This post is by guest author, Subhan Alam This article has been edited and published with the author’s permission.
You’re probably hoping this NOT to be another one of those boring articles that simply spew technical jargon about web hosting solutions in Australia. Rest assured, you have come to the right place.
This article is all about the hosting options available in Australia. Once you are done with reading this, you will have a great idea about the best hosting solution that fits your business model. Let’s dig in, shall we?
Types of Web Hosting Solutions in Australia
There are several kinds of web hosting services available. But, don’t let this overwhelm you
1. Shared web hosting
Shared hosting service is popular among entrepreneurs and startups with very limited business needs. The reason for this is one – low price. You can subscribe to a shared hosting plan for as less as $3 a month.
In shared web hosting, you share your hosting server with dozens of websites so that all resources (such as CPU usage and RAM) are shared among many users. Think of renting a room with many roommates and you could imagine how shared hosting works. As you may have guessed, sharing your servers with others means that there is a limit on how much of each resource you can use.
If you go beyond your capacity, your hosting provider can suspend your account. So, you need to make sure you monitor your usage. Due to limited resources, shared hosting is usually a choice for businesses with very low technical requirements; not for growing businesses.
2. Reseller Hosting
In a reseller hosting service, you buy the host’s services and use the additional bandwidth and RAM space to host websites on behalf of third-party websites. In reseller hosting plans, you have a control panel through which you can view and control billing, RAM, and storage for all websites you host for others.
This gives you a range of benefits. You not only get to host your own website but hosting on behalf of others helps you earn extra income (a good option to keep steady cash inflow).
Most importantly, you don’t need to have any technical knowledge. All technical issues are handled by your host.
The downside is that reseller hosting plans tend to be more expensive than shared Australian web hosting ones. A typical reseller hosting plan can cost you around between $30 and $40. If you don’t have many clients, it will turn into an unnecessary expense.
3. VPS Hosting
VPS hosting is a lot similar to shared hosting, except that you share a lot fewer resources with others. So, while your servers are shared, you have access to dedicated resources that are not used by anyone else. VPS hosting is you renting a flat with other flatmates. So while you have a shared toilet and dining room, your bedroom, drawers, and cupboards are not.
For this reason, VPS hosting is ideal for combining the benefits of both shared and dedicated hosting.
4. Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated hosting is usually the natural progression for businesses that face traffic peaks. Here, you are using a server for yourself only, and all technical resources are for your website’s use alone. To use the flat example, dedicated hosting would be renting a flat all for yourself.
As the word ‘dedicated’ implies, you don’t have to share any technical resources with any other server. For this reason, dedicated hosting is a reliable solution for making full use of hosting resources, which are ideal for maintaining website performance.
The drawback, however, is the high price. There is a huge cost that goes with renting and managing physical hardware entirely for your website server. Dedicated hosting plans can cost around $100 per month. So, unless your website requires a lot of hosting resources, you’re better off with a cheaper hosting plan.
Another problem is that you will need to have in-depth knowledge and expertise with dedicated hosting, mainly server technology. This is because you will have to manage a lot of the technical side of things. A solution for this is to hire a system administrator, and that comes with extra labour costs.
5. Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting, in comparison with the above-mentioned hosting services, runs via a virtualized server (or the ‘cloud’). Cloud hosting works similar to a VPS hosting plan; except that, all data sharing is virtualized. However, this key difference opens up a whole number of benefits.
In this type of hosting, your website is not hosted through a physical hardware device, saving you considerable IT managing and updating costs, and you pay only for the server space used. Secondly, scaling your hosting needs up and down is a lot simpler. This means that when demand is low, you don’t have to continue paying higher infrastructure costs.
But, cloud hosting is not without its fair share of disadvantages. Even with cloud hosting plans, downtime is a major issue. Since cloud hosting is based internet-based, your business becomes dependent on the internet. This means that the smallest outage can put your website to a standstill. So the quality of your internet can make all the difference.
Most important of all, you are responsible for managing all aspects of the cloud hosting from infrastructure to cloud tools. To put simply, you need a lot of cloud hosting expertise to be able to host your websites with the least issues.
6. Cloud Hosting
Managed cloud hosting gives you access to cloud hosting without needing the technical expertise to deploy operating systems, handle security patches, and backup and restore data.
