The best web hosts for Australia are fast, reliable, and feature-packed at a great price. In this guide, we’ve shortlisted the strongest players who tick these boxes and explained what considerations to keep in mind.
Looking for the best web host for an Australian website? Great! A solid host is an important component of any successful site, so you’ll want to choose properly.
Unfortunately, it can also be a pretty confusing process. There are hundreds of brands out there, each with their various features and promises to sift through.
We’ve simplified the process by writing up this handy guide tailored especially for Australian websites. We’ve shortlisted 7 brands that we’ve tested first-hand and would personally recommend in terms of pricing, features, security and speed (with response times of less than 200ms). But beyond that – we’ll explain the important considerations you should be thinking about when choosing your own host.
By the end of this piece, you should have a strong understanding of which web hosts best fit your individual needs – whether your audience is based in or outside of Australia. Minus the headache!
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When writing this guide, we bought web hosting accounts and set up 95 test sites to measure their speed and uptime.
Personally, we think the best host for most Australian websites is Hostinger, with fast speeds in Sydney AND top-end features at affordable prices. But the other brands are also very strong players.
Here are some things we always look for in a strong web host:
Bitcatcha has been testing web hosts since 2014. We currently manage 95+ test sites hosted across a range of plans from 45+ different web hosts.
We then use our Bitcatcha Speed Test Tool (as seen on LifeHack and HuffPost) to analyze each hosts’ server speed, plus uptime trackers to monitor server uptime. We use the results to produce data-driven reviews and comparisons of each host.
For a more detailed breakdown of how we write our web hosting reviews, head to our article on “How We Review Our Web hosts”.
Note
World Speed Score
A+
Speed In Sydney
93 ms
Price (AUD)
A$4.19/mo
Key Features
“Hostinger offers premium features & fast speeds at affordable prices - making it one of the best all-round web hosts.”
Topping our list today is the international web host Hostinger. We love watching web hosts evolve, and Hostinger’s a brand that’s come a long way from humble beginnings.
In fact – we recently conducted some brand research and found Hostinger to be the most sought-after web host of 2020, out of 20 big names (Read the full report here).
Why all the hype? Our guess is that Hostinger is proving themselves more and more to be a very well-balanced host. They offer a solid combination of premium-level speed, features, and tech support – yet have managed to keep their prices surprisingly affordable.
Pros
Cons
From our own performance tests, Hostinger didn’t disappoint. We built 3 test sites hosted on Hostinger servers in 3 different continents.
We then ran the Singapore-hosted test site through our server speed checker to get an idea of how well Hostinger performs both globally and in Australia itself. And the results aren’t to be scoffed at!
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | São Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 179 ms | 250 ms | 216 ms | 3 ms | 347 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 58 ms | 93 ms | 78 ms | 248 ms | 217 ms |
With a worldwide average of 168.9 ms, Hostinger’s Singaporea data center proved its mettle with this speed test. In Sydney, their servers clocked in with a very respectable 93 ms, showing the world that Hostinger can easily serve Australian customers while providing the surrounding regions with the speeds they need.
At a really competitive price of AUD 4.19/month, the amount of features you’ll receive is crazy.
100GB SSD storage, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited emails, 99.9% uptime guarantee, website builder, all the goodies you’ll find in a premium web host, but at a fraction of the price! To wrap it up nicely, they’ve even thrown in a free domain name with each new account!
In fact – all of Hostinger’s plans come packed with plenty of premium features, and start at a very low introductory price. For our tests, we opted for the Premium Shared plan.
The cherry on top is Hostinger’s customer service. They offer helpful support 24/7 over live chat, and from our experience, the team responds almost instantaneously. Their helpful support team will guide you step-by-step to solve any issues you come across, in 20 different languages from 4 support centres. The only caveat is that they don’t currently offer phone support.
World Speed Score
A+
Speed In Sydney
210 ms
Price (AUD)
A$4.10/mo
Key Features
“World-famous hosting service endorsed by WordPress and with an 100% uptime guarantee.”
Headquartered in California, DreamHost has powered over 1.5 million sites since their founding in 1997. They’ve been very popular amongst both big bloggers and the WordPress community, and have remained something of a household name.
Pros
Cons
Naturally, we decided to host a test site with them, then run it through our speed checker. Here’s what came back:
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | São Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 70 ms | 2 ms | 77 ms | 242 ms | 117 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 194 ms | 210 ms | 169 ms | 16 ms | 87 ms |
Thanks to their use of speed-boosting tech, like SSD servers, DreamHost scored a solid A+ ranking!
