| Ratings | |
| Overall |  |
| Features | |
| Price | |
| Reliability | |
| Support | |
OzHosting is aimed at small to large businesses, though individual webmasters who run personal sites might find a plan that fits their needs here. This is especially true of the Cloud Plan, a shared hosting solution for which you pay for only what you use. All accounts include unlimited bandwidth, a maximum of 5 GB storage for e-mail accounts, and free setup. All plans can be paid for monthly, or you can get one month free by paying annually. There are five tiers to choose from:
Entry level provides 100 GB disk space and 10 e-mail accounts at just under $20.00 per month. Standard provides 25 mailboxes at $24.95 per month. All of the other plans offer unlimited e-mail accounts, except for the Cloud Plan, which offers only as many as you need (unlimited). With the Cloud Plan, you only pay for the e-mail accounts you use.
OzHosting also offers e-mail account hosting. Here there are four plans which offer graduating degrees of space and functionality. All use Microsoft Exchange as their e-mail platform, as do the sites hosted at OzHosting. OzHosting’s e-mail also uses Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, which allows you to read your mail on iPhones.
OzHosting mentions nothing about FTP, MySQL, scripts, script installers, or similar features. It seems pretty focused on supporting businesses and business-minded individuals who need an online presence more than a website. Without features like forums and message boards, most websites should not expect that much traffic. It seems irresponsible to pay for more bandwidth you are unlikely to use, though you may need more space.
It might benefit some webmasters to rent an e-mail account from OzHosting to add to the e-mail accounts they receive from their own hosting provider, if any. This is especially good for those hosting plans that offer no e-mail accounts. A combination of inexpensive hosting and e-mail hosting might be even cheaper than choosing a more robust plan.
The company has been around since 1997 and is proudly located in Australia. Customer service is available by phone or e-mail, though the hours of availability are not given. Turnaround on e-mails could be up to 24 to 48 hours, and maybe even longer over the weekends.
The truth is that there is not much to OzHosting. It is a stripped down site that offers few additional features outside of web hosting itself. It appears to be courting businesses and individuals who are establishing a web presence, and not necessarily webmasters who want fully functional websites. Full websites can definitely be hosted at OzHosting, and there is plenty of space and bandwidth to create some powerhouse sites, but their prices are cost-prohibitive.
Everything is run from their Australian centres and they are very proud to be local, so if you are interested in supporting local Australian businesses, the extra cost might be worth it to you. Otherwise, there are too many competitors who offer more for less.
