Don’t Host Your Website in India: Choose Singapore Instead!

Selecting a web host with servers near your customers is important. Which is why if you’re an Indian business, choosing to host your website in India seems like a great idea. I even wrote an article earlier talking about which web hosts have datacenters in India.

However, I also mentioned that there are no Indian web hosts with private data centers. As a result, they all rely on 3rd party providers, and frequently don’t even have access to the servers. For this reason (and others), I now recommend choosing a web hosting provider with datacenters in Singapore. This article will explain why Singapore is a much better location to have servers – even if your customers are primarily Indian.

Table of Contents

HostArmada is Best for India Based Hosting

Even though I don’t recommend it, if you still want to host in India, I suggest HostArmada. I’ve worked with them in the past and their service is better than other India web hosts like Hostgator India. Here’s a 75% off HostArmada coupon for India:

HostArmada has a data center in Bangalore, and it relies on professionally managed virtualization platforms like those provided by Google Cloud Compute. So it’s probably a lot more reliable than other ad hoc data centers in the country. Plus, it’s the only provider I know of in India that offers LiteSpeed as an option with their top-tier “Speed Reaper” plan. Here’s a quick explanation of what LiteSpeed is, and why it’s so amazing.

Here’s my complete HostArmada review, so you know what you’re getting into.

HostArmada Has a Data Center In Singapore Too!

The icing on the cake is that HostArmada also has a data center in Singapore! So you can start out hosting with the HostArmada India center, and then migrate to the Singapore one. Or vice-versa. The point is, you won’t have to switch hosting providers to change your location, and that’s a big deal. You can sign up in Singapore and if you still feel you have too much latency, just ask HostArmada to switch you over to the Bangalore center and you’re done!

Alternative #2: Hostgator India

If you don’t want to go with HostArmada, I suggest you choose Hostgator India. It’s not optimal, but it’s still the best of the alternatives. They have server locations in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Hyderabad, and Bangalore.

Like other Indian web hosts, they don’t own their datacenters either. But Hostgator India is large enough and has enough clout to ensure a greater control over their servers compared to other providers. Plus they partner with GPX, who has a Tier IV datacenter in Mumbai. In my opinion, this is the best hardware and security you can get for India based servers.

But if you only need servers close to your clients and not India based servers specifically, then Singapore is a much better location. Here’s why.

But Global Hostgator is a Better Choice

However, even if you’re located in India, I feel the global Hostgator is a better choice for reasons as diverse as price, customer support, and reliability. And the price is cheaper! Here’s the US-based Hostgator coupon code page for proof.

But if price is not that high of a factor, there are other web hosts you can choose that have data centers located in Singapore. But why choose Singapore?

Why is Singapore a Better Choice than India for Hosting?

First, let’s get the obvious out of the way.

It’s Close to India

Singapore is very close to India. How close? Here’s a map to show you:

Singapore to India Distance
Singapore to India Distance

Depending on where your clients connect from, Singapore might actually be closer to them than some other locations in India! The extra little bit of distance doesn’t really count when it comes to website latency. So if you’re looking for servers close to your website visitors, Singapore fits the bill.

In many ways, it’s the same situation as hosting in Morocco, which has Europe nearby!

Singapore is the Hosting Capital of Asia

Singapore is by far, the most popular hosting destination for top quality websites in Asia. Here are a few stats from Cushman & Wakefield’s recent report: “Data center investment: A rare opportunity for the right investor”

  1. Singapore comprises 54% of datacenter capacity in South East Asia
  2. Web GIANTS like AWS, Netflix, Oracle, and IBM have chosen to host in Singapore
  3. In a list of 10 Asian countries, Singapore ranks number 1 (India ranks last).

Here’s a diagram showing that last comparison, ranking the countries in Asia in terms of suitability for datacenter locations:

Don't Host Your Website in India. Singapore First India Last
Asian Data Center Location Ranking

Here’s the final ranking:

Ranking Country Score
1 Singapore 84.5
2 South Korea 83.23
3 Hong Kong 78.73
4 Japan 76.48
5 Australia 68.18
6 Malaysia 66.86
7 Thailand 59.55
8 Indonesia 51.81
9 China 50.22
10 India 47.84

Comparing India to Singapore for Datacenter Locations

Datacenters need a lot of great infrastructure to support them. Billion-dollar industries rely on their server uptime to run. It’s not just about how great an individual datacenter is. The environment has to support it as well. For example, will the city fumble in the aftermath of a natural disaster? Is the government politically stable?

