Guide
Our cloud or your own server: which suits you?
If you would rather not run a server, choose 3CX Cloud Hosting in our Nairobi data centre. If calls inside the building must carry on when the internet drops, or policy keeps the system on your premises or in your own AWS or Kenyan cloud account, run it on your own server or cloud. The software is the same either way.
The short answer
Choose it if
Our Nairobi cloud
You would rather not think about servers. We host it, update it and back it up, and you get an administrator login.
Choose it if
Your own server or cloud
Internal calls must survive an internet outage, or a policy says the system stays in your building or in your own AWS or Kenyan cloud account, under your own controls.
Five questions that decide it
1. What has to keep working when the internet drops?
With the system in the cloud, ours or yours, the desk phones in the office stop when the office line does, calls between them included, while staff elsewhere carry on through the apps. With the system on your premises, calls inside the building carry on, and only outside calls wait. For a hotel, a factory floor or a hospital wing, that difference is the whole decision. A branch that reaches an on-site system through a 3CX SBC depends on its own internet line just as a cloud office does, because the SBC connects its phones to the system rather than replacing it. It is why we recommend hotels keep it on site.
2. Who will run it?
In our cloud, updates and backups are part of the hosting. On your own server or cloud, your IT team runs it, and a support plan from us is optional. Either way, help with the system itself comes with a support plan or as on-demand support.
3. How do you want to pay?
Hosting with us is a plan paid monthly or yearly. On your own server or cloud, you pay for the machine: a server bought once, or your cloud provider's bill. Support from us is optional either way.
4. Do you already run servers or a cloud account?
If nobody in the business looks after servers today, a system on your premises adds one more machine that can fail. If your IT team already runs a cloud account, putting the system there keeps it under the controls and the audit they already have.
5. Where do your people work?
The apps reach the system from anywhere, so staff who work from home or on the road make no difference to the choice. Desk phones do: in an office away from the system, they need a little help to reach it, as below.
What catches people out
On premises
- 3CX wants a machine of its own, because it installs its own web server and database.
- It needs a proper name for the server, split DNS so that name works inside and outside the building, and the right ports open.
- Power matters: a UPS keeps it running through a power cut.
In the cloud
- The office internet line carries every call from the office desk phones, so it is worth knowing what happens when it drops.
- Desk phones in the office need router phones or the 3CX SBC to reach the system reliably.
Whichever you choose, a support plan sets out who fixes what, and how fast.
Changing your mind later
You are not locked in. It is the same software with the same configuration either way, so a system hosted with us can move to your own server later, and one on your premises can move to the cloud. The two compared side by side.
See it on a real system
A 30-minute session on a live system, walked through in your own terms. No obligation.
We confirm your slot within 24 hours. Prefer to write? Email or message us.