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Best Web Hosting for Malaysia – Compare & Review

Best web hosting malaysia

Malaysia is one of the best digitally connected countries in the Southeast Asia region. Aside from high broadband penetration, it plays host to many data centers and web hosting service providers. The population is increasingly digital-savvy, and Q1 of 2021 saw a 30% surge in eCommerce transactions.

Although the relatively weak Malaysian Ringgit may seem like some cause of concern, there are excellent web hosting options here that are highly affordable. Malaysia’s geographic position also makes it a good candidate for those seeking to base websites targeting regional traffic.

* Note: $1 = MYR 4.14

1. TMDHosting

TMDHosting

Website: https://www.tmdhosting.com/

Price: from $2.95/mo

Hosting Available: Shared, WordPress, VPS, Cloud, Reseller, Dedicated Servers

TMDHosting launched in 2007 and has grown non-stop since then. Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, the company serves a worldwide audience through its many data center locations. Products and services are periodically refreshed or added, making it an extremely dynamic choice.

Why Choose TMDHosting for Malaysia Web Hosting

TMDHosting doesn’t have a direct presence in Malaysia. Instead, it serves the Asia region through data centers located in Singapore, Japan, and Australia. It’s an excellent choice for many reasons, and versatility in server location is a crucial asset.

Web hosting package options are plentiful, ranging from cheaper shared server hosting to specialized plans like WordPress hosting. For those that require more, you can also opt for VPS or dedicated servers.

Prices start relatively low, and TMDHosting prices are competitive even against domestic companies in Malaysia. It’s cheaper than many and offers a more transparent operational model with clear terms of service.

Read our TMDHosting review to learn more.

TMDHosting Data Center Locations

  • London, UK
  • Chicago, USA
  • Phoenix, USA
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Tokyo, Japan
  • Singapore
  • Sydney, Australia

Pros

  • Good speed and robust reliability
  • Excellent data center spread for Asia
  • Neatly spelled out terms of service
  • Full range of hosting plans
  • Lots of freebies
  • Unlimited resources

Cons

  • Tight fair usage policy
  • Setup fees incurred for monthly plans

2. A2 Hosting

A2 Hosting

Website: https://www.a2hosting.com/

Price: from $2.99/mo

Hosting Available: Shared, WordPress, Cloud/VPS, Reseller, Dedicated Servers. 

A2 Hosting was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, way back in 2001. It’s made good use of the past two decades and expanded the web hosting business way past US shores. Through the years, they’ve increased the breadth of product range, tacking on new features too.

Why Choose A2 Hosting for Malaysia Web Hosting

One of the most compelling reasons for choosing A2 Hosting is its performance excellence. Their servers are fast and reliable, but even if there’s a problem, they have a solid customer support team that’s got your back.

The product range at A2 Hosting covers a diverse scope, making it possible to use for almost all kinds of websites. At the lower end, shared server hosting prices are reasonable. For more powerful options, go for their Managed VPS that offers abundant resources and top-of-the-line performance.

A2 Hosting doesn’t boast masses of data center locations but a few strategically placed ones. If you want to target domestic traffic in Malaysia, the Singapore data center will be perfect. For overseas traffic, there are options in Europe and North America.

One of their most impressive product lines is their Managed VPS plans. These are somewhat pricey but provided with generous amounts of resources. In addition, their expert staff will keep your VPS running, allowing you to remain focused on your business.

To learn more about A2 Hosting, read our review.

A2 Hosting Data Center Locations

  • Michigan, USA
  • Arizona, USA
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Singapore

Pros

  • Excellent performance across the product range
  • Turbo and NVME servers are available
  • First website migrates free
  • Good spread of server locations
  • Strong web-developer tools

Cons

  • High cost of some hosting plans
  • Renewal rates are high

3. Hostinger

Hostinger

Website: https://www.hostinger.com/

Price: from $1.39/mo

Hosting Available: Shared, WordPress, VPS, Reseller, Dedicated Servers

Hostinger is a Lithuanian web hosting company started in 2004. Although relatively young, it entrenched itself deeply across a broad geolocation spectrum thanks to a firm belief in localization efforts. 

Why Choose Hostinger for Malaysia Web Hosting

Hostinger is the parent company of 000WebHost, a provider of free and ultra-cheap hosting plans. That gives those users an excellent transition opportunity to Hostinger as they scale up. However, Hostinger itself is pretty affordable.

The price point that most Hostinger products sit at makes it an excellent choice for those worried about USD to MYR conversion rates. This excellent pricing remains consistent even for more potent hosting plans like their VPS solutions.

While they already have a good choice of data center locations, that goes even further if you opt for Cloud hosting. Hostinger created these based on Google Cloud infrastructure, making them stable and solid performers.

Learn more about Hostinger from our review.

Hostinger Data Center Locations

  • UK
  • US
  • Netherlands
  • Singapore
  • Indonesia
  • Lithuania

Pros

  • Good plan scalability
  • Decent performance and reliability
  • Asia-centric server in Singapore
  • Highly usable control panel
  • Free website migration tools

Cons

  • Free SSL installation can be difficult
  • No free automated backups

4. ScalaHosting

Scalahosting

Website: https://www.scalahosting.com/

Price: from $3.95/mo

Hosting Available: Shared, WordPress, Cloud VPS, Reseller, Dedicated Servers

ScalaHosting was born in Bulgaria, but today it’s also partly headquartered in the US. It’s been in business for around 14 years and pushed firmly ahead in partnerships and new product lines over the past few years.

Why Choose ScalaHosting for Malaysia Web Hosting

One of the things I love most about ScalaHosting is that it’s a highly innovative company. They’ve developed several products enabling them to lower hosting prices across the board if you opt for those solutions.

SPanel, for example, is a self-developed web hosting control panel that is highly cPanel compatible. If you opt for SPanel, you can get Managed Cloud VPS for a fraction of most competitors’ prices. For Malaysian companies, that cost-savings could be significant.

A close partnership with various companies like Google and AWS opens up server locations around the world. It doesn’t matter if you need to address web traffic in the Asia region or overseas – it’s all possible with ScalaHosting.

Read our in-depth ScalaHosting review for more.

ScalaHosting Data Center Locations

  • Texas, USA 
  • New York, USA
  • Sofia, Bulgaria
  • Bangalore, India (via Digital Ocean)
  • London, UK (via Digital Ocean)
  • Singapore (via Digital Ocean)
  • Frankfurt, Germany (via Digital Ocean)
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands (via Digital Ocean)
  • San Francisco, USA (via Digital Ocean)
  • Toronto, Canada (via Digital Ocean)

Pros

  • Good and stable performance
  • Proprietary technologies help lower hosting prices
  • Excellent cybersecurity protection
  • Managed VPS plans are very reasonably priced
  • White label reseller hosting is available
  • Lots of freebies like domain name and SSL

Cons

  • SPanel is a bit feature-light

5. Cloudways

Cloudways

Website: https://www.cloudways.com/en/

Price: from $10/mo

Hosting Available: Cloud Hosting

Cloudways is a Maltese company that’s pretty new. It launched in 2009 and today covers a massive spread of locations. Due to their operational model, they work with various Cloud partners and only provide a user-friendly interface to cap things.

Why Choose Cloudways for Malaysia Web Hosting

Cloud hosting is extremely powerful and scalable, but it is also highly technical. Managing a Cloud hosting solution can present smaller or non-tech-oriented companies with a massive headache. That’s where Cloudways steps into place.

Getting Cloud via Cloudways means an additional software layer that helps you manage the Cloud hosting plan. Think of it like a powerful web hosting control panel that you can use to avoid manual server management.

Partners so far include Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr, AWS, and Google Cloud. This handful is already sufficient to mean you can choose a server location in almost any major country in the world, with multiple Asia-region options.

To find out more, read our Cloudways review.

Cloudways Data Center Locations

Pros

  • Extremely Simplified Cloud hosting
  • Fantastic choice of server locations
  • On-the-fly payments with no contract
  • The ultimate in scalability
  • Free migration and SSL certificates

Cons

  • Increases Cloud hosting prices
  • Few server control options

Asia’s Digital is Expanding Rapidly

The past two years have been challenging for many businesses worldwide, especially in Asia. Here, shopping is often considered a national pastime. Yet many companies have been forced to digitize rapidly, both in retail and services.

While there are many eCommerce marketplaces, these can be a tough pill to swallow. High fees and commission rates make the platforms unpalatable, especially to smaller businesses that make up the bulk of the Malaysian economy.

The Malaysian Government is Helping Businesses Digitize

If you’re a local business, the Malaysian government has gone full steam ahead in digitizing the economy. Multiple digital initiatives, grants, and such can help cushion the financial impact of the digitization process – web hosting fees included.

The country also houses many data centers, competing for neighboring Singapore as the regional digital hub. Such competition is good for those seeking to target regional traffic from either location.

eCommerce in Malaysia is Booming

Malaysia is at the perfect stage for those seeking a thriving eCommerce market to enter. In 2020, revenue from eCommerce stood at $5 billion, a figure that still has much room to grow. Stepping in now would be perfect for taking advantage of growth potential.

Thanks to the global pandemic, the local eCommerce market is expected to sustain a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19%. This steep increase makes it a more attractive option than nearby markets that are already mature and oversaturated.

Types of Different Hosting Plans

While web hosting companies tend to market web hosting following customer demand, the reality is that there are only a few key types of hosting. Your choice of web hosting plan affects many things, including performance, customer experience, security, scalability, cost, and more. 

Understanding the differences between various web hosting plans will help you fit them more accurately to business needs.

Shared Hosting

Shared Hosting

Among web hosting plans, shared hosting is the cheapest and easiest to manage. In shared hosting, hundreds of customers occupy a single server, each “sharing” (hence the name) from a  common resource pool.

This resource sharing means your website may not always get the resources it needs on-demand, causing performance to be affected. Shared hosting is generally only suitable for smaller websites with a limited audience.

VPS / Cloud Hosting

VPS Hosting
Cloud Hosting

Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a step up from shared hosting. Although multiple customers still occupy the same hardware, they get dedicated resources, assuring availability when needed. VPS and Cloud hosting users can quickly increase resources, making these plans excellent for long-term viability.

Cloud hosting is similar to VPS but extends the resources available across multiple servers.  Business or eCommerce websites, in general, should use VPS hosting to ensure better performance and, most importantly, data security.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated Hosting

Among web hosting plans, dedicated hosting is often considered the most powerful and secure. You’re essentially getting an entire server for yourself. This solo “ownership” means that dedicated servers offer the best security profile among web hosting plans.

The downside, however, is cost. Regardless of the resources consumed by your website, the server configuration isn’t easily scalable. You’ll need to decide – and pay for – the entire server in advance.

WordPress Hosting

Technically, WordPress hosting isn’t an original category of web hosting. Its emergence stems from the popularity of this Content Management System (CMS) among web hosting customers. Hence, it became a widely marketed term.

WordPress hosting plans are primarily sold based on shared or VPS/Cloud hosting. The difference is that opting for a WordPress hosting plan means the CMS usually comes pre-installed. In some cases, hosting companies also offer WordPress-centric advantages like premium themes of customized plugins.

What to Look for in a Great Malaysia Web Host

Server Location

Southeast Asia is a relatively small area, and choosing a web host to serve traffic here is more accessible than most. Unless you have a specific need to host within the country, any excellent hosting provider with servers in nearby Singapore is fine.

The closer a web hosting server is to your target market; the faster your pages will load. That’s an essential factor to consider, especially since it’s a significant influencer for sales conversion.

Pricing

Many buyers consider pricing as a critical element of their choice in a web host. While technically that’s a prudent decision, make sure you’re not sacrificing needed features to enjoy lower hosting prices. The result may affect the usability of your website in the long term.

Security

Although web hosting providers will take care of server security, some will go the extra mile. These “extras” may come via partnerships with prominent cybersecurity companies or security applications to users.

Extra Features

Some web hosting providers offer features that give them an added advantage over others. ScalaHosting, for example, has SPanel, helping them provide VPS hosting plans at more affordable prices since they avoid the high licensing fees associated with cPanel.

Conclusions

Malaysia’s position in Asia is a highly strategic one. Not only is the domestic market strong, but you also have the option to host nearby and target regional traffic. Many international hosting companies have an Asia server presence. Because of that, you have a good spread of suitable companies from which to choose.

Alternatives: More Hosting Choices for Malaysian Websites

For some reason, companies may require to host with a local hosting provider. Here, for example, it may be necessary to take advantage of a grant by the Malaysian government. If so, there are many domestic web hosting providers you can consider;

Hosting CompaniesHQ OfficeTypes of Services
ExabytesPulau PinangFull range hosting services
ServerfreakKuala LumpurShared hosting only
ShinjiruKuala LumpurFull range hosting services
Syntech Web HostingJohorShared hosting only
VPS MalaysiaSelangorFull range hosting services
ServerfreakSelangorFull range hosting services
Webserver MalaysiaKuala LumpurShared, VPS, Dedicated hosting services
TheGigabitKuala LumpurShared, VPS, Cloud, Dedicated hosting services
Sempoi HostingKuala LumpurShared hosting only
BigDomainPulau PinangShared, VPS, Cloud hosting services
HostSinimoKelantanShared, VPS, Dedicated hosting services
iCore TechnologyJohorFull range hosting services
DataKLKuala LumpurShared, Dedicated, Colocation hosting services
Modernone Data SolutionsSelangorFull range hosting services
DomainplusPulau PinangShared, Reseller hosting services
CasbaySelangorFull range hosting services
MyDunia HostingKuala LumpurShared, Cloud, VPS hosting services
GB Network SolutionsSelangorFull range hosting services
IP ServeroneKuala LumpurCloud, Dedicated, Co-location hosting services

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Article by Jason Chow

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