Website hosting: Local or international?

[mmsimanga]

You said correct me if I am wrong, you are wrong. Your stated what the article stated and then listed a hosting company name, just like a spammer would.

The very next line in the article is:

Now, what exactly was your opinion again?
Spammers!

I didn't want to bore everyone by quoting the whole article but quoted the sentence most relevant to the point I wanted to make. The point I wanted to make was that for US$4 I get an international host who provides me with MySQL and PHP along with unlimited bandwidth and disk space. MySQL and PHP are mandatory for running most of the content management systems out there.

 

[Rouxenator]

The best move I ever made was moving to international hosts. Its a lot cheaper and you get a lot more.

 

[IridiuM]

Well I am a web host myself, generally the cheapest prices for local server bandwidth is R90/gig. This makes it very hard for web hosts to offer local hosting when the market is dominated by a few small companies (with big infrastructure).

Generally business sites (that are targeted at the South African market) are better off being hosted locally, as more visitors will be able to access the site.

That being said, the more personal type of sites (blogs, picture galleries) are better off being hosted internationally due to the high cost of local bandwidth.

The only way local hosting will get cheaper is if IS, SAIX, Vodacom, Neotel and Verizon (or now MTN Business, I think) drop the local bandwidth prices, doesn't look promising though as they're loving the oligopoly that they have created, raking in the profits :/

Nice post Jason you hit the nail on the head.

I would suggest business and mission critical business sites for companies targeting a South African market BE hosted LOCALLY.

High bandwidth content powered websites can do well both locally and internationally. There is a slight speed difference but these web visitors will not mind much.

As for cheap international hosting... You WILL get what you pay for. There is a reason some hosts can afford to offer Unlimited disk space and bandwidth. This is because in reality they not offering it at all. You will be crammed onto a shared server (Intel Xeon or even Core 2 Duo) with 300-500 other users. Have fun!

You now have your UNLIMITED ACCOUNT (awesomeness) with 0 cpu and memory resources (the stuff that really matters, eish)... you are using 10mb disk space and 98mb bandwidth with your high expectation second youtube/facebook/insert some large website clone website here.

Focus on getting a host offering quality support and service and forget about the marketing tactics used by international hosts to fool customers into thinking they need 100GB disk space and 1TB bandwidth.

We host thousands of local South African websites and I have yet to find more than a handful who will use more than 1GB disk space and 20GB bandwidth per month. The average web user uses nothing, but needs great support to get going.

My 2 cents!