Short answer: Hosting.com is a global hosting company built on the former A2 Hosting business—not a Kenyan company. Its route into Kenya was the acquisition of Kenya Website Experts (KWE) in June 2025. KWE later became Hosting.com’s Kenyan operation, retaining the Nairobi team, KES billing, M-Pesa and KeNIC accreditation while gaining the global platform’s infrastructure and product range.
That distinction matters: the local service and payment layer comes from KWE, while the Hosting.com brand and broader platform come from the former A2 Hosting and World Host Group operation. The reviewed Kenya storefront advertises NVMe storage, LiteSpeed, allocated CPU and RAM, Monarx security, daily off-server backups, email and managed migration.
The reservation is the purchase evidence. On 11 August 2026, the top of the Kenya comparison page advertised Starter at KES 160 per month on a four-year term, requiring KES 7,680 today and renewing at KES 19,200. Lower on that same page, a second table displayed KES 1,544.11 per month for Starter and higher figures for Pro and Max. The linked Starter checkout stayed on a preparation screen instead of confirming the basket. The final order—not a card or divided monthly equivalent—must therefore be treated as the quote.
| Decision factor | What we verified | Editorial reading |
|---|
| Company identity | Global Hosting.com business, formerly A2 Hosting | Do not mistake its Kenya storefront for a Kenya-founded host |
| Kenya entry | Acquired Kenya Website Experts in June 2025; retained its Nairobi team, KES billing, M-Pesa and KeNIC accreditation | Local market access came through KWE’s established operation |
| Entry offer | KES 160/mo equivalent for 48 months; KES 7,680 due today; KES 19,200 published renewal | Competitive monthly equivalent, but a long commitment and a 150% renewal increase |
| Shared resources | 1-100 sites, 15-100GB NVMe, 2-4 virtual CPUs and 2-8GB RAM across Starter, Pro and Max | Better resource disclosure than many mass-market hosts |
| Control panel | The page says both “cPanel included on every plan” and “hosting.com panel” with cPanel optional | Confirm the actual panel on the order before migrating |
| Server location | No physical location was identified for the reviewed Kenya shared plans | Global infrastructure is not evidence of a Nairobi-hosted server |
| Testing boundary | No DoWebsites purchase, controlled ticket or long-term uptime monitor | Scores reflect current product and policy evidence, not invented benchmarks |
Current Kenya shared-hosting plans and renewals
The following figures were visible in the primary plan cards on 11 August 2026. Each promotion requires a four-year term. The monthly number is a divided equivalent, not the amount charged monthly.
| Plan | Promo equivalent | Due today | Published renewal | Websites | NVMe |
|---|
| Starter | KES 160/mo | KES 7,680 for 48 months | KES 19,200 per 48 months (KES 400/mo equivalent) | 1 | 15GB |
| Pro | KES 360/mo | KES 17,280 for 48 months | KES 43,200 per 48 months (KES 900/mo equivalent) | 10 | 50GB |
| Max | KES 960/mo | KES 46,080 for 48 months | KES 115,200 per 48 months (KES 2,400/mo equivalent) | 100 | 100GB |
Starter is advertised with 2 virtual CPUs and 2GB RAM; Pro with 4 virtual CPUs and 4GB RAM; Max with 4 virtual CPUs and 8GB RAM. The page also gives capacity guides of 50,000, 150,000 and 500,000 monthly page views. These are planning guides, not independently verified traffic guarantees.
The four-year price is clear; the page is not consistent
The primary cards are unusually helpful because they show the full first payment and renewal total. The problem is that a later comparison block on the same URL showed Starter at KES 1,544.11 per month, Pro at KES 495 and Max at KES 1,320. Those figures do not reconcile with the top cards. The Starter buy link also used a different product ID from the “Choose Starter” link at the bottom.
The homepage adds another variation: its free-domain message says a two-year purchase is required, while the visible shared plan promotion uses four years. Treat all of these as reasons to save a screenshot or PDF of the final basket and ask billing to confirm the product ID, initial term, tax, renewal term, renewal amount and domain conditions in writing.
Renewal effect: each primary plan’s published renewal is 2.5 times the promotional total. Over eight years, Starter would cost KES 26,880, Pro KES 60,480 and Max KES 161,280 if those exact first and second four-year totals apply. That is an illustration from the published figures, not a guarantee of future exchange rates or pricing.
What the plans include
- Performance stack: AMD EPYC processors, NVMe storage, LiteSpeed, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, CloudLinux-style site isolation and Redis are advertised.
- Developer support: the comparison lists multiple PHP versions through 8.5, Node.js, Python, Ruby, PostgreSQL, SSH, Git, WP-CLI, cron and WebSockets.
- Email: Starter shows 10 mailboxes; Pro and Max expose up to 20 in the comparison. Published sending limits are 2,400 messages per day per plan.