It’s hard to explain in words how much better Singapore is for hosting server locations. So I made a table showing the rankings of the two countries on a variety of parameters relevant to datacenter suitability.

Factors (Out of 37 Countries) Singapore Ranking India Ranking
Ease of Doing Business 1 36 (Only Nigeria is worse)
Corporation Tax Incentives 4 32
Coping with Natural Disasters
Flooding, Cyclones etc.
Will the infrastructure hold up?)
6 32
Bandwidth per Dollar 11 32
Energy Security 17 37 (Last)

This table is a great illustration of why it’s better to host in Singapore, as opposed to India – even if your client base resides in India.

Natural Disaster Readiness

To hammer home the point, DigitalOcean recently opened up operations in Bangalore. However, when cyclone Vardah hit in 2016, it greatly damaged the undersea fiber optic cables for Chennai. Without sufficient redundancy, it led to the entire datacenter going down. Choosing to host your website in India is a risky proposition!

Professionalism and Security

Another complaint is that 3rd party colocation services in India don’t follow the best practices with regard to security and don’t have great customer support. For example, hosting provider SkyNetHosting started operations in India, only to be hit with a 23Gbps DDoS attack. Unfortunately, their datacenter was unresponsive and didn’t help them take measure to defeat it in a timely manner.

Reasons like this make me wary of hosting in India. The only exception I would make is if the hosting company is large enough to make the datacenter owners bend to their will – as I imagine EIG is with Hostgator India.

So Which Web Host to Choose for Singapore Hosting?

Here’s a list of well-known web hosts with datacenters in Singapore:

  1. HostArmada – 75% HostArmada Coupon
  2. A2 Hosting – A2 Hosting coupon list
  3. SiteGround – Unfortunately, I don’t recommend SiteGround anymore

Note: These are affiliate links – your clicks and purchases help me pay the bills!

My personal recommendation is HostArmada. I’ve had a great experience with them, they offer free SSL with Let’s Encrypt (unlike GoDaddy), and are a very solid host all around. Plus their web hosting is pretty cheap starting at just $2.99/month.

I hope this article was helpful!

About Bhagwad Park

I've been writing about web hosting and WordPress tutorials since 2008. I also create tutorials on Linux server administration, and have a ton of experience with web hosting products. Contact me via e-mail!

Comments

  1. This article helped me to choose the nearest best server location to attract Indian traffic.

    Thank you, brother.

    Reply

  2. Mangsuanlian Tangpua says

    This article made my eyes open wider. I was looking for hosting provider and end up there with cloudways. Digital ocean have DC at bangalore and linode (my fav) have DC at singapore. I was very confused which one to choose. Bangalore dc attracted me first but i had a doubt about infrastructure and maintenance like you have mention above. I choose linode singapore for my server dc. Now I am in peace. Thanks mate!

    Reply

  3. thanks ,this was important to select server

    Reply

  4. Awesome article. I have few websites that are running on vps from various providers including digitaloce…, A2, OVH and more. But every time I purchase a new vps I try to do a quick online research and that’s how I landed on your website. This question has been lingering in my mind for a long time. This fact is true that server should be located close to your visitors but it is also important to understand the geopolitical situation on the country. This on aspect changed my view from your articles and I am decided to host my new project on datacenter located in Singapore. One of my website kidhealthcenter.com used to clocks in 25k visitors per day. Its is on digitalocea… This website is about childrens health and the target audience are young parents. On one occasion, digitaloce…. did some maintenance on their server and my website went down for almost 3 days and I wasn’t aware of it because I was not actively managing it. This affected the traffic and website later started to gradually loose the traffic. The point that I am trying to make here is that – server configuration is important, but even more important is the reliability. I am using the Bangalore datacenter of this digitaloce…
    This definitely wouldn’t have happened if I was using the Singapore datacenter of digitaloce…
    Thanks for the article, I appreciate bro.

    Reply

  5. So it means the Singapore server is better than Banglore for Indian traffic??

    Reply

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