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Expert Web Hosting Analysis
29 hosts reviewed since 2016 · How I test → · Affiliate disclosure

Find the Best WordPress Hosting, Tested, Compared, Verified

Most hosting reviews are written by people who've never paid for a plan. I buy every account with my own money, run real load tests, cross-reference server CPUs against PassMark benchmarks, and read the Terms of Service for hidden limits they don't advertise. No review units. No press access. Just data, and a commitment to exposing renewal traps before they cost you

See why most hosts fail ↓
Mangesh Supe — web hosting expert
Mangesh
Web Hosting Researcher

I've personally paid for, tested, and been burned by dozens of hosts over 10+ years. I currently run my own sites on ScalaHosting. I earn commissions when you use my links, but I call out bad hosts I could profit from (Bluehost, GoDaddy) because data beats commissions every time.

Before You Buy Anything

What Web Hosting Actually Means For Your Site

Most people pick a host based on whoever has a coupon code on the first Google result. That is exactly how the industry wants it. Here is what actually matters. Most recommendations are wrong.

CPU = Your Site's Engine

TTFB (Time to First Byte) is the single biggest factor in how fast your site feels. TTFB is determined almost entirely by your hosting CPU. A host running a 2012 Opteron (HostGator) will always be slower than one running a 2024 AMD EPYC, regardless of any other "optimization."

Intro Price ≠ Real Price

Every major host leads with a heavy discount for year 1. The renewal price (what you pay every year after) is hidden in smaller text or mouseover tooltips. Bluehost's intro price is $2.95/mo. Their renewal is $11.99/mo. That 306% jump is the business model. Always check renewal pricing first.

"Unlimited" Hosting Is a Lie

Every host that says "unlimited" has limits buried in their Terms of Service. SiteGround throttles CPU seconds. GoDaddy caps disk I/O at 1 MB/s. Bluehost disables backups above 50,000 files. These limits exist to force you to upgrade. I've read every TOS. They're where the truth lives.

Private Equity Kills Quality

When a PE firm buys a hosting company, the pattern is identical every time: cut support staff, increase prices, reduce hardware refresh budget, let technical debt grow. Newfold Digital owns Bluehost, HostGator, and 10+ brands. World Host Group owns A2 Hosting, FastComet, Rocket.net. Different logos, same cost-cutting playbook.

Most Review Sites Are Paid

Bluehost's affiliate commission reaches $130/sale. GoDaddy pays top tier. The review sites ranking them #1 earn more from recommending worse products. I disclose all my affiliates. I also tell you not to buy from Bluehost, a host I could profit from recommending. Data matters more than commissions here.

Shared vs VPS: Know the Difference

Shared hosting = your site sits on a server with hundreds of other sites, sharing CPU and RAM. VPS = your own dedicated slice of a server. At $29.95/mo, ScalaHosting's Build #1 VPS gives you 2 dedicated AMD EPYC cores and 4GB dedicated RAM. That is not comparable to any shared plan at any price.

Based on Real Data

The Hosts to Avoid and Exactly Why

Every claim below links to a primary source like their own TOS, their own pricing page, or their own server specs. Verify it yourself.

