Benchmarks decide rankings
Affiliate revenue exists. We use it to fund the test infrastructure. It does not — and never will — decide what scores higher on the comparison table.
The story behind the benchmarks.
We're a small editorial group obsessed with one question: which hosts actually deliver what they advertise — and which ones rely on the marketing budget to make up the difference.
Our Story
We started because the reviews we wanted didn't exist.
It started with a frustration. We were running agency sites across six different hosts, and every "Top 10 Hosting" article we read read like a sales brochure. The same five providers, the same suspicious 99.99% uptime claims, the same affiliate IDs in every link.
We built our own benchmark stack so we'd stop guessing. Then we realized other people needed it too. That's HostStarterGuide.
We test 12 providers continuously, publish raw data alongside our scores, and refuse to let affiliate revenue dictate rankings. If a host pays out twice the commission of a competitor but loses on every benchmark, the competitor wins the column.
247
Providers tested
12
Global benchmark regions
90
Days of uptime probes
$0
Paid for rankings, ever
Our Principles
What we hold ourselves to.
Three commitments we put in writing so readers can hold us accountable.
Transparent methodology
Every review documents its weights, regions, test duration, and sample sizes. If you don't trust our scorecard, you can replicate it.
Re-test, don't archive
Hosting changes. A high score in one cycle doesn't survive into the next untouched. Old reviews get re-tested or labeled stale — never quietly recycled.
Want us to test something?
Submit a host for review. We add four to six new providers to the benchmark suite every quarter — community requests get priority.
Submit a Host