How we evaluate hosting providers

Data collection

Provider plan data is collected directly from publicly accessible hosting provider websites and catalogues. We do not rely on provider-supplied press kits or marketing copy. Key data points collected for each provider include:

• Pricing in USD. All prices are normalised to US dollars at the time of collection. Where a provider prices in another currency, we convert at the prevailing rate and note the original currency. Both introductory prices and renewal prices are recorded.
• VPS plan specifications. For VPS plans we collect vCPU count, RAM (GB), storage (GB, type), bandwidth, and price. We compute a price-per-GB-of-RAM ratio to allow objective plan-level comparisons across providers.
• Datacenter locations. We record the countries or regions in which a provider operates datacenters, using provider-published information verified where possible against independent sources.
• Company provenance. Company founding year, ownership, and corporate structure are sourced from RDAP records and Wikipedia where available. Each field carries per-field provenance — we note the source and date of each company fact.

Third-party reputation data

We incorporate Trustpilot ratings for providers where the Trustpilot listing is entity- verified and has received at least ten reviews. Unverified listings and listings with fewer than ten reviews are excluded to limit manipulation risk. We do not weight Trustpilot scores heavily — they supplement, rather than drive, the overall score.

We do not use provider-commissioned surveys, provider-provided performance benchmarks, or data supplied by providers in response to editorial outreach.

Scoring criteria

Each provider's overall score is an editorial assessment guided by 7 weighted criteria. The criteria and their weights are shown below and are identical to those used on the rankings page.

Honesty rules

We apply a set of explicit rules to prevent the data from overstating what we actually know:

• Missing data is shown as absent. If a data point is unavailable or unverifiable, it is displayed as absent rather than estimated, interpolated, or carried forward from a previous version.
• No inferred scores. We do not fill in scoring criteria we cannot directly measure. A criterion that cannot be scored does not receive a default value — it lowers the provider's overall completeness score.
• Renewal pricing is always shown. Where a renewal price is known, it is displayed alongside the introductory price. We do not hide or de-emphasise renewal rates.

Update frequency

Every data point carries the timestamp at which it was collected — you can see per-field provenance directly in the data. The catalog is refreshed periodically as providers add, remove, or reprice plans, but no fixed schedule is promised. Historical pricing is retained in our data pipeline for trend analysis but not published on the site.

Affiliate independence

Affiliate commission rates are not a variable in any scoring calculation. A provider's ranking cannot be improved by offering us a higher commission. Some providers listed on this site have no affiliate relationship with us at all — they appear because their data earned the ranking. For a full explanation of how affiliate income works on this site, see the Affiliate Disclosure.

Corrections and feedback

If you spot an error in a price, a plan specification, or any other data point, we want to know. Email [email protected] with the URL, the incorrect value, and a source for the correct value. Verified corrections are applied promptly.