Now, something that’s really important to talk about is their data centers: DreamHost currently operates 2 data centers which are both based in the US. As expected, speeds got significantly slower when serving regions further away from the North American continent. Pings from Sydney came back at 210 ms, which obviously isn’t ideal. However, they DID score an incredible average worldwide speed of 118.4 ms due to their lightning fast speeds from the rest of the locales.
What’s that mean for you? Well, if your website is aimed at audiences in Australia or Asia, we’d say DreamHost probably isn’t the best option for you. BUT, if your website is serving readers all around the world – especially if they’re in the US or Europe – DreamHost is one of the fastest hosts around.
In all, DreamHost might not be the fastest web host in Australia, but they’re still a bloody great web host. We can’t help but wish they had some data centers closer to us, but their powerful features and solid performance have still won us over.
DreamHost offers two tiers of plans – we’d recommend the Shared Unlimited if you want more resources to play with – like unlimited websites and emails.
| Features | Shared Starter | Shared Unlimited |
|---|---|---|
| Price | A$3.63/mo | A$4.13/mo |
| Renews at | A$8.39/mo | A$15.39/mo |
| Storage | 50 GB | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| SSL certificate | Free | Free |
| See all features |
What’s also definitely worth mentioning is their money back guarantee. Whilst most hosts offer a standard 30-day money back guarantee, DreamHost takes it to the next level by extending it up to 97 days!
We think DreamHost’s features make it especially ideal for WordPress websites. They’re actually 1 of only 3 web hosts ‘officially’ endorsed by WordPress. Not only does it run WordPress smoothly, but you’ll have access to a support team of WP experts and a nifty drag-and-drop WP Website Builder.
DreamHost offers in- house customer support via Live Chat and ticketing, and we were always impressed with the level of WordPress expertise.
The only downside is that Live Chat support is limited to 5:30AM – 9.30PM Pacific Time, which is a massive 17 hours behind most of us in Australia! You may find yourself needing to rely on their ticketing system (which is fast!), forum, or knowledgebase, There’s also no free telephone support, but you can request a paid call-back.
World Speed Score
A+
Speed In Sydney
206 ms
Price (AUD)
A$8.33/mo
Key Features
“Great for WordPress sites targeting a global audience!”
HostPapa took us by surprise – after putting HostPapa through our server speed checker and actually using their services, we felt that they were definitely deserving of this coveted spot.
HostPapa has 3 data centers, spread out across the US, Canada and Europe. You’ll find that they’re sorely lacking data center presence anywhere near Australia, yet they’re on this list.
Why, you ask? Well, HostPapa’s customer-first approach to web hosting is a sight for sore eyes. They offer a LOT for their price point, and their award winning support team, named the PapaSquad, makes sure that all issues are resolved efficiently.
Pros
Cons
Their servers are superb, scoring a staggering 130.4 ms global average on our server speed test! If you’re targeting an overseas audience, you’re all set.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | São Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 ms | 62 ms | 129 ms | 167 ms | 172 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 241 ms | 206 ms | 105 ms | 67 ms | 144 ms |
In Sydney, the pings came back at 206 ms – not the fastest, but serviceable enough to satisfy Web Vital requirements.
Our HostPapa test site is hosted on their US data center using the Optimized WP Business plan, at only A$8.33/mo. With it, we get unlimited SSD storage, unlimited websites, free SSL with Let’s Encrypt, and a free domain. That said, the lack of free automatic backups is also a little bit of a letdown.
HostPapa’s customer service team is fondly referred to as the ‘PapaSquad’, and they do do a fantastic job. We never had to wait very long on live chat, with replies consistently coming in less than a minute.
Their interface is very well thought out and their knowledgebase is full of handy videos and tutorials. If you’re having any trouble getting started, or just want to ask someone any questions about hosting or setting up a website, you can even get a one-on-one video/phone session with them! We haven’t seen that offered with many other hosts, and it could definitely come in handy for beginners.
Note
If you’re not planning to use WordPress, we’d recommend using their regular Web Hosting plans – at lower price with similar features and free website builder!
World Speed Score
A+
Speed In Sydney
168 ms
Price (AUD)
A$7.63/mo
Key Features
“One of the oldest brands around - highly recommended for WordPress site!”
Bluehost is the oldest web hosting brand to make it onto this list, and with more than 17 years (since 2003) of experience under their belt, they know what people are looking for – fast and reliable web hosting.
At only AUD 7.63 with their Choice Plus plan, we get unlimited websites, 40 GB SSD Storage and a free domain. Pretty decent eh?
Pros
Cons
When it comes to speed, Bluehost’s worldwide average is actually comparable to most of the brands on this list, and they’re pretty fast in the land down under too! If you’re targeting Australian customers, you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Ranked A+ with a worldwide average of 153 ms, with pings from Sydney coming in at 168 ms (our test site is hosted in their US data center), Bluehost performed pretty well!