This is especially useful if you lack technical staff or wish to outsource all aspects related to cloud databases, frameworks, and applications to a reliable managed cloud hosting provider. In this hosting service, constant availability and data security features are the most beneficial.
Popular Local Hosting Providers
Whilst there are indeed many Australian web hosting solutions providers, the most effective ones are only a handful. You have the option to host your website on the following hosting providers.
Panthur
Panthur is a Melbourne-based hosting provider offering Economy, Business, and Stealth plans for businesses of all size and needs.
Digital Pacific
Digital Pacific provides hosting solutions for all, from individuals to large corporations. It offers a range of hosting plans: shared, VPS, dedicated, and reseller hosting.
SiteGround
With a wide spectrum of cloud hosting plans, SiteGround is another popular hosting provider in Australia. It not only provides shared, dedicated, reseller, and cloud hosting, but also custom-hosting solutions. Most importantly, it offers managed WordPress hosting service to clients.
Crucial
Crucial provides web, reseller, and managed VPS hosting. It is credited with a number of industry awards for its service offering and is a favoured hosting provider across Australia.
Cloudways
Cloudways specializes in providing a managed cloud hosting platform for bloggers, startups, developers, and eCommerce stores. It offers hosting on several cloud infrastructures and apps to cater to the needs of growing businesses.
Why Cloud-Hosting is The Best
There is a good explanation for why global IT cloud spending is growing at such an alarming rate. According to Forbes, cloud computing spending is expected to reach $162 billion (US dollars) by 2021.
With the evolution in new cloud subscription models and cloud infrastructure servers, such as Linode and AWS, more and more businesses are switching to managed cloud hosting as their preferred hosting solution.
So if you are still unsure about which hosting service is best for your business, managed cloud hosting is what you need. There are many reasons for this.
Firstly, the cost is a big indicator. Regardless of whether you’re a startup or not, choosing a physical hardware server for your hosting will drain your cash. In managed cloud hosting, you are billed according to your usage of resources. This allows you to scale up and down with ease.
Secondly, managed cloud hosting provides consistent availability. In other words, in case you face downtime, a managed cloud hosting provider’s multiple cloud servers can automatically run as a backup.
Furthermore, a managed cloud hosting provider will be more adept at providing services and features suited to your business needs. Take data security, for example. With an unmanaged cloud or dedicated hosting service, you run the risk of compromising your data (unless you can find top data security talent) with data breaches and hacks.
By choosing a managed cloud hosting service, your hosting provider can give you access to dedicated security features and tools, such as IPS and IDS, without you having to manage its hair-pulling details.
Why Choose Cloudways Managed Cloud Hosting Solution?
Cloudways is one of the industry’s leading managed cloud hosting providers dedicated to delivering hassle-free cloud hosting services for you.
It offers a robust Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) platform that allows developers, bloggers, digital agencies, and small businesses to run websites and apps without having to face the complexities that come with server maintenance, cloud security, and other technicalities.
In other words, all technical aspects relating to coding, server setup, or maintenance are handled by Cloudways.
Host Websites on Industry-Leading Cloud Infrastructures
Cloudways enables you to select the cloud infrastructure of your choosing. Among the many cloud infrastructures that Cloudways caters to are Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine, DigitalOcean, Kyup, Vultr, and the newly added Linode.
Integration of 10+ Applications
In addition to its multiple cloud infrastructures, Cloudways allows integration of 10+ apps. Some of these include Magento, WooCommerce, WordPress, Moodle, Drupal, PHP Stack, and Joomla. This gives you more than enough variety for your website and application integration needs.
Advanced Enterprise-grade Resources for Exceptional Hosting Performance
Cloudways offers a wide spectrum of hosting services and features from security and scalability to dedicated resources, such as SSD-based hosting and Varnish UI. With these, you will have considerable server parameters and resources at your disposal to meet your business and personal needs.
For example, if you are looking to run an Ecommerce store or a professional blog, the dedicated SSD hosting feature gives you lightning-fast load page times to deliver a spectacular website experience for your visitors.
Conclusion
Web hosting solutions in Australia are of many kinds and each is best suited for specific business needs. In spite of this, Cloudways managed cloud hosting is the most cost-effective and efficient hosting service available in the market. Its variety of cloud infrastructures and apps offers plenty of choice and freedom for your business needs.