Best Web Hosting For Small Business In India | 2020

Web hosting is buying space on a webserver to host your applications, content management systems, WordPress sites etc. A web hosting service provider manages your applications and websites on your…

Updated on September 14, 2020

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Web hosting is buying space on a webserver to host your applications, content management systems, WordPress sites etc. A web hosting service provider manages your applications and websites on your behalf, after charging a fee for it. The fee is paid upfront for a year or is a recurring amount paid monthly. 

So why use a web host when you can host your applications on your own web server? The answer to this question is evident. If you are hosting an application that needs to be accessed by thousands of people, then you will also need supporting infrastructure.

You will need to manage your databases, high-availability clusters, backup storage, power supply equipment and so on. In the long run, the costs associated with maintaining the infrastructure required to host your applications outruns the benefits realized by hosting the applications.

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Given this uneven cost-to-benefits ratio, hosting applications using your own infrastructure is not cost-effective. This is especially true if you only have one application to host or only a handful of applications. In such cases, it is beneficial to seek the services of a web host.

Best Web Hosting Providers In India 2020

Contents Of This Review

In this regard, the following are some of the good web hosting services for small businesses in India.

Hostinger

Offering reliable web hosting, in an Internet ecosystem that is filled with hackers and malware, Hostinger provides secure, scalable and affordable web hosting.

The following are some of the many benefits of using Hostinger.

Uptime and downtime speed

Amongst the most desired qualities of a web service are consistent request and response cycles with good speeds, and negligible or zero latency. A speedy website not only increases traffic but is good for SEO. Research shows that speed of a website is very critical for the website to gain traction with customers. Powered by MySQL, PHP, and FTP, Hostinger offers web hosting infrastructure that supports speed and scalability. Unlimited disk space enables applications and websites to scale to the demands of any number of usage scenarios. Unlimited bandwidth offered by Hostinger allows unrestricted uplink and downlink speeds.

Budget friendlya

Economical services are always a good feature of a web host. $2.15 per month is the single web hosting charge of Hostinger. $3.49 per month is the premium web hosting charge and $7.95 per month is the business web hosting fee.

These are very nominal rates for a web hosting service that is packed with good features such as malware protection, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space etc. The value proposition of this web host is that customers pay only for the web hosting services sought, and not for the marketing. Often, the marketing expenses and other miscellaneous expenses are passed onto the customers by web hosts. But Hostinger has a transparent pricing policy. Customers know what they are paying for and get what they are paying for.

Optimized

Hostinger’s services are optimized for various CMS (Content Management Systems), including WordPress. A highly optimized site is speedy, responsive, and even during genuine network slow-downs does not show significant signs of latency or slowing down of services. The webhost uses caching mechanisms and custom servers to enable optimizations so that unnecessary network activities such as re-fetching of redundant data, round-trips, re-requests of the same web assets are identified and reduced. 

Free domain hosting and SSL

A certified member of ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), customers need not worr about getting fake deals with Hostinger. The free web domain hosting and SSL allows small businesses to get web host services at nominal rates and continue with it throughout. The top of the line security features of Hostinger via free SSL security certificates ensures that all data that is uplinked and downlinked is encrypted. 

SiteGround

SiteGround is a popular web hosting service especially with WordPress site owners. The following are some of the notable reasons why to choose this web host.

WordPress Support

When a WordPress site owner encounters a problem with his or her WordPress site, the common problem that they face is that the webhost customer support personnel don’t have adequate experience in troubleshooting these issues. But in the case of Siteground, the customer support is well-versed with WordPress CMS and all its technicalities. This is not only a time saver but a cost saver when it comes to getting a WordPress site up and running with minimal downtime. 

WordPress caching

WordPress sites can receive a spike of requests. When demand for the site surges, a caching mechanism is the best solution to balance the load. The problem in caching could be a technical process and not many WordPress owners know how to do it. Thanks to the knowledge of Siteground’s technical experts, they setup caching mechanisms of WordPress sites via plugins. All that needs to be done is to call their support and the rest is taken care by then.

