5 Best Cheap Web Hosting Malaysia in 2023 – Host Your Website for RM5 or Less!
The best cheap web hosts offer you top features, great performance, and excellent support, with prices below RM5! Their low introductory price greatly benefits those looking to start a website at a budget.
Our #1 best cheap web hosting goes to Hostinger, with premium speed, features, and support – plan starts from RM3.49/mo!
Since 2014, we have bought & tested over 30 web hosting brands. To help you make an informed decision, we checked their performance, feature, support, and pricing; then narrowed down to the 5 best cheap web hosting for Malaysians that actually doesn’t suck!
Top 5 Affordable Web Hosting Services For Malaysia
- Hostinger – Starting at RM3.49
RM5.45/month (48-mo plan) - HostMetro – Starting at RM16.20 /month
- GreenGeeks – Starting at RM16.20 /month
- A2 Hosting – Starting at RM17.99 /month
- Bluehost – Starting at RM20.30 /month
Note
- All prices shown below are based on a 24-month plan introductory rate.
- We use an exchange rate of 1 USD to 4.1 MYR for all prices listed.
- You may get even lower prices by opting for longer subscription period.
1. Hostinger MY
https://www.hostinger.my/
Plan
Single
Introductory Price
RM5.45 /mo
Renewal Price
RM9.99 /mo
Key Features
- 30GB SSD
- 100GB Bandwidth
- Free SSL
- 99% Uptime
- 24/7 Support
“Premium services at a super low price, what else can you ask for?”
Hostinger is our top choice for cheap web hosting, because they offer premium services at an insanely low signup price. For this list, we used the Single Shared Hosting plan (which is their cheapest) on a 24-month basis which costs RM5.45 per month, but if you select 48 months, you’ll only be charged RM3.49 a month!
Their servers are really fast globally because they have datacenters all over the world, which is surprising because you don’t expect that when you’re paying prices like these.
They’ve also got an impressive list of unlimited features:
- Email accounts
- Websites
- Bandwidth
- Cronjobs
Aside from speed and features, Hostinger has an excellent support team, which serves over 20 countries in their native language! Hostinger really packs a quite a punch with their affordable plans, especially for those that are just starting out.
Learn more about Hostinger
- Read our full Hostinger review to find out more!
- See our Hostinger test site!
2. HostMetro
https://www.hostmetro.com/
Plan
MegaMax Plan
Introductory Price
RM12.39 /mo
Renewal Price
RM12.39 /mo
Key Features
- Maximum storage
- Maximum bandwidth
- 1 Free Domain Name
- Price Locked Forever
- Unlimited Domain Hosting
“You never have to worry about renewal fees with their fixed prices”
HostMetro offers 1 free domain name with their MegaMax Plan, with maximum storage and bandwidth (note their strategic usage of the word “maximum” instead of “unlimited”).
Basically, this means that there is a storage and bandwidth cap to the account, but they’ll increase the amount of storage for you for free as long as you stay within their terms of use, which is to not use the allocated storage for media storing purposes.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
With HostMetro, you’ll get to host as many websites as you want with their unlimited domain hosting, but the best thing about this brand (to me at least) is the fact that their price is locked forever – If you pay RM12.39, you’ll be paying RM12.39 for as long as you host with them.
Hurrah! No need to worry about renewal fees!
3. GreenGeeks
https://www.greengeeks.com/
Plan
EcoSite Lite
Introductory Price
RM16.20 /mo
Renewal Price
RM40.80 /mo
Key Features
- Unlimited Web Space
- RAID-10 SSD
- HTTP/3 & PHP7
- Optimized LiteSpeed
- 300% Green Energy
“Affordable and powerful YET great for the planet!”
Very rarely do you see a web hosting service as ethical as GreenGeeks.
The environment-friendly web hosting provider sets you up with almost unlimited everything.
We’re talking data transfers, email accounts, webspace, databases, the works. They’ve even thrown in free SSL, free domain, free nightly backup, sweetened the deal with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Pretty ballsy, but I guess it speaks volumes of their confidence in their offerings!
They’ve got data center locations in Chicago (US), Phoenix (US), Toronto (CA), Montreal (CA) and Amsterdam (EU). With a strong support team, cutting edge infrastructure, Git compatibility, and CloudFlare integration, GreenGeeks is capable of making websites feel really snappy.
However, the special thing about them isn’t their features or their speed – GreenGeeks gives back to the planet by investing 3 times of every amp they use into renewable energy!
You will literally be making the world a greener place when you host your website with GreenGeeks.
