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Perhaps your Australian business has outgrown shared hosting and you need a faster, more reliable service. Enter cloud hosting, a popular choice for businesses that want to ensure minimal downtime, enhanced security and fast speeds.
With cloud hosting your data and files are hosted across multiple servers—rather than being confined to one shared server—which makes it ideal for high-traffic sites.
Today’s leading cloud hosting platforms offer customers a unique and affordable way to scale up their websites, apps or whatever else they need to host. The best systems on the market offer features like fast-loading solid-state drive (SSD) storage, top-shelf processors and the ability to scale your hosting plan as you grow.
Forbes Advisor looked at the best systems on the market for Australian businesses and compared them based on pricing, features and usability.
Note: The below list represents a selection of our top category picks, as chosen by Forbes Advisor Australia’s editors and journalists. The information provided is purely factual and is not intended to imply any recommendation, opinion, or advice about a financial product. Not every product or provider in the marketplace has been reviewed, and the list below is not intended to be exhaustive nor replace your own research or independent financial advice. For more information on how Forbes Advisor ranks and reviews products, including how we identified our top category picks, read the methodology selection below.
We researched 54 hosting services and analysed factors such as reliability, pricing, customer support, storage and ease of use. These are the top five providers we recommend.
In order to choose the best cloud hosting options for this ranking, Forbes Advisor Australia compared each service based on important factors that include ease of use, value for the money, popularity and features.
We then ranked each hosting service based on a 5-star rating system. Here’s what we looked at to compile the rankings in each category.
About Star Rankings
You will note that we have included a star rating next to each product or provider. This rating was determined by the editorial team once all of the data points above were considered, and the pros and cons of each product attribute was reviewed. The star rating is solely the view of Forbes Advisor editorial staff. Commercial partners or advertisers have no bearing on the star rating or their inclusion on this list. Star ratings are only one factor to be considered, and Forbes Advisor encourages you to seek independent advice from an authorised financial adviser in relation to your own financial circumstances and investments before you decide to choose a particular financial product or service.
When you first launch a website, you will more than likely start with a shared host. This type of hosting means that a single server has multiple users, and each user gets a certain amount of bandwidth.
For those just starting out or who have a small website, this is generally the default choice, as it is the easiest and most cost-effective solution.
The downside of shared hosting is that it’s, well, shared. There is only so much room on a server, which means you may experience slower performance depending on what the other hosted sites are doing. There is also an increased security risk, since one hacker would be able to access multiple sites.
Eventually you will probably start to feel the constraints of shared hosting, which will prevent high-traffic sites from optimal performance.
Cloud hosting takes care of these problems, because users are supported by several different servers. Switching to a cloud host means that sites with heavy traffic will always perform with consistent reliability.
Since you are no longer confined to one server, there is no limit to how much users can scale and expand.
Cloud hosting allows websites and apps with heavy traffic to avoid downtime, errors or slow page loading. If one server goes offline, another one will instantly pick up your site and keep it running seamlessly.
Cloud hosting also offers increased security, since your files will also be spread out over a variety of servers, and not stored in only one location.
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Bluehost
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HostGator
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IONOS
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Drag-and-drop interface
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Google Cloud explains that cloud hosting “is the ability to make applications and websites available on the internet using the cloud”.
There are many ‘clouds’, from Google Cloud to the Amazon Cloud, and the clouds run by AWS or Wix. And, of course, all of the cloud hosting services listed above.
Traditionally, websites hosted applications run on physical servers; by using the cloud, your website will be built on software that doesn’t rely on a server (as servers could crash at any time, leading your website to be offline until fixed).
There are three main types: IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and SaaS (Software as a Service). IaaS provides a pay-as-you-go, on-demand infrastructure. PaaS allows organisations to rent the needed infrastructure, saving on costs. SaaS permits users to lease applications and host software on their own servers.
A backup organisation copies cloud data and stores it in another system, allowing for quick access in recovery cases. What organisation this is depends on your choice of cloud hosting provider.
You should upgrade when it is imperative that your website or app runs reliably, no matter when or where it is being accessed. If you are looking for fast performance, scalability, and better security, it’s probably time to make the switch.
While most sites will start out with a traditional shared host, making the switch to cloud hosting allows users to truly scale their sites and take them to the next level.
Related: Our Pick Of The Best Web Hosting Services For Australian Businesses
Cloud hosting is becoming a much more popular choice for many websites, due to the ease-of-use, increased uptime rates, and the safety of knowing your website will be saved and stored in the cloud.
It’s a common choice of hosting by e-commerce stores, news publications, and other high-traffic websites. But regardless of what your website is for, cloud hosting is a great choice for all.
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