How to choose hosting in Tajikistan
A local or foreign server, shared hosting or a VPS, what must be included in the plan and which questions to ask the provider before paying.
Hosting is where your website "lives". It determines how fast the site loads, how often it goes down and whether you can restore your data after a failure. Let's look at how a company in Tajikistan can choose hosting.
Local or foreign hosting
Hosting in Tajikistan — the server is physically located in the country.
- Pros: fast loading for visitors from Tajikistan, payment in somoni, a contract and closing documents from a local company, support in Russian and Tajik.
- Cons: the choice of plans and capacity is usually smaller than with large global providers.
Foreign hosting (Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan and other countries).
- Pros: more plans and additional services, often a lower price for the same capacity.
- Cons: payment in foreign currency with a foreign card, more difficult paperwork for accounting, and loading delays may be higher.
If your customers are mostly in Tajikistan and you need documents for accounting, start with local providers. If the project is international or needs a lot of capacity, compare foreign options as well.
Which type of hosting you need
| Type | Best for | Who configures it |
|---|---|---|
| Shared hosting | A business card site, a landing page, a small blog | The provider |
| VPS / VDS | An online store, a CRM, several websites, your own services | You or your contractor |
| Cloud | Projects with variable load, fault tolerance | A DevOps specialist |
| Dedicated server | Heavy loads, special security requirements | A DevOps specialist |
Shared hosting is enough for most small companies. When the website starts to slow down, or you add an online store and integrations, it is time to move to a VPS.
What to check in a plan
- Backups. How often they are made, how many days they are kept and whether you can restore the site yourself. This is the most important point.
- SSL certificate. A free certificate (Let's Encrypt) should be enabled in a couple of clicks.
- SSD/NVMe storage with enough space to spare.
- PHP and database versions your website needs.
- Email on your domain (for example, info@yourcompany.tj) and its limits.
- Uptime guarantee (SLA) — how much time per month the server may be unavailable and what happens if this is breached.
- Support — working hours, contact channels, response time.
- Control panel — whether you find it easy to use.
Questions to ask the provider before paying
- Where is the server physically located?
- How often are backups made and where are they stored?
- How many websites and mailboxes can be hosted on the plan?
- Is there protection against DDoS attacks?
- How do I upgrade to a more powerful plan if the website grows?
- Do you issue a contract, invoice and act of acceptance for a legal entity?
Common mistakes
- Hosting and the domain are registered to the contractor, not the company. If you part ways with the contractor, you may lose the website. The domain and hosting must be registered in your name.
- No backups of your own. Even reliable providers have outages. Download a copy of your website once a month.
- The cheapest plan for an online store. The savings turn into a slow website and lost buyers.
How to find hosting and a specialist
The GHOST.TJ catalog has a hosting, VPS and cloud category, as well as DevOps specialists who can help with migration and server setup. Describe your task in a request — contractors will send quotes with prices and timelines.