Founded in 1997 by Franco Barbalich, Axxess is a South African hosting company and ISP based in Port Elizabeth. Its hosting solutions include Linux shared hosting, Windows shared hosting, and Linux cloud server hosting. It also offers ADSL & VDSL internet, mobile internet, fiber internet, voice calls, and handsets.
The Axxess website is in English.
Features and Ease of Use
Axxess is South Africa’s largest ISP. All its hosting plans are hosted on SSDs for improved website performance, and both the Linux and Windows shared hosting comes with unlimited monthly bandwidth. The shared hosting solutions also include the following standard features:
- FTP
- cPanel control panel
- Softaculous installer
- PHP
- MySQL databases
- DNS control panel
- phpMyAdmin
- Password-protected folders
- Cron jobs
- Custom error pages
- 24/7 Monitoring
- Firewall and anti-spam
- SitePad website builder
The lowest Linux shared hosting plan provides 2 GB of hosting space, 1 subdomain, 75 email addresses, and 5 MySQL databases. The most advanced Linux shared hosting plan comes with 75 GB of hosting space, 15 subdomains, unlimited email addresses, and unlimited MySQL databases.
The most basic Windows shared hosting plan includes 1 GB of hosting space, 25 email addresses, and 2 MySQL or MS SQL databases. The most advanced Windows shared hosting plan comes with 75 GB of hosting space, 15 subdomains, unlimited email addresses, and unlimited MySQL/MSSQL databases.
The Axxess website mentions backups but provides no additional details. In any case, it advises customers to keep their own backup copies since it does not accept liability for data loss.
In addition to shared hosting, Axxess also provides Linux cloud hosting. This type of hosting is hosted on MTN’s backbone and offers high-level security and the latest hardware.
Servers are hosted locally in South Africa, such that South African businesses can be assured of fast website loading speeds. There is no uptime guarantee, but Axxess assures us that its solutions are “provided as a best-effort service.”
Pricing and Support
This vendor’s hosting solutions are extremely cheap, and they come with incredible discounts. New customers enjoy free hosting for the first six months and a 50% discount for the second half of the first year. You get a free domain and a free SSL certificate.
Prices are displayed in South African rand, and the flexible billing cycles include monthly, quarterly, biannual and annual. Unfortunately, there is no money-back guarantee or other refund policy, even if you purchased the service in error.
You can contact the Axxess support team by telephone, ticket system (contact form), email, or live chat. It took the team over 36 hours to respond to my test ticket submission (as a prospective customer), but the response included the information I asked for plus an apology for the delay.
You might be disappointed by the self-support provision, which consists of a sparsely populated knowledge base.
How much does Axxess cost?
Axxess offers plans from $3 to $26. The price depends on which type of hosting plan you choose. You can see the updated pricing table (updated weekly) below.
Which Axxess plan should I get?
My recommendation is to start with a cheaper plan. You can always upgrade later on. Axxess can help you with the migration to a more expensive plan. The increase in visitors many times takes longer than expected and you shouldn’t pay a lot of money until the need arises. Of course, your needs may vary, and you can consult with a hosting expert from Axxess.
How good is Axxess’s customer support?
Axxess is not ranked as one of our top web hosts. But that can also be a result of Axxess being a small, under the radar, hosting provider. There are advantages to a small hosting company – as a customer, you are more important to them. You can also check out our comparison of the most popular web hosting services here.
