What kinds of businesses does nanushi work with?

nanushi works with businesses of all sizes — from local cafes and retail shops to tech startups and established companies. If you need a website, web app, mobile app, or AI integration, nanushi can help.

How long does a project take?

A simple marketing website can be delivered in 1–2 weeks. A full web application or mobile app typically takes 4–12 weeks depending on scope.

Does nanushi build AI chatbots?

Yes. nanushi builds custom AI assistants and chatbots using Claude (Anthropic) and OpenAI. These can be integrated into websites, mobile apps, or internal business tools.

Where is nanushi based?

nanushi is based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The team works remotely and serves clients globally.

What is a nanushi mission?

A mission is a 6-week collaborative React Native app-building challenge. Teams of developers work together to ship a real, production-quality mobile app.

choosing website hosting for your canadian small business

hosting is where your website actually lives — the server that stores your files and sends them to visitors' browsers. it's one of those infrastructure decisions that most business owners make once and forget about, which is fine when it's set up correctly and painful when it isn't.

here's a practical guide to the options, what they cost, and what to choose.

the main types of hosting

shared hosting your site shares a server with hundreds or thousands of other websites. the cheapest option — $5–$15 CAD/month from providers like siteground, bluehost, or canadian-based solutions like hostpapa.

fine for: very small sites with low traffic, hobby projects. problematic for: any business that depends on consistent performance. if another site on your server gets traffic-slammed, your site slows down. security incidents on one site can affect others.

managed wordpress hosting a tier above shared hosting, specifically optimized for wordpress. providers like kinsta, wpengine, and flywheel handle performance optimization, security scanning, and automatic updates. cost: $30–$100+/month.

good for: serious wordpress sites where you want reliability without managing a server yourself.

vps (virtual private server) your own slice of a server — resources aren't shared. you have full control but need more technical ability to manage it. cost: $20–$80/month. providers: digitalocean, linode, vultr.

good for: developers and technical teams who want control. not recommended for non-technical business owners without a developer managing it.

platform hosting (vercel, netlify, cloudflare pages) modern platforms designed specifically for next.js, react, and other javascript-based sites. extremely fast global delivery, built-in cdn, automatic ssl, simple deployments. vercel and netlify both have generous free tiers for smaller sites.

good for: any modern web application built on next.js or similar. this is where the web is moving.

managed cloud (aws, google cloud, azure) full cloud infrastructure — powerful and scalable but complex to set up and expensive if you don't know what you're doing. generally not the right choice for small businesses directly, though many hosting providers run on this infrastructure.

do you need canadian hosting?

canadian businesses sometimes ask whether they need hosting in canada — for data residency, privacy, or latency reasons.

for most small business sites: no. a cdn-fronted hosting platform (cloudflare, vercel, netlify) serves content from edge nodes around the world, including canada, so visitors experience fast load times regardless of where the origin server is located.

for businesses handling sensitive canadian customer data: worth considering. canada's private sector privacy law (pipeda, or provincial equivalents) doesn't require data to be stored in canada, but many organizations choose canadian-hosted infrastructure for simplicity and to reassure customers. providers like lwhost.ca, canadian web hosting, and ovh canada have data centres in canada.

for government contracts: some federal and provincial government projects have explicit canadian data residency requirements. check your contract.

the cdn question

regardless of hosting, adding cloudflare in front of your site is worth doing for most businesses. cloudflare's free tier:

serves your site from edge locations closer to visitors (faster load times)
blocks a significant portion of malicious traffic
provides free ssl
adds ddos protection

it's a 30-minute setup and makes a real performance difference.

what to look for in a hosting provider

uptime sla. reputable providers guarantee 99.9% uptime or better. that translates to under 9 hours of downtime per year.
backup policy. do they back up automatically? how far back? how do you restore? this matters enormously when something goes wrong.
ssl included. should be standard. if a provider charges extra for ssl in 2025, move on.
support responsiveness. check reviews specifically for how quickly support responds during outages.
clarity on renewal pricing. many cheap hosting offers spike dramatically at renewal. check the year-two price before signing up.

practical recommendations by situation

simple wordpress site for a local business: siteground or flywheel. $25–$35/month.

more demanding wordpress / woocommerce site: kinsta or wpengine. $35–$60/month.

next.js or modern web application: vercel or netlify. free for most small sites; pay-as-you-grow.

ecommerce with high traffic: kinsta or a dedicated managed solution. performance at scale matters.

the hosting decision is often the one that affects your site's day-to-day performance most directly. if your site is slow and you've already optimized images and code, hosting is usually the next variable to investigate.

nanushi handles hosting recommendations and setup as part of web projects. if you're unsure what's right for your situation, we can advise.