- Security: AutoSSL, ModSecurity WAF, Monarx malware scanning, DDoS filtering and account two-factor authentication are listed.
- Growth path: the same page sells managed servers from 8GB to 64GB RAM, with a stated in-place upgrade path from shared hosting.
The comparison page has a prominent section saying cPanel is included on every plan and describes its familiar email and Softaculous workflow. Its FAQ on the same page says every plan runs on the hosting.com panel and cPanel/WHM is optional. The general hosting page calls the email solution cPanel, while a WordPress page describes a custom WordPress-focused dashboard.
This may reflect different products or a platform migration, but the public copy does not separate them cleanly. A team that depends on cPanel backups, account transfers, WHM or a known plugin should ask for the exact panel name and any licence fee on the selected product ID before paying.
Migration is promising, with a policy caveat
The product page advertises free managed migrations for unlimited sites, including email and domains, and says non-cPanel accounts can be moved manually. It also offers a test URL before DNS changes. Those are practical and unusually broad promises.
The refund and billing policy is narrower: complimentary migrations require previous cPanel credentials, and non-cPanel sources may attract a complexity-based charge. It also reserves the right to deny a migration request. Confirm the source panel, number of sites and mailboxes, database size, DNS responsibility, migration window, exclusions and any charge before relying on “free unlimited migrations.”
Backups: useful, but the 50GB threshold matters
The product page advertises daily off-server backups with self-service restore points for 30 days. The service terms add important limits: complimentary cPanel backups use commercially reasonable efforts, may omit some files or email, and stop when aggregate account disk usage exceeds 50GB. Customers are explicitly responsible for independent copies.
That threshold fits awkwardly with a 50GB Pro allowance and 100GB Max allowance. Ask whether the advertised daily system for your product is the same policy-limited cPanel backup, which data counts toward 50GB, and what happens after the limit is crossed. Keep an automated off-provider backup and test a restore before launch.
Uptime language is not one number
The shared-hosting page repeatedly calls 99.9% an uptime SLA. The full comparison table displayed 99.95% for all tiers. The server maintenance policy, however, says hosting.com targets 99.9% and excludes scheduled downtime. The service terms also say uninterrupted or continuous access is not guaranteed.
For a business that needs contractual availability, ask support for the exact SLA attached to the product ID, its calculation window, exclusions, claim deadline and credit schedule. A status page with incident history is helpful for transparency, but it is not a substitute for measuring the actual assigned server.
The disclosed shared-plan resources and LiteSpeed/NVMe stack are credible positives. They make capacity comparison easier and reduce the chance that every plan is merely the same vague “unlimited” account. They do not prove a 20x speed claim or a specific Kenyan latency result.
We did not find a physical region for the reviewed Kenya shared plans. hosting.com publishes a large global footprint, but a Kenyan office and a .ke storefront do not establish where customer data is hosted. Buyers with latency, data-residency or contractual requirements should request the assigned data centre and confirm whether moving region costs extra; the billing policy lists a USD 25 data-centre migration fee outside an upgrade.
Support evidence is encouraging, but mostly global
The Kenya site publishes 24/7 chat, tickets, phone support and the Nairobi number +254 722 209 414. Its Trustpilot profile showed 4.8 from 6,710 reviews on 11 August 2026, with a large majority of recent commentary focused on quick, knowledgeable support. A recent Kenyan review also praised responsiveness and clear guidance.
That profile is merged and represents hosting.com’s global customer base, not a Kenya-only support cohort. The provider’s own metrics also vary: one page says 97% satisfaction and under one minute, while another says 87%+ and under two minutes. The homepage labels its figures “Average for Q3 2026” even though the quarter was still in progress. We therefore score the channel coverage and broad sentiment, not an unverified response-time promise.
Refund, cancellation and renewal terms
The service terms offer a 30-day first-term money-back guarantee for eligible products. Domains, servers and certain third-party products are excluded, and domain registration fees or other non-refundable expenses can be deducted. The guarantee can be exercised once and does not cover later renewal terms.
Hosting and domains are set to auto-renew. The refund policy says a renewal invoice is generated 14 days before the due date and an automatic payment may be attempted three days before it; domains may auto-renew five days before their due date. The terms contain both a one-day pre-renewal cancellation instruction and a separate 15-day notice clause for termination for convenience. Submit cancellation well in advance and retain confirmation.
KES buyers should also note that the policy calculates services in US dollars and may adjust non-USD renewal prices using the exchange rate on the invoice date. That means the KES renewal displayed today may not be the exact future charge even if the underlying product price stays unchanged.
From A2 Hosting to Hosting.com—and into Kenya through KWE
A2 Hosting announced its global rebrand to Hosting.com in April 2025 after becoming part of World Host Group. This supplied the global brand, platform and 24-year hosting lineage. Hosting.com then entered the Kenyan market by acquiring Kenya Website Experts in June 2025; KWE was subsequently rebranded as the company’s Kenya operation.