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | São Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 ms | 78 ms | 183 ms | 193 ms | 164 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 330 ms | 168 ms | 125 ms | 92 ms | 174 ms |
We also like that they’ve got CDN built directly into their account. If you need a boost of speed, it’s available at the flick of a button.
Bluehost’s many tiers are a great choice for small blogs and online businesses on WordPress.
Features offered by them are quite solid, with 10GB of SSD storage, free SSL, SEO services and a free domain included in their Basic plan. Not bad at all, considering the low entry price.
That said, the amount of storage offered at each price point isn’t quite as much as you’d get from several of the other hosts on this list. On top of that, renewal prices do jump up quite significantly.
If you feel that you need a boost of speed, you’ll be glad to learn that Bluehost has a free CDN built directly into the account, available at just a click.
Bluehost outsources their support team to India and currently offers support via Live Chat and phone. They also have a pretty robust knowledge-base filled with useful tutorials and guides. They’re not perfect (their support could use some improvement) but for blogs and small online businesses, Bluehost is a solid choice.
World Speed Score
A+
Speed In Sydney
172 ms
Price (AUD)
A$49/mo
Key Features
“Premium WordPress hosting powered by Google Cloud platform.”
Next on our list of fastest web hosts for Australia is Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting.
The best thing about Kinsta is that their infrastructure is built exclusively using Google’s very own cloud platform! This allows them to leverage Google’s always improving tech and whopping 29 data centers, giving Kinsta the potential to be the FASTEST web host around, full stop.
Pros
Cons
With more than 10 years of experience with WordPress, Kinsta has the ability and know-how to create the best, snappiest Managed WordPress Hosting solution for the market.
Utilizing their next-gen architecture and infrastructure (we’re talking NGINX setups, PHP7 compatibility, MariaDB, KeyCDN – just to name a few) Kinsta is able to load hosted sites faster than most people can blink.
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | São Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41 ms | 29 ms | 100 ms | 190 ms | 139 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 233 ms | 172 ms | 125 ms | 30 ms | 111 ms |
Between all our US hosted test sites in this list, Kinsta actually performed the fastest with pings from Australia coming in hot at a very respectable 172 ms!
The first thing to note is that Kinsta is a WordPress host – meaning you can ONLY host WordPress with them. They’re also in the premium category, all the great support and speed comes with a hefty price; from A$49 a month, for their entry-level plan.
However, Kinsta easily provides one of the best Managed WordPress Hosting solutions in the scene. Sign up, build your site, and let the Kinsta team take over from there. You practically won’t have to worry about a thing as they manage your site for you – looking after things like automated updates, and monitoring for security flaws. Features are plentiful, you get daily backups, your uptime is guaranteed, and you get software to turbo-charge your site.
However, given the premium price tag, you’re going to want to make sure that you need that degree of support and resources. Kinsta is more likely to have value to medium to large businesses, or high-traffic sites.
Also, they lack email hosting and phone support, so keep that in mind if those things matter to you.
Kinsta might be pricey, but if you can afford it, you’ll enjoy top-notch support. They offer 24/7 support via the Intercom widget. But more importantly – their support team is amazing. It’s composed entirely of veteran WordPress developers and Linux hosting engineers, so the level of tech support is pretty hard to match. You won’t be bouncing between level 1 or level 2 support reps – you’ll always be talking to real experts. From direct experience, every query we sent was replied to in under 3 minutes.
World Speed Score
A+
Speed In Sydney
3 ms
Price (AUD)
A$12.59/mo
Key Features
“A versatile, premium web hosting powered by Google Cloud infrastructure.”
We gotta say – we have a solid respect for SiteGround. They offer fantastic server performance and all-round quality hosting.
Other web hosting companies might rank slightly better in speeds, but SiteGround has a local server, outstanding international performance, excellent support, 99.99% uptime guarantee and lots of features.
Pros
Cons
Our test site is hosted with SiteGround’s Sydney datacenter, so they perform extremely fast when pinged from Sydney, at only 3 ms. Worldwide, they did pretty well too, with the slowest results coming from London (295 ms) and São Paulo (330 ms).
In total – they’re ranked A with a worldwide average of 196.8 ms!
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | São Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 156 ms | 233 ms | 295 ms | 24 ms | 330 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 192 ms | 3 ms | 135 ms | 238 ms | 290 ms |
They’ve also recently taken the liberty to move part of their structure to be hosted on the Google Cloud Platform, which brings plenty of benefits for their users (speed being one of them). This dedication to constantly improve their speeds and services are commendable.
When it comes to datacenters, they’ve got 6 state-of-the-art buildings located across 4 continents. Pick one that’s closest to your customers to optimize your site’s speed (in this case, pick Australia).
