What South Africans Need to Know About Domains, Hosting & Servers
November has been a big month for the global internet infrastructure world – and an even more important one for South African website owners, businesses and developers.
From domain updates to global outages and new hosting trends, here’s everything you need to know and how 1-grid continues to keep your online presence stable, secure, and supported.
Domain Trends & Changes Affecting South Africa
Price changes across several global TLDs
Globally, several registry operators introduced price adjustments in November. This affects a range of popular extensions such as .com, .net, and certain newer gTLDs.
For South Africans, this means:
- Renewal prices may increase depending on the extension
- Early renewals or multi-year registrations can help lock in better pricing
- Alternative TLDs – including .africa, .co.za, .capetown, .joburg, and .durban – remain cost-effective and highly relevant for local brands, and 1-grid makes securing these South African extensions simple and affordable.
1-grid Advantage
1-grid continues to offer:
- Transparent domain pricing
- Local extensions ideal for SA businesses
- Easy domain management from one dashboard
- Free WHOIS privacy on eligible domains
When global domain prices shift, having a local partner who prioritises affordability and accessibility makes all the difference.
Cloudflare’s Global Outage and What It Meant for Websites
One of the biggest global events this past month was the Cloudflare outage on 18 November 2025, a disruption that impacted millions of websites across the world.
What happened?
A large configuration error in Cloudflare’s system caused widespread failures across their CDN and security layers. Major platforms, tools, and services went down for hours.
How South Africa was affected
Globally popular platforms such as ChatGPT, X, Spotify, and Canva went offline for many users – underscoring how far-reaching a disruption at a single infrastructure provider can be. Many South African websites especially those relying heavily on Cloudflare for CDN, DNS or DDoS protection experienced:
- Slow loading times, complete downtime and intermittent access failures.
- Local users also struggled to access streaming, social media, fintech services, and even online shops.
How 1-grid customers were protected
While Cloudflare’s outage was global, 1-grid’s South African-based hosting, DNS resilience, and local server infrastructure helped minimise disruption for customers on our hosting platforms.
1-grid’s strength lies in:
- Local data-centre hosting
- CDN-optional setups
- Redundant network routing
- Direct support from our team
Meaning while global outages will always have some impact, 1-grid’s local-first approach ensures far greater stability and faster recovery than setups hosted solely offshore.
The Rise of Hybrid Hosting in South Africa
One of the biggest shifts in 2025 is the move toward hybrid hosting, especially for businesses operating in fast-growing digital sectors.
Hybrid hosting blends:
Local servers (for speed + data locality), Cloud components (for scalability + redundancy) and Global performance tools (CDN, caching, security layers)
This approach is becoming especially popular in South Africa, where international latency can be unpredictable, global outages like Cloudflare’s can cause unexpected downtime, and local businesses increasingly need the perfect balance of global reach with dependable local reliability.
Why 1-grid leads the hybrid hosting wave
1-grid delivers a powerful hybrid-ready environment by combining locally hosted servers and VPS with robust built-in security essentials tailored for South African businesses.
Our platform is fully PCI-ready and ecommerce-friendly, making it ideal for online stores and high-traffic websites. In addition, 1-grid’s Managed WordPress hosting is optimised for fast loading speeds across South Africa, ensuring a smooth, reliable experience for both site owners and their customers.
This gives South Africans the best of both worlds – strong performance with dependable local resilience.
Security & Server Reliability Remain Top Priorities
November highlighted an ongoing trend in SA tech: Security, resilience, and uptime are more important than ever.
With rising cyber threats and global infrastructure instability, website owners are looking for: Stronger firewall protection, reliable backups, SLL certificates, local failover options and transparent human support.
1-grid’s commitment to Website Security
1-grid customers benefit from:
- Free domains on all hosting plans
- Daily backups (plan-dependent)
- Local server monitoring
- A dedicated cybersecurity layer for South Africa
- Real humans, real support
Whether you’re running an online store, blog or SME website, security is not optional, and having a local partner who understands SA’s digital landscape is a major advantage.
SA Ecommerce Growth + Year-End Hosting Demand
The holiday season is always a high-pressure month for South African websites. With Black Friday deals dropping, festive-season shopping kicking in, and a wave of year-end site launches, online traffic surges across the country.
More South Africans are buying online than ever before, which means local businesses need websites that load quickly, handle traffic spikes gracefully, and keep checkout pages running smoothly. And if anything does go wrong, having real, local support becomes invaluable.
That’s exactly where 1-grid shines with locally hosted ecommerce and WordPress platforms that deliver fast load times for SA shoppers and far less risk during those crucial peak sales moments.
November Was a Reminder of Why SA Hosting Matters
November 2025 made one thing very clear:
- Global infrastructure can fail, but local stability is a superpower.
- South Africans need hosting that understands South Africans.
- 1-grid is more than a service provider, it’ a digital growth partner.
From global outages to domain changes to rising ecommerce traffic, 1-grid continues to deliver performance, security, local expertise, and real support to keep South Africans online.