Cloudfare CDN integration

Built-in CDN integration allows caching of static content of websites so that it can be distributed to requests via 100+ servers located at different parts of the globe. So that when someone visits a website, the content that they request is delivered to them from the closest CDN server. Not only is this faster it also increases user experience and decreases chances of network-based attacks. 

CDN integration is more secure because it protects websites by analyzing the legitimacy of received content. This means that SQL injections, spam content, excessive bot crawling, and DDoS attacks can be thwarted and kept at bay.

Phone support

More than conversing with someone over a chat application, it feels more personal to converse with someone over a phone, when it comes to seeking technical support. Siteground has retained phone support so that customers get a personalized experience when using Siteground’s services. 

Daily backups

At a time when shared hosts are stopping daily backup service, Siteground is continuing to offer daily backups. This is a bare minimum when it comes to website security so that even in the event something happens to your site; you can always go to the backup and restore it like before. 

Free site transfer

When transferring websites or web applications from another host to Siteground, the process is taken care of by Siteground. They have the necessary host to host migration mechanisms to ensure a safe and reliable website and web application software, data transfer. 

A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting is a versatile web hosting service providing various types of hosting such as Shared, VPS, Cloud, Dedicated, WordPress and Reseller. Small businesses can use VPS Hosting because it is beyond basic shared hosting, yet not as expensive as dedicated hosting. Starting at only $5 per month, this is an ideal web hosting service for small businesses in India. 

The following are some other salient points about A2 Hosting’s web host services:

Pricing

Customers can opt for monthly payments, yearly payments, and advance 2-year or 3-year payments. 3-year advance payments seem too long, but considering the cost benefits, it is worth it. Plans are cheaper when paid in advance over three years if taking their monthly service costs into account. 

When it comes to value for money, A2 Hosting ranks amongst the cheapest web hosting service providers. The best part of it is that this web host has the anytime money-back guarantee scheme that is far ahead of the competition. If not satisfied with A2 Hosting’s services, customers get a full refund of the fees that they paid for A2 Hosting’s services. It has to be noted that terms and conditions apply. A2 Hosting will fully inspect their customers’ complaints or issues and establish its veracity to determine if the refund is applicable.

Security

A2 Hosting has its own brand of security named the Perpetual Security Initiative. This is in addition to the free SSL certificates provided by the web host. The Perpetual Security Initiative integrates HackSpan protection that is active round the clock to protect your site against Internet attacks and malware intrusions. Also, there are several other security mechanisms, such as:

  • Dual Hosting Firewall – Blocking of unauthorized users is achieved via an additional layer of server firewall apart from the main network firewall.
  • Limited Server Access – System generated keys are used to communicate to servers rather than passwords.
  • Server hardening – Network security access layers are tightened with strong authentication mechanisms.
  • DDoS protection reinforced – DDoS attacks happen when a huge amount of traffic is sent to a web server so that legitimate web traffic is denied access to the web server’s request and response cycles. Reinforced DDoS identifies such large volumes of ‘fake’ traffic.

Support

Called the Guru Crew, A2 Hosting’s customer support allows customers to issue queries via support tickets, call the global helpline or chat live with a technical support representative. Customers also have access to a knowledge base by which they can get their common queries resolved. 

HostingRaja

HostingRaja provides inexpensive web hosting for small and large companies. The Gold, Silver, and WordPress Silver hosting plans come at nominal rates of Rs. 161, Rs. 85 and Rs. 149 per month, respectively. These are affordable hosting plans, very useful for small businesses. 

HostingRaja also offers premium and unlimited plans such as Premium Corporate, Premium SME, and Unlimited starts at Rs. 287, Rs. 226, and Rs. 204 per month, respectively. These are unlimited plans which means that customers can host unlimited number of files, media files, CSS/JS files, and files of several other formats. Unlimited plans offer unlimited web space, bandwidth, domains, and free malware protection. 

Here are some of the many features of Hosting Raja.

Costing

All services are fully-managed. HostingRaja provides performance-tuned web servers that utilize only the latest technologies. Hosting prices are very nominal. Starter plans start at below Rs 100 per month. For small businesses looking to start small and then expand, HostingRaja provides all the necessary infrastructure for this transition.

