The State of Australian Owned and Operated Web Hosting Providers in Australia in 2022

Earlier this year, it seemed to me that the choice of Australian owned and operated web hosting providers was rapidly diminishing. The acquisition of Hostopia Australia by Newfold Digital in March 2022 means that Anchor, Crucial, Digital Pacific, Panthur and Web24 are no longer Australian owned. Nexigen Digital acquired Net Virtue and NetOrigin over the last few years and absorbed these companies into their VentraIP brand. Zuver has been phased out and also absorbed into the VentraIP brand.

It turns out there are quite a few other locally owned and operated web hosting providers and many have been around for just as long or even longer than VentraIP. Many are not necessarily well known but do seem to have plenty of happy customers.

Below is a snapshot of the web hosting providers included on this website in September 2022. Included are the latest review scores from Google, Facebook and ProductReview.com.au where available, the cost of a shared web hosting plan closest to the VentraIP "Starter" cPanel shared web hosting plan (5 GB SSD Disk Space, 200% CPU and 2GB Memory) and the cost of registering a .com.au domain name. Note that comparing the prices of roughly equivalent plans only provides an indicative comparison as some providers are using newer hardware than others. For example, Clickhost and DreamIT Host shared web hosting plans use NVMe drives which are significantly faster than standard or SSD drives.

VentraIP still have fairly good review scores especially taking into account the recent acquisitions and the retirement of the Zuver brand which did not suit some customers. With the recent increase in VentraIP pricing, VentraIP is now positioned as a premium brand with sustainable pricing. The price increase may well be justified given their solid history and their customised hosting control panel which is excellent.

As at September 2022, the best value for money established Australian shared web hosting providers are probably:

• DreamIT Host especially when taking into account the performance from NVMe storage
• ROBTEC Hosting with recently refreshed servers and very affordable DirectAdmin plans which cost a little less than the cPanel plans
• UpTime Web Hosting especially if more storage space is needed

The newest provider below, Clickhost also deserve an honourable mention with excellent value for money and excellent performance with NVMe storage.

	?/5 unavailable	?/5 unavailable	5.0/5 1 review	$120.00/yr "Entry" 5GB/200%/2GB	$9.50/yr .com.au
	4.9/5 90 reviews	4.9/5 270 reviews	4.9/5 57 reviews	$107.40/yr "Startup" 5GB/100%/2GB	$14.95/yr .com.au
	5.0/5 5 reviews	4.9/5 7 reviews	?/5 unavailable	$108.00/yr "Basic" 10GB/200%/2GB	$15.00/yr .com.au
	5.0/5 10 reviews	5.0/5 31 reviews	?/5 unavailable	$69.50/yr "Starter SSD" 5GB/100%/2GB	$19.95/yr .com.au
	4.9/5 52 reviews	5.0/5 31 reviews	?/5 unavailable	$72.00/yr "Budget" 5GB/200%/2GB	$11.00/yr .com.au
	?/5 unavailable	?/5 unavailable	5.0/5 1 review	$144.00/yr "Premium" 5GB/200%/2GB	$16.00/yr .com.au
	?/5 unavailable	5.0/5 1 review	?/5 unavailable	$50.00/yr "Basic" 5GB/?%/?GB	$15.00/yr .com.au
	?/5 unavailable	5.0/5 3 reviews	?/5 unavailable	$96.00/yr "Standard" 5GB/100%/1GB	$15.00/yr .com.au
	5.0/5 3 reviews	5.0/5 44 reviews	5.0/5 24 reviews	$99.00/yr "Standard" 20GB/200%/2GB	$14.00/yr .com.au
	4.6/5 250 reviews	4.7/5 608 reviews	4.8/5 430 reviews	$168.00/yr "Starter" 5GB/200%/2GB	$19.95/yr .com.au