Given the higher market price, SiteGround is probably best suited for websites who have more resources to play with (e.g. business websites).
SiteGround offers a range of plans for a range of users.
The GrowBig plan comes packed with a bunch of little goodies, which doesn’t just boost your server speed, but overall efficiency as well. Their SuperCacher boosts site load speed up to 4x quicker, you get to enjoy free daily backups, free priority support and free restores!
If you’ve got a slightly higher budget and are in the market for more premium features – go check SiteGround out.
Their support team is simply excellent. Throughout our entire time hosting with them, they’ve never failed to answer a question to our satisfaction, no matter how silly it may be. We believe that they may be one of the reasons why SiteGround is one of WordPress’s officially recommended hosts!
SiteGround offers support via 24/7 Live Chat, ticketing, and also the phone. If you’re getting their GrowBig plan or above, you get access to their 30-day priority support – where your tickets get replied to within minutes!
World Speed Score
A
Speed In Sydney
1 ms
Price (AUD)
A$19.09/mo
Key Features
“Best for websites targeting audiences within Australia.”
We actually tried our hardest to include Australian web hosting brands into this list, but let’s face the facts – Australian web hosting doesn’t offer good enough value, yet.
We tested Ventraip and were pretty disappointed with their results (Worldwide average of 249 ms, ranked C+) and NetRegistry didn’t fare much better either, at a worldwide average of 246 ms (also ranked C+).
Crucial however, managed to impress us with their customer friendly service and speed. They’re passionate about helping Australian businesses succeed, and their small but efficient customer service team reflects that.
Pros
Cons
We used their Web Hosting plan (AUD 19.09/mo) and were treated to 50GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, and with 10 domains. It may feel a little pricey especially since they’re limiting your storage and domains, but this could work in our favour – limited resources in shared hosting means no single client will get to hog the server, which results in stable servers for everyone.
Their server speeds are pretty decent, but not as good as the rest of the web hosts on this list with a worldwide average result of 192 ms (A).
They’re just okay if you’re targeting international customers, but if you’re going to only have Australian viewers / customers, you’ll be happy to know that pings from Sydney came back at breakneck speeds – at only 1 ms!
| US (W) | US (E) | London | Singapore | São Paulo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 149 ms | 204 ms | 283 ms | 98 ms | 320 ms |
| Bangalore | Sydney | Japan | Canada | Germany |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 234 ms | 1 ms | 114 ms | 205 ms | 312 ms |
They’ve also recently implemented support for PHP7, which provides a major speed boost for their users!
We like that Crucial really means it when they say they care, they are actively looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint on the planet. They also regularly contribute to charities and initiatives that are looking to preserve Australia’s natural beauty.
If we’re only targeting Australians, we’d be happy to host with Crucial and their team of experts.
Crucial offer support via phone and email support – but not live chat. Just note that their phone-based support is limited to 8am – 6pm (AEST) Monday to Friday.
See Crucial official site to find out more!
UPDATED 18 SEP 2020: You see, even in this age where everything is going wireless, the internet is still largely dependent on undersea cables.
Everything you use the internet for (video streaming, gaming, shopping, business, etc) all utilize undersea cables that are able to transmit terabytes of data at the speed of light.
As of now, Australia seems to be sufficiently connected to most internet points in the world, as evident in Wikipedia’s list of international submarine communications cables.
There’s more good news – with RTI Consortium’s new JGA-S cable landing in Sydney in 2019 (with plans for more undersea cables in the pipeline) internet speeds ought to fare slightly better.
Data centers in Australia are also advancing quickly, especially since Google Cloud announced their presence in the region. This would potentially provide more opportunities for Ozzies looking to tap into the digital world, with easier and cheaper access to resources!
It’s only natural for Australians to want to support local businesses, web hosting included. Networking tech has made plenty of advancements in recent years, we can expect more world-class web hosting companies popping up all over the place.
But for now, our humble opinion is that we prefer international hosting providers, namely Hostinger, for the very simple fact that they provide a much better price to value ratio.
Hostinger has a nearby Singapore data center, so you know your site will satisfy Core Web Vitals requirements. They’ve also got 7 kick-ass data centers worldwide, allowing you to target different regions if you ever choose to do so. And somehow, they’ve managed to stay one of the most affordable hosts on the market – with prices starting from AUD 8.40/month!
Unless Australian web hosts can beat that sort of value, we’d strongly recommend going with international brands, especially Hostinger.
The web hosting brands we’ve tested are all pretty kick-ass, with a minimum ranking of A. Basically, you can’t go wrong when you host with any of these brands, and it all comes down to personal preferences.
To recap, here is our top web hosting for Australia:
