Web hosting is renting space on a powerful computer — called a server — that stays connected to the internet day and night, so your website is reachable by anyone at any time. Your files, images and database live on that machine, and when someone types your address the server sends them the page.
The simplest analogy
The domain is your house's address; the hosting is the house.
You can buy an address without a house — a domain with no hosting — but visitors find nothing. You can rent a house without an address, but nobody knows how to reach it. You need both, and most providers sell them on one invoice and give you the domain free for the first year.
Prices on this page are read from our table the moment you open it, not typed into the text. Check the comparison page for the latest figures before buying.
Why not host the site on your own computer?
Technically you can. In practice nobody does, because a server needs:
- Power and internet that never drop — switch your computer off and your site disappears
- A fixed address — your home connection keeps changing its own
- High upload speed — home connections are fast down and slow up; servers are the opposite
- Security and backups — a permanent job on its own
A hosting company handles all of that for about the price of one meal a month: the cheapest plan in our table right now is EGP 116/mo.
The four types of hosting
1) Shared hosting — for starting out
One server split between dozens of sites, which is what makes it so cheap. The right choice for a first site, a blog, or a small business page.
Ours start at EGP 116/mo. The drawback: a busy neighbour on the same server can slow you down.
2) Cloud hosting — once you have grown
Reserved CPU and memory for you alone, without administering a server. Right for a shop that has started seeing real traffic.
From EGP 319/mo — detail in the Cloud Startup review.
3) Virtual private server (VPS) — for developers
A full virtual machine with root access; install whatever you like. Far better value than cloud if you know Linux, and a hazard if you do not: no panel, no maintenance, and security updates are your responsibility.
The cheapest server in our table is EGP 319/mo with 4 GB of RAM — the KVM 1 review.
4) Dedicated server — for large platforms
An entire physical machine for you. The highest performance and the highest cost, and nobody needs it until they have outgrown everything above.
What should you look for in any plan?
Five things, ordered by what people most regret ignoring:
- The renewal price, not the first-year price. The most important number on the page, and the most often hidden. A plan at EGP 79 may renew at EGP 239 — that is 3.0×.
- The backup schedule. Daily or weekly? The difference between losing a day and losing a week.
- Site count and storage. Do not pay for ten sites when you want one.
- The money-back window. Thirty days is normal; some give ninety.
- The control panel. cPanel is familiar to professionals, hPanel is simpler for beginners.
How much do you actually need?
| Your site | The right type | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Blog or brochure site | Shared | from EGP 116/mo |
| Small shop | Shared with daily backups | from EGP 139/mo |
| Shop with real traffic | Cloud | from EGP 319/mo |
| An app or several projects | VPS | from EGP 319/mo |
In short
Hosting is not a complicated product: you rent space and resources on a machine that never sleeps. The whole decision comes down to three questions — how many sites, how many visitors, and do you know how to run a server?
Start with the cheapest if you are at the beginning; upgrading later is far easier than overpaying today for nothing.
Compare every plan by the numbers · Browse providers · Ask us to buy it for you
Related questions: What is web hosting? · Which is the best hosting company? · What is the cheapest hosting? · Cheapest hosting in Egypt · How do I find who hosts a site? · Hosting contract terms
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