Umbrellar Review. Was umbrellar.co.nz good or bad on providing Cloud services?

📄 Editorial Review

(3*) 🔧 Services: Cloud
⇔ Redirected domains: umbrellar.nz umbrellar.com
Umbrellar Technology Group is a New Zealand cloud specialist that has moved far beyond its web hosting origins. After more than twenty years of helping organisations get online, they now operate as a pure-play cloud services and managed solutions partner, guiding customers through strategy, migration, security, and day-to-day operations rather than selling commodity shared hosting plans.

From Hosting Giant to Cloud Partner

Umbrellar’s roots are firmly in classic hosting. For many years they were widely known as one of New Zealand’s largest domain name and web hosting providers, bringing together around ten local brands – including well-known names like Digiweb and Web Drive. That consolidation gave them:

• Four data centres in New Zealand
• Experience dating back to 1997
• Around 75,000 customers and over 255,000 domain names under management
• A footprint that extended into Australia and parts of Asia

Their traditional product set covered web hosting, a website builder, email hosting, domain names, SSL certificates, cloud servers, dedicated servers, and cloud backup. Small businesses, agencies, SaaS developers, and large enterprises all sat on the same underlying infrastructure.
Over time, however, Umbrellar’s focus shifted. Instead of simply hosting websites, they leaned into helping customers modernise their environments, secure workloads, and make sense of cloud platforms. That evolution paved the way for the next chapter.

Pax8 Chapter and Spin-Out

In August 2022 Umbrellar was acquired by Pax8, a global cloud marketplace provider. Umbrellar became Pax8’s New Zealand managed service arm, aligning with a culture built around innovation, development, and recognition:

• Innovate – questioning old patterns and encouraging new approaches
• Elevate – investing in people and skills so teams and outcomes keep improving
• Advocate & Celebrate – acknowledging contributions and valuing diverse backgrounds

Pax8’s international presence across several European countries added a broader perspective to Umbrellar’s work during that period.
That phase was relatively short. In March 2024, Pax8 divested the New Zealand MSP business. Umbrellar’s local leadership team used the opportunity to re-establish Umbrellar Technology Group as an independent company, refocusing around what they were already doing best: becoming a cloud partner rather than a retail host.

Current Focus: Cloud Strategy and Managed Services

Today, Umbrellar Technology Group positions itself much more as a specialist cloud consultancy and managed services provider than a hosting shop. Their work revolves around:

• Cloud strategy and planning – helping organisations decide what to migrate, when, and why
• Architecture and design – shaping secure, scalable, and resilient cloud environments
• Migration and modernisation – moving workloads from legacy infrastructure and classic hosting into cloud-native or hybrid platforms
• Managed cloud operations – providing 24/7 monitoring, optimisation, and support so in-house teams can concentrate on applications and users

Instead of selling shared or reseller hosting plans, they aim to act as a long-term partner for enterprises, public-sector bodies, ISVs, agencies, and growing businesses that need guidance rather than just raw infrastructure.

Culture and Values

Internally, Umbrellar frames its ambitions around being New Zealand’s most respected cloud company. The culture emphasises:

• Integrity and responsibility in how they advise and implement
• Authenticity and transparency with customers and partners
• Innovation and teamwork to keep pace with fast-moving cloud platforms

The goal is to be seen not just as a supplier, but as an extension of the customer’s own technology and transformation team.

Legacy Hosting vs. Today’s Offer

It is important to distinguish between:

• Historic Umbrellar – a large, full-service hosting and domain brand with four data centres and a long list of hosting products; and
• Umbrellar Technology Group today – an independent cloud services and managed solutions provider that no longer operates as a classic web hosting retailer.

Older marketing that describes Umbrellar as New Zealand’s largest domain and web hosting company reflects that previous era. The current business leans on the same deep infrastructure experience, but focuses on designing and running cloud environments rather than selling web hosting packages to the mass market.

Any organisation considering Umbrellar Technology Group for cloud projects should request detailed statements of work and service level commitments, including response times, availability targets, and change management processes.

🎯 Conclusion

Umbrellar has travelled a long way from being a large, traditional hosting and domain provider. The current incarnation, Umbrellar Technology Group, is built around cloud strategy, architecture, migration, and managed operations, using decades of infrastructure experience to help customers modernise and secure their environments. They are no longer a place to buy inexpensive shared hosting; instead, they fit organisations that want a New Zealand-based cloud partner to navigate complexity, align technology with business goals, and manage cloud estates over the long term.

🌏 Server locations:

Christchurch Auckland Sydney

📢 Special pages

• About us: https://www.umbrellar.co.nz/about-us