hosting Service?

Almost every web hosting service includes an email hosting feature as part of the standard package. An email-friendly web host enables regular supervision of business emails.

It is a good practice to host your email and website separately in the case of interruption on a host. GoDaddy is the best domain and email hosting In Australia. It sells email packages at a starting rate of $5.99 per user. 

Are Free Website Hosting Services Reliable?

No. Free website hosting includes display ads, shared branding, poor customer support, and limited bandwidth that harm the reputation of your business.

It is wise to go for a budget-friendly hosting provider like Hostinger in Australia that offers reliability, high security, 24/7 customer support, and unique branding.

Conclusion

Finding a quality web host is necessary for getting your website live.

Acknowledge that your website is a vital part of your brand identity, and don’t base your selection only on price. 

Based on business needs, consider the above information to evaluate and find the most suitable website host.

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