South Africa’s preferred hosting provider

Analytico’s 2025 Business Technology Survey revealed that Afrihost is South Africa’s most trusted hosting company, followed by Xneelo, Domains.co.za and Axxess.

The 2025 Business Technology Survey was conducted in January 2025, and 1,348 respondents completed it.

The survey results only included responses from people who decided which ICT products and services their company uses.

As part of the survey, IT decision-makers were asked which hosting company they would choose for their company.

The survey showed that Afrihost is by far the preferred hosting company in South Africa, receiving 47% of the total votes.

This is an increase from 41% since the start of 2024, showing continued trust and satisfaction with its services.

As its name suggests, Afrihost started in the hosting space and is now mostly known for its broadband services such as fibre and mobile data.

Throughout the early 2000s, Afrihost offered hosting and domain packages at highly competitive prices, which helped popularise web hosting in the country.

It entered the DSL service provider market in 2009, once again with aggressively priced products.

Xneelo received the second most votes at 11%, dropping slightly from the start of 2024.

It was started in 1999 as Hetzner and has grown into one of South Africa’s largest shared hosting providers.

It was the second host of the Johannesburg Internet Exchange and the first with a 10Gbps connection.

Hetzner rebranded to Xneelo in 2019, differentiating itself from Hetzner Online.

Domains.co.za received 10% of the votes, which is very similar to its past performance.

It is a relative newcomer, founded in 2012, and is in close competition with Xneelo regarding brand preference.

Axxess is also catching up to the competition with more than 9% of the votes, compared to 7.6% at the start of 2024.

The chart below shows the hosting companies that South African IT decision-makers prefer for their businesses.