This is genuinely one of the most common points of confusion for anyone setting up their first website, and it's an easy one to clear up with a simple analogy.
Think of It Like a House
Your domain name is your address — the thing people type in to find you, like yourbusiness.co.ke. Your web hosting is the actual house — the physical space (a server) where all your website's files, images, and databases actually live. You need an address for people to find the house, and you need a house for the address to point to. Neither one works without the other.
Domain Names: What You're Actually Buying
When you register a domain, you're leasing the exclusive right to use that name for a period (usually a year at a time). A .co.ke domain is registered through KENIC, Kenya's domain registry, and needs to be renewed annually or you risk losing it.
Hosting: What You're Actually Buying
When you buy hosting, you're renting storage space and computing power on a server so your website files have somewhere to live and be served from when visitors arrive.
Can You Buy Them From Different Companies?
Yes — technically your domain and hosting can be with completely different providers, and you just point the domain's nameservers at your hosting company's servers. In practice, most people find it far simpler to get both from the same provider. Many of our hosting plans include a free domain, so you don't have to think about connecting the two yourself.
The Bottom Line
You need both a domain (your address) and hosting (your house) for a website to work. If you're starting from scratch, the easiest path is a hosting plan with a free domain included — one order, one bill, nothing to configure manually.