Web hosting

Web hosting in Kenya

Web hosting in Kenya is still in the low despite the much hype and efforts on fiber optic cable infrastructure deployment. Today there are hundreds of companies in Kenya offering web hosting services. These web hosting companies differ on price and the quality of the services they offer.

Apart from the price, the means and mode of payment for web hosting services is also not clear. Recently I wrote an article about Visa prepay card that can be used to pay for services and purchase things from the internet but it seems Kenyans are so reluctant about the whole issue.

Luckily to bridge the gap, most of the web hosting companies in Kenya have more than one means for payment like Mpesa and other mobile money systems though paying for an online service using mobile money systems like Mpesa is less secure and not interesting due to the time it takes to get connected to customer care service like the safaricom’s 234 line that can take a whole day before getting through in case you sent money to the wrong number.

Credit cards on the other hand are more secure when it comes to purchasing goods and services online because that is what it was developed for.

Things to consider when shopping for web hosting service are as follows;

Web hosting in Kenya: Domain registration

Some web hosting companies offer free Domain registration to their clients if they purchase web hosting plans that go beyond 12 months. While this is convenient budget wise it might bite you hard in the future when you want to move your website to another web hosting company.

So it is better you keep your domain registration away from your web hosting company.  Domain registrations costs about $10 to $15 per year that is between KES900 to KES1, 300 and it is worth to buy it yourself than getting it for free from the web hosting company because it might not be free at all.
Remember:  the web hosting companies are there to make money through their services so free is not that free.

Web hosting in Kenya: Price

The price of web hosting in Kenya has not been different from the rest of the web hosting companies outside Kenya and It might cost you about $3 - $10 per month depending on the plan you choose that is KES270 - KES900 per month.

Web hosting in Kenya: Space

Space is a Major factor when deciding which web hosting company to use. Space is the disk space measured in bytes of the physical space allocated on the hard disk to you to host your website. This is where you will store all files associated with your website and WebPages.

At one point before I set up my own web hosting company, I signed up with a web hosting company that promise unlimited space and bandwidth that turned up to be only 20GB. Although 20GB is more than enough for hosting a website, it is immoral to promise a nonexistent service just because you want customers.

Top 10 Web hosting in Kenya