The official KWE announcement says existing logins and accounts stayed the same, the Nairobi team remained, KES invoices include Kenya VAT, and payment options include M-Pesa, Airtel Money, bank transfer, card and PayPal. In other words, Hosting.com did not originate as Kenya Website Experts: it acquired KWE as its local route into the market.
The continuity is valuable, but the public site still shows integration residue: mixed product IDs, inconsistent price blocks, conflicting panel language, a “GST invoices included” label on a Kenya card, placeholder-like “hosted locally in X” copy and support statistics dated to an incomplete quarter. These are website-quality issues, not proof of poor hosting, but they make written order confirmation more important.
- Kenyan businesses that want M-Pesa, KES invoices, a Nairobi contact and a long-established local team.
- Agencies and growing sites that value disclosed CPU/RAM, LiteSpeed, cPanel-class tooling and a managed server upgrade path.
- Customers moving from cPanel who can confirm that the complimentary migration and target panel match their account.
- Buyers comfortable prepaying four years after documenting the renewal and cancellation terms.
Who should look elsewhere?
- Buyers who want a short term or cannot accept KES 7,680 upfront for the entry promotion.
- Organisations that require a verified Kenya-based server or a specific data-residency commitment.
- Teams that need contractually unambiguous 99.95% uptime, fixed KES renewal pricing or a guaranteed panel before checkout.
- Anyone who would rely solely on provider backups, especially accounts likely to use more than 50GB.
Our scoring explained
| Category | Score | Reason |
|---|
| Features | 9.0/10 | Strong resources, email, security, developer tools, migration and managed upgrade options |
| Ease of use | 7.8/10 | Local payment and familiar tooling help; panel ambiguity and a stalled checkout add friction |
| Performance | 8.1/10 | Good disclosed hardware and isolation, without an assigned-region check or controlled benchmark |
| Support | 8.7/10 | Local and 24/7 channels plus strong global sentiment, without a controlled DoWebsites ticket test |
| Value | 7.2/10 | Attractive four-year equivalents, offset by the commitment, 2.5x renewal and inconsistent price blocks |
Pre-purchase checklist
- Confirm the product ID, four-year total, tax, renewal total and next due date in the basket.
- Ask whether the plan uses cPanel or the hosting.com panel and whether any licence fee applies.
- Request the assigned data-centre region if latency or residency matters.
- Confirm free-domain eligibility, ownership, second-year price and auto-renewal date.
- Get migration scope and any non-cPanel charge in writing.
- Ask whether backups continue after 50GB and which files, databases and mailboxes are covered.
- Obtain the exact uptime SLA and service-credit procedure for the selected product.
- Keep an independent backup and submit any future cancellation well before renewal.
Frequently asked questions
No. Hosting.com is the global host formerly known as A2 Hosting. It entered Kenya by acquiring Kenya Website Experts, then retained KWE’s Nairobi team, local payment methods and KeNIC-accredited domain operation.
No. Hosting.com acquired Kenya Website Experts in June 2025 and later rebranded that business as its Kenya operation. KWE supplied the established local team and customer base; Hosting.com supplied the global brand, infrastructure and wider product platform.
On 11 August 2026, the primary Kenya-market cards showed Starter at KES 160 per month equivalent, Pro at KES 360 and Max at KES 960, each for a four-year term paid upfront. The same page showed conflicting figures lower down, so confirm the final basket.
What does Starter cost upfront and at renewal?
The primary Starter card showed KES 7,680 due for the first 48 months and KES 19,200 at renewal. That is KES 160 and KES 400 per month respectively when divided by 48.
Yes. The official KWE transition announcement lists M-Pesa, Airtel Money, bank transfer, card and PayPal, with Kenya-market plans billed in KES and Kenya VAT included.
Does the shared plan include cPanel?
The live comparison page says cPanel is included on every plan, but its FAQ says the hosting.com panel is standard and cPanel is optional. Confirm the panel on the exact product ID before purchasing.
Are the servers located in Kenya?
We did not find a physical location for the reviewed Kenya shared plans. Ask hosting.com to identify the assigned data centre if location is important.
Is migration really free?
The product page advertises free unlimited migration, including manual non-cPanel moves. The billing policy says non-cPanel migrations may incur a complexity-based charge. Get the scope and price confirmed in writing.
The product page advertises daily off-server backups and 30-day restore points. The terms say complimentary cPanel backups can stop above 50GB and may not include every file or email. Maintain your own off-provider copy.
Is the uptime SLA 99.9% or 99.95%?
Both figures appear on current pages. The maintenance policy says hosting.com targets 99.9%. Ask for the product-specific SLA and credit terms rather than relying on a comparison-table label.
Can I get a refund?
Eligible first-term products have a 30-day guarantee. Domains, servers and certain third-party products are excluded, and non-refundable domain or setup costs may be deducted.
Sources checked