Windows Hosting

HostingRaja offers fast and reliable Windows hosting plans for those looking to host Windows applications and need supporting Windows environment. It could be in the form of ASP.NET framework, MS Index Server, Visual Basic scripts etc.

Reliability

Virtual machines are web-optimized, and servers are secured with encryption and authentication mechanisms. Free SSL certificates, Multi-language support with Hotlink Protection, Password-protected directories are some of the other security features. 

Wide range of supported technologies and high speed network

ASP.NET, MySQL, PHP are some of the many technologies supported. There is also a free website builder and email forwarding service. All web servers have throughput access to network speeds of over 1000 gps. 

Dedicated server plans

These plans are for those businesses that don’t want to host their web applications on shared servers. HostingRaja offers dedicated server plans for such customers. The dedicated server plans have a full suite of features. Some of them are namely, Server Side Includes, Full Unix Shell, Web-Optimized Virtual Machines, Canned CGI Scripts, SSL Secure Server, Storage & Bandwidth, Root SSH Access, IPv6 Support, Unlimited Domain Hosting, Network Isolation etc.

High-quality hardware is used to power the dedicated servers. Many small businesses are opting for dedicated servers, given that the client gets complete access to all of the system’s resources. Also, the fact that only the latest and most reliable technologies are used, makes it an ideal investment for businesses looking to expand their web assets and web presence. 

Cloudways

Mainly known as a web host for WordPress powered sites, Cloudways is a fully managed web hosting service provider with attractive and flexible pricing plans. Operating on a pay-as-you-go pricing model, this web host is an excellent choice for small to medium businesses operating out of India. Some of the key features of Cloudways is as follows:

Custom control panel

Cloudways’ control panel can be used to manage all your servers via a single unified user interface. Through the control panel, you can access Applications, Servers, Teams and your Projects. You can manage your applications, servers, manage your application’s services, configure MySQL, PHP settings/versions, block IP addresses, configure backups, and set up outbound emails. And last but not the least, there is a team management feature in the control panel. This feature allows you to add team members to the administration of your web assets, assign them roles and responsibilities, and control their access. 

Staging and cloning

Cloudways offers staging infrastructure that allows you to view your changes to your websites or web applications, test them, and then push them to the production server. The staging server emulates or is as good as a production server. It is a very handy feature considering that production server testing is not a popular idea. 

Cloning is another similar feature but with a difference. You can create multiple clones of your sites and showcase them to various clients before deploying them to production.

Advanced caching

Cloudways’ server infrastructure is based off popular enterprise-level web hosts such as Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, Vultr, Linode, and AWS. Cloudways’ infrastructure is therefore speedy and is known for its fast server performance. Apart from providing high-performance server infrastructure, Cloudways uses advanced caching mechanisms. Named as Breeze, this is an in-house caching plugin built by Cloudways to optimize servers. Breeze works seamlessly with the inbuilt CDN of Cloudways, namely Cloudways CDN. The CDN technology caches content on its server network, ensuring that all client requests across the globe get a uniform experience. 

Vertical scaling

This feature allows you to upgrade your server resources in response to an upgrade of your server. The process to do so can be achieved via the Server Management tab of the integrated Control Panel. Scaling works both ways. If you want to downgrade your server infrastructure, you can do so too.

Customer support

Cloudways provides round the clock assistance via phone, email, and live chat service. On the web host’s website are knowledge base articles, community forums that assist customers in getting their queries answered for common troubleshooting issues. 

DreamHost

Known to be one of the oldest web hosting service providers, DreamHost is understood to be an innovative and reliable web host. Some of the reputed features of this web host are as follows:

Uptime of 99.99%

Dreamhost provides a guarantee of 99.99% uptime. This is almost 100% uptime. Average uptime measured over a period of several years suggests that DreamHost does provide almost 100% uptime. This indicates that this web host walks the talk. For small businesses looking for a highly available service, where even a minute’s downtime is totally out of the question, can look to DreamHost’s excellent high-availability infrastructure to get the uptime they need.

