How to Choose the Best Web Hosting in Kenya

First, decide what kind of hosting you need

The best host for a WordPress blog isn’t the best for a Django app, so start with what you are building:

• Shared web hosting for business websites, blogs and WordPress. The host runs the server for you, and it is the cheapest option.
• eCommerce hosting for WooCommerce shops, with more memory, caching and a staging site to test changes on.
• App hosting if your site is code in GitHub, such as a Node.js, Python or Laravel app, and you want it deployed on every push.
• A VPS if you want a whole server to run yourself.

If you aren’t sure, Choosing the Right Hosting Plan for Your Business walks through each one. The checklist below is written for shared hosting, which is what most Kenyan businesses need, but almost all of it applies to the others too.

The twelve things that decide it

1. What it costs in year two

The price on the home page is often an introductory one, and the renewal can be double. The same goes for domains: a .co.ke that is cheap or free in year one renews at the normal price. Ask for the renewal price of both the plan and the domain, then work out what three years cost. That number, not the first-year price, is what you are choosing between.

2. NVMe storage, not just “SSD”

Storage speed decides how fast your pages are put together on the server, especially on WordPress, which reads from its database on every visit. NVMe drives are several times faster than older SATA SSDs, and many times faster than hard drives. Why NVMe Storage Matters for Your Website Speed explains the difference.

3. A fast web server, with caching

Look for LiteSpeed rather than plain Apache. With its LiteSpeed Cache plugin, a WordPress site serves most pages without running PHP at all, which is what keeps it fast when a post is shared on WhatsApp and everyone opens it at once. Redis object caching helps busier sites and online shops.

4. Paying the way you already pay

A host that bills in shillings and takes M-Pesa saves you card declines, foreign exchange charges and the renewal that silently fails because a card expired. That matters more than it sounds: a missed renewal is an entirely avoidable way for a site to go offline.

5. Support you can actually reach

“24/7 support” should mean a person, by chat, ticket or a Kenyan phone number, at any hour. Test it before you buy: send a pre-sales question on a weekend evening and time the reply. How a host treats someone who hasn’t paid yet is a fair preview of how it treats customers.

6. Backups you can rely on

Daily backups should be included, not sold as an extra. Ask how many days back you can restore, whether the backups are kept somewhere other than the server your site runs on, and whether restoring one costs anything.

7. Free SSL on every site

Browsers label a site without HTTPS as “Not secure”, and visitors leave. Free certificates that renew themselves are standard now; paying for a basic certificate shouldn’t be necessary.

8. Uptime you can check

Every host promises 99.9% uptime. Fewer publish a live status page showing how they actually did. A public status page is a host that expects to be checked, and it tells you at once whether a problem is yours or theirs.

9. Business email included

An address like [email protected] looks more trustworthy than a Gmail account. Check how many email accounts a plan includes and how much storage each one gets.

10. Your .ke domain, in your name

.ke domains are registered through registrars accredited by KeNIC, the registry for Kenya’s domains. Make sure the domain is registered with you as its owner, not the host or the developer who set it up, and that you can get its transfer code when you ask. Losing control of a domain is far harder to fix than moving a website.

11. Free migration, and room to grow

If you already have a site, a good host moves it for you at no charge. Then think a year ahead: when you open an online shop or outgrow shared hosting, can you move up to a bigger plan, a VPS or app hosting without changing companies?

12. A guarantee, and a way out

A money-back period lets you test a host with real traffic. Ask how long it is, and what happens to your files and domain if you leave. A host that makes leaving easy rarely needs to.

Red flags

How Chajio Cloud measures up

We are a Kenyan host, so hold us to the same list. Here is where our web hosting stands:

• Price: web hosting from $16.99/yr, with the full price list on our web hosting page.
• Speed: NVMe storage and LiteSpeed on every plan, with Redis caching from the Standard plan up.
• Paying: M-Pesa, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and bank transfer, billed in Kenyan shillings.
• Support: 24/7, by live chat, phone and tickets, from our team in Nairobi.
• Backups and SSL: daily backups and a free SSL certificate on every plan.
• Uptime: a 99.9% uptime SLA and a public status page.
• Email: unlimited email accounts on every plan.
• Moving and growing: free migration, and eCommerce hosting, Linux VPS and app hosting in the same account when you need them.
• Guarantee: 14 days to get your money back on any hosting plan.

Whoever you choose, ask the six questions above. A good host answers all of them quickly and without fine print.