About HostRanker

HostRanker is an independent web hosting review site. We sign up for hosting plans, run them under realistic conditions, and publish what we find — the good and the bad. Our aim is to help you choose a host without wading through marketing claims or jargon.

Our mission

Choosing a web host is harder than it should be. Providers make near-identical promises about speed, uptime and support, and most review sites simply repeat those promises back to you. We exist to cut through that. Every recommendation we make is grounded in hands-on use, measured data and our own experience contacting support.

We will never tell you a host is the right choice if our testing says otherwise. When a provider falls short — slow servers, hidden renewal pricing, unhelpful support — we say so plainly, even when there is an affiliate commission on the table.

How we test

We buy our own hosting accounts at standard public prices, the same way you would. We do not use special reviewer accounts, and we do not let providers see our test sites in advance. Each host is put through the same checks: page load speed, uptime monitoring over time, real support enquiries, and a close read of the small print around pricing and renewals.

Our full method is set out on our How We Test page. We update reviews when a host changes its plans, pricing or performance, and we note the date of each test so you can see how current it is.

Who we are

HostRanker is run by a small team with backgrounds in web development and systems administration. Between us we have built and hosted sites on shared hosting, VPS and managed platforms for well over a decade, so we know what matters day to day and what is just a number on a sales page.

We are independent and self-funded through affiliate commissions, which you can read about on our Affiliate Disclosure page. No hosting company owns us, pays us for coverage, or has any say over our verdicts.