Excellent speed

Average Time to First Byte (TTFB) is around 0.20 seconds. This number is indeed a fraction of a second. The average fully loaded page is 1.04 seconds. This number is impressive, considering that web assets have increased. Even with CDN infrastructure, several web hosts struggle to control the page load times to around a second. DreamHost, having been in the web hosting space from a decade and more has all the tools and techniques to optimize speeds.

97-day money-back guarantee
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Most web hosts have one month or two months money-back guarantee. DreamHost has 97 days money-back guarantee. This is a pretty long duration to use DreamHost’s services and then make an informed decision. It is common knowledge that a month is simply not enough to gauge a web host’s services. Sometimes even two months is not enough. DreamHost takes it up to three months and a few days more. This is a lot of space for customers to choose this web host, and when they do choose DreamHost, they choose this web host throughout. Therefore it is not a myth to hear that DreamHost commands a loyal customer base. 

WordPress Optimized

Considering that WordPress is amongst the world’s most popular website building platform, there are millions of websites that are built on WordPress. Therefore, it helps if a webhost is WordPress optimized. Not only can such a webhost accommodate legacy sites built with WordPress, but newer sites built too. Along with SiteGround, WordPress holds the distinction as a favorable WordPress web host. Customers that solely build their web assets on WordPress flock to DreamHost in this regard. WordPress is still going strong – it is amongst those content management systems that have future-proofed itself and is still amongst the popular website builders and CMS. 

VapourHost

VapourHost is a popular web hosting platform and has won favor with small businesses in India. On account of its favorable pricing, performance and customer support, VapourHost is a favored webhost with many businesses looking for extremely affordable plans. Starting at as low as Rs.60 per month, this web host provides standard features, making it a very resourceful and value-for-money webhost. Some of the significant characteristics of the webhost are:

Speed and security

Each user account is isolated using superior CloudLinux technologies, which is not only useful for user account integrity but also reduces unnecessary support costs. Not many hear about websites being hacked on VapourHost. 

Uptime

VapourHost promises 99.99 % uptime on its shared hosting packages. 

Affordable plans:

  • Pro Plan 1 – 50 GB per month bandwidth, 5 GB SSD, Rs. 60 per month
  • Pro Plan 2 – 100 GB per month bandwidth, 10 GB SSD space, Rs. 120 per month
  • Pro Plan 3 – 200 GB per month bandwidth, 15 GB SSD space, Rs. 180 per month

As can be noted, all plans are very affordably priced. They are useful for small businesses looking for basic infrastructure and have a few websites or web applications to host. 

Shared hosting and free backup

Professional and Power plans have one-click installations, latest SSD technology, and active monitoring. Thanks to the premium customer support, the technical support of VapourHost is considered to resolve all customer queries beyond their expectations. 

When it comes to backup and storage, all customers’ websites and web applications, including associated data are safely backed-up to off-site locations. The frequency of backup can be configured to daily or weekly. 

Some other notable features of the shared hosting service are directory privacy, DNS management, FTP access, online file manager, free backups, and phpMyAdmin. Some of the Email features offered by VapourHost is Encryption, Track Delivery, SpamAssasin, Email Forwarders, Email Autoresponder, BoxTrapper, Email Routing. 

Some other security-related features are IP blocker, Virus Scanner, Zone Editor, ModSecurity, Hotlink Protection, Cron Jobs and Awstats. 

Easy administration via CPanel

VapourHost’s CPanel can be used to perform administrative functions. These functions can also be performed by VapourHost’s technical support team if the customer authorizes them to do so. VapourHost provides one-click installation of over 400 scripts too. The one-click WordPress installation feature is one such that has won everyone’s favor.

Greengeeks

This is one of the unique web hosting service providers that have the eco-friendly webhost tag. Greengeeks, as the name suggests, reportedly offsets 300 per cent of carbon from its daily energy use. It is achieved by replacing traditional energy sources with renewable energy sources. Apart from being a distinguished eco-friendly service, Greengeeks offers a highly personalized web hosting experience although a relatively small webhost compared to others, with a healthy customer base of about 35,000 and counting, Greengeeks on-boards its customers with the promise that their websites will use green technology.

Some of the notable features of this web host are as follow:

Free domain

Free domain on signing up ensures that customers are spared against the hassles of registering a domain name separately. 

