About HostArbiter

HostArbiter is a small, independent editorial site that ranks mainstream web hosts for people buying their first — or next — hosting plan. We exist because most "best web hosting" lists rank on the promotional intro price and bury the renewal rate, which is the number you actually pay. Our whole method is built around fixing that.

How we score

Every host gets one composite score from five weighted criteria: value, renewal honesty, uptime, support and ease of use. Value and renewal honesty carry the most weight because this is a buyer's guide, not a spec sheet. We do not run load tests or publish uptime figures we didn't measure — scores rest on providers' published SLAs and advertised prices, each dated on the day we read it, and are cross-checked against dated third-party roundups from Forbes Advisor, Cybernews and WPBeginner. You can see the method applied in full on the best web hosting ranking.

What we cover — and what we don't

We cover server hosting: shared, WordPress, VPS, cloud and dedicated hosting from providers you can buy directly. We deliberately do not review website builders like Wix, Squarespace or GoDaddy's builder — those are a different product with a different buying decision, and treating them as "hosting" muddies the comparison. We're also not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any host we rank; brand names and small logos appear only to identify the products we're comparing.

How we stay independent

Some of our outbound links are affiliate links, and if you buy through one, the host pays us a commission at no cost to you. That commission never changes a score or a rank — the clearest proof is that our strongest recommendation for technical users, Hetzner, pays us nothing and we name it anyway. When a host that earns us zero is the right answer, we say so. The full accounting is in our affiliate disclosure, and we correct mistakes promptly when readers flag them.