In short, they’re fast, affordable, and great for the planet!
Learn more about GreenGeeks
- See our in-depth GreenGeeks review for more info!
- See our GreenGeeks test site!
4. A2 Hosting
https://www.a2hosting.com
Plan
Startup
Introductory Price
RM13.94 /mo
Renewal Price
RM37.75 /mo
Key Features
- 1 Website
- 100GB SSD
- Unlimited Transfer
- Free SSL & SSD
- Free & Easy Site Migration
“Well rounded web host, suitable for any types of sites”
What we like about A2 Hosting is their Turbo Boost plan – they come with Turbo servers, incorporating technology that increases site load speed by up to 20x faster than regular servers!
Although the Startup plan doesn’t come with Turbo servers, their regular servers are still pretty damn fast, with a worldwide average of 150 ms!
Users will also get to enjoy attractive features such as 100GB SSD storage, unlimited transfers, unlimited subdomains, unlimited email accounts and free SSL. It also comes with 1-click optimized WordPress setup and best of all, we get to select our datacenters, which are spread across 3 continents to maximize site load speed for their customers!
Learn more about A2 Hosting
- See our A2 Hosting review!
- See our A2 Hosting test site!
5. Bluehost
https://www.bluehost.com
Plan
Basic
Introductory Price
RM24.99 /mo
Renewal Price
RM33.55/mo
Key Features
- 1 Website
- 50GB SSD
- Free Domain
- Free SSL Certificate
- Cloudflare CDN
“Low prices with standard features, great for bloggers!”
Bluehost is one of the more highly recommended, inexpensive web hosting services around, and their prices are low enough to juuuust to get them on this list.
With their Basic plan, you get what you pay for – 1 free domain, 50GB of SSD storage (which means they care about speed & efficiency) and unmetered bandwidth (it isn’t specified how much is allocated per account, but as long as you fall into their “normal” range, you should be okay).
However, Bluehost does come with free SSL and 5 email accounts so if you’re running a business website, this will come in handy. Aside from that, they’re pretty stable. Couple that with their other perks, and Bluehost is indeed a worthy contender for this list.
Learn more about Bluehost
- Read our Bluehost review!
- See our Bluehost test site!
6 Steps To Identify A Good Cheap Web Host
Of course, there are also some bad hosting companies hiding within the same price range, and separating the good from the bad can get a little tricky.
But fret not – I’ve come up with 6 easy steps to help you identify the best web hosts at low prices, so you can have the best of both worlds.
1. Check their features
A good affordable web host will pack in all their top features as part of the package. Things to look out for include:
- Storage & bandwidth
Most quality hosts now come with unlimited storage, but some still have limits to them. Check to make sure they at least have SSD storage of at least 20GB. - How many addon domains?
Most web hosts should give you space for up to 25 additional domains, but we’ve seen poor options that only give you one or even none at all. - How many email addresses can you create?
Some hosts don’t include a single email address in their package. - What control panel do they use?
Since cPanel raised their prices, many web hosting providers dropped them in favour of cheaper or custom control panels. Check if they are still using cPanel (which I prefer), or if they have switched to Vdeck or a customized alternative. Pick the one you feel most comfortable with!
(Pro tip: if you’re unfamiliar with their control panel, ask for a demo.) - Do they support pre-installed website scripts?
Check if they support WordPress, Drupal, Joomla installation. If you need any specialised features like PHP or e-commerce integration, make sure they support that too. - Do they offer free domain names?
If you’re looking at affordable web hosting, it’s obvious that you’re price sensitive and are looking to keep costs low. A domain name can cost quite a fair bit, so this can really help.
2. How fast is their server speed?
Server speed is simply how quickly (or slowly) your web server responds to a request.
This is important because Core Web Vitals play a very important factor when it comes to ranking, and you want your website to be ranked, don’t you?
Out of the 3 web vital metrics, 2 of them are highly dependant on server response time, which is LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) and FID (First Input Delay).
In other words, when someone clicks on your website, the time it takes the largest piece of content to appear, and how long it takes for the site to be interactive for the user, will affect rankings.
All these matters because every request must be lightning-quick on your website, especially if you’re an e-commerce seller and you expect quick order processing. A fast server response is essential for good user experience.
Unfortunately, many of the lousy web hosts overload their servers, which means your website is competing with others on the same shared server for speed and resources. Some providers simply aren’t using efficient hardware, so their response times are slow.
On the other hand, the best web hosts will still make sure you get a fast response time, even on a shared server.
You can test server speed using our Speed Checker Tool. Simply enter the website URL, and you’ll see how fast the server responds around the world.