Renewable energy based

Eco-friendly data centers utilize green energy sources. Not only is this energy used to power websites, but also to power supporting infrastructure.

No add-on upsells

When purchasing Greengeeks web hosting account, there is no upselling of add-ons. This is common practice with other webhosts. Customers are not pre-informed of such add-on features. Sometimes these add-on features become necessary and customers are constrained to purchase them. But with this webhost, there are no such hidden surprises.

Easy to use administrative console

The cPanel administrative console allows an easy to use interface that lets you perform easy administrative functions such as managing server resources, configuring visibility settings of the website, installing scripts etc. Greengeeks provides Softaculous, which is a script-installation utility allowing 1-click installations for content management systems such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. 

Affordable plans and pricing

No matter the plan chosen, all customers get SSD storage, free domain name and unlimited bandwidth. Greengeeks offers shared web hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS 1 GB RAM, dedicated entry server plans. Rates range from $3 to #19. 

Fastcomet

An SSD based web host, providing cloud-based hosting services, Fastcomet offers affordable hosting plans that start as low as $2.95 per month. Free daily backups, integrated Cloudflare CDN caching are some of the many value-added features of this web host. Offering shared, dedicated, and VPS hosting, in the realm of SSD hosting, the company operates on a Platform as a Service (PaaS) model. 

Some of the features of this web host are:

Full SSD Cloud Hosting

Superior performance and speeds are realized with SSD Hosting, given the fact that hardware speed is faster, much faster than traditional HDD. Although the infrastructure costs are more expensive, in the long run, the cost to benefits ratio evens out, and the benefits take over. 

Free Cloudflare CDN

Page loading times are increased manifold thanks to a global network of CDN servers that deliver content to client requests from the nearest located server. Even when the main site is offline, Cloudflare CDN can deliver a cached version of the website – which is very helpful for static sites.

Rocket Booster

The hosting environment of Fastcomet is named as Rocket Booster. The webhost promises three times more server resources per user and only three users per server. This kind of provisioning model as per the company increases speeds.

Firewall and malware removal

Fastcomet has inbuilt firewall and malware removal processes. The common problem faced by customers is that when their resources are infected by malware, the technical support of their respective web hosts do an Internet search and use external information to guide their customers. But in the case of Fastcomet, reviews have indicated that the technical support has their own processes when it comes to removing malware. The technical support of Fastcomet is supposedly more hands-on.

Inmotion

Inmotion is considered to be a well-rounded webhost. Its distinguishing aspect is its support staff. They reportedly undergo more than 160 hours of training in managing email clients, using the LAMP stack, and working with Linux operating systems. 

The following are some of the distinguishing characteristics of this webhost.

Highly trained staff

If choosing a webhost based on their support staff expertise is the main criteria, then Inmotion will not disappoint. The support staff are highly trained, having received several hours of professional training. They are well-equipped to support and guide the customers on trivial to major issues. The customer support encompasses email, phone, chat and knowledge base.

Reliability and performance

Inmotion promises upto 100% uptime. Research on Inmotion’s high-availability indicates a figure close to 99.9% – which is almost 100% uptime. This indicates that Inmotion’s server speeds are standard, very much in the big league of bigger web hosting services. 

Administrative console and usability

The cPanel powered dashboard or administrative console allows single-login universal monitoring of all web hosting functions. Be it account management, user management, billing, site configuration, script installation, email service configuration, IP address blocking, IP address whitelisting, setting up domains – all of these activities can be easily done via the intuitive user interface functionality. 

Guarantees and freebies

This webhost offers a 90-day guarantee when the industry norm averages around 30 days. This guarantee is very reassuring, especially for those pre-paying for web hosting services for up to a year or more. Inmotion provides free Comodo SSL certificates that can be set up via the cPanel, allowing easy configuration of HTTPS sites. 

Conclusion – Best Web Hosting In India 

For small businesses in India, there are plenty of options to consider. The competition between web hosting service providers is intense. All of them are trying their best to woo customers. This is an ideal time for small businesses to build their web presence by choosing a good web hosting service provider based on their requirements.