3. What is their uptime?
There’s nothing more frustrating than your website going down. So your web host’s uptime figure is crucial. The better their uptime, the more reliable the host.
Quite simply, anything less than 99% uptime should be avoided, and 99.9% should be your target.
You might think that even 98% sounds quite good, but think of it like this: 98% uptime means your site could be down for 3-7 days of the year!
You can track a web host’s uptime with a free tool like uptimerobot.com. Uptime Robot checks your website every five minutes for signs of life, and it alerts you if anything is wrong. We use Uptime Robots to monitor our site, and power our uptime figures.
4. Talk to their tech support
Tech support is one of the main things that separates good web hosts from bad web hosts. A good company will have an expert team that answers queries quickly and effectively. Bad hosts often neglect their customer service.
If something goes wrong on your website, you want to know there’s a friendly voice on the other end of the phone who can fix it for you. If you prefer online chat or email, look for a web host with that contact preference.
There are a few ways to test a web host’s tech support without actually buying it. Try submitting a ticket for the following reasons:
- Ask for a control panel demo.
- Ask about refund policy & renewal price (more on this shortly).
- Ask about storage limit.
- Ask about site script availability.
A good web host should reply quickly and efficiently to these queries.
5. Are there any hidden catches in their TOS?
Most web hosts use strong marketing language, like ‘unlimited storage and bandwidth’ or ‘unlimited CPU’. Unfortunately even ‘unlimited’ has a limit! And you’ll find it in the web host’s terms of service.
In some cases, web hosts reserve the right to suspend or even disconnect a website that overloads these limits.
Below are some real-life examples from reputable web hosts that show these restrictions:
Limited CPU
Additional reasons for termination
Specifically, look for the following hard limits:
- How many files (regardless of size) can I host? (aka inodes)
- What are the storage and bandwidth hard limits?
- How much CPU resources can I use?
It’s also worth checking the terms-of-service for their refund policy. Sometimes, you’ll try out a web host, and then realize it’s not right for you. The good web hosts understand this, and they’ll offer a fair refund policy.
Unfortunately, the bad hosts often have no refund policy at all, and they’ll even charge an additional cancellation fee.
If you can’t find these numbers in the terms of service, ask their support team
6. What is the renewal price & are there any hidden costs?
The low prices you see are usually introductory figures, and the renewal price will cost a little more. Check to make sure the price doesn’t jump to an outrageous figure!
You’ll also notice that most web hosts offer a discount if you sign up for a longer period. However, it’s best not to lock yourself into a long contract if possible. You may want to expand or change things in two years.
Lastly, some hosts try to up-sell certain add-on products like daily backups or server security scanning. If you don’t want these extras, be sure to uncheck any boxes before you buy.
What Help Can You Get From Bitcatcha?
Our website exists to help you find the best web host, and allow you to make an informed decision. Here are some of our tools you can use right now to help you decide:
- Server speed checker
Run speed tests on different web hosts to see which delivers that fastest response time. (Pro tip: we test server speed from 10 different points on the globe, so look for the server that delivers high speed to your target audience).
Another tip: Don’t test the web host’s website. Find a website using that host, and test theirs. (The web host themselves are probably using a much more expensive private server for their site). For example, if you want to test Hostinger’s server speed, we have several Hostinger test sites hosted on their different datacenter. - Uptime records
To save you the time of tracking uptime yourself, we have been tracking and recording the uptime of various web hosts for months, and present them to you. Head to our review pages, and you’ll see the overall percentage uptime of each host, and how many days it’s been since the last down period.
Verdict: Which is the best cheap web host?
To recap, here is our top 3 cheap web hosting providers for Malaysian websites:
Introductory
Renewal
Difference
Considering all the factors (server speed, uptime, tech support, ease of use, and price), the above are some of the best inexpensive web hosts for your websites.
But remember: Match your web host to your website needs!
There is no outright best cheap web host. Only the one that is right for you and your needs. Different web hosts are suited to different priorities.
A simple portfolio site, for example, only needs a small, shared web host. But, if you’re running a blog or website with more than 30,000-40,000 visitors a month, you’ll want additional storage, and the ability to upgrade to VPS hosting when the time is right.
If you’re looking to start an ecommerce site, you’ll need a web host that allows payment integration and additional security measures. (Be sure to check out our recommended eCommerce Hosting.)
As you can see, cheap web hosts don’t always suck, but do check out their features and performance before you buy. Good luck! And if you still have further questions, feel free to get in touch, and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.