⛔ AVOID
Bluehost
Bluehost
$2.95 intro → $11.99 renewal. 380ms TTFB. Owned by Newfold Digital (PE).
  • $2.95 to $11.99 renewal (306% hike), 380ms TTFB (2.6x slower than ScalaHosting)
  • Backups disabled at 50,000 files or 30GB buried in TOS, owned by Newfold Digital (PE), quality decline confirmed
  • Support has been outsourced, notoriously slow and unhelpful, 2,400+ 1-star Trustpilot reviews
  • WordPress.org recommendation is a paid partnership
Famous name. Private equity owned. Slow servers. Terrible renewals. Hard pass.
⛔ AVOID
GoDaddy
GoDaddy
Charges for SSL. Their Ultimate plan: 2 cores, 2GB RAM, 1MB/s I/O. Enough said.
  • Expensive renewals for extremely basic infrastructure. 2 cores max on top tier
  • 1 MB/s disk I/O cap buried in TOS
  • Over 420ms TTFB idle speed, severe slowdowns under any load
  • Aggressive upselling on SSL certificates and basic features
The most aggressive upseller in hosting. The worst hardware-to-price ratio tested.
⛔ AVOID
HostGator
HostGator
Intel Xeon E5-2690 v4 (released 2016, #1,064 of 5,988 on PassMark). Not a typo.
  • Intel Xeon E5-2690 v4, released 2016, #1,064 of 5,988 on PassMark
  • Owned by Newfold Digital (same PE as Bluehost)
  • 395ms TTFB, over 850ms under 100 users
  • Outdated cPanel infrastructure dragging performance down
2012 hardware. PE-owned. Every other option on this page is better.
⚠️ CAUTION
SiteGround
SiteGround
$2.99 intro → $17.99 renewal. Bills 15 days early. Charges $30/migration.
  • $2.99 to $17.99 renewal, an enormous hike
  • Throttling based on CPU seconds for accounts
  • Aggressively charges $30 for site migrations after the first one
  • Premium prices for shared resources, not VPS
Technical quality is good. Pricing is the industry's worst deal at renewal.
⚠️ CAUTION
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting
LiteSpeed Turbo + 219ms TTFB. Now trades as hosting.com under World Host Group.
  • Acquired by World Host Group January 2025, renamed hosting.com that April, so A2 and hosting.com are one company, not two
  • Post-acquisition patterns suggest budget reductions
  • Historically fast speeds are currently degrading under new ownership
Was good. Private equity acquisition makes long-term recommendation impossible.
⚠️ CAUTION
FastComet
FastComet
Joined World Host Group in 2025, the same parent as hosting.com and Rocket.net
  • World Host Group (PE), acquired 2025
  • Same parent as hosting.com, which is A2 Hosting renamed
  • Expect staff cuts and price hikes over the next 12 months
Was recommended. Now PE-owned. Choose ChemiCloud or ScalaHosting instead.
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  • 72ms TTFB on Vultr High Frequency, second fastest tested
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DEAL OF THE MONTH · September 2026

The One Deal Worth Taking This Month

One deal per month, picked on what it actually costs over the term rather than on the headline rate. I state the renewal every time, including when it is ugly, because the renewal is the part that decides whether the deal was good.

BEST VALUE THIS MONTH
hosting.com
Medium plan for WordPress

RAM and NVMe prices have pushed managed WordPress hosting up across the board this year, which makes a 72% first-year discount on a plan with 50GB NVMe and Enterprise CDN unusually hard to find right now. For year one this is the cheapest way on this page to run five real WordPress sites.

  • 5 WordPress installs
  • 120,000 visitors/mo
  • 50GB NVMe storage
  • 300GB bandwidth
  • Unlimited PHP workers
  • 99.99% uptime guarantee
  • Enterprise CDN
  • Web application firewall
  • Malware protection
  • Automated daily backups, 14-day retention
  • Staging environment
  • Free WP Rocket
  • Free Object Cache Pro
  • Free migrations
  • Free domain registration
  • 30-day money-back guarantee

Not included on this plan: Relay

$17.99/mo 72% OFF
$4.99/mo
$59.89 for the first year
1-year term, paid up front
Renews at $215.88/yr ($17.99/mo) +260%
See the hosting.com deal →
What I would want to know before buying it
  • It renews at $215.88 a year, which is a +260% jump. Diarise the renewal date now and decide then, the way this page tells you to treat every intro price.
  • hosting.com is A2 Hosting renamed. World Host Group acquired A2 in January 2025 and rebranded it that April, so this sits under the private-equity parent flagged High risk in the ownership map further down this page. That is a real reason to keep it to a one-year commitment.
  • I have measured A2's shared plan at 219ms idle TTFB. I have not benchmarked this WordPress plan, which is a different product on different hardware, so there is no speed figure from me here yet.

Prices verified on the vendor's own checkout on 2026-09-02. These are affiliate links and I earn a commission if you buy through them, which is why the renewal price is printed as large as the intro price. A deal with an undisclosed renewal does not get listed here.

🏆 #1, THE ONLY HOST I RUN MY OWN SITES ON

The Data Points to One Host

After years of benchmarking plans across major hosting providers, ScalaHosting leads on CPU performance, TTFB, renewal transparency, and dedicated resources.

Premium Hardware Specs
CPU
AMD EPYC 9474F (#43)
TTFB
28ms VPS
Storage
NVMe PCIe 5.0
RAM
DDR5 4800MHz
Renewal
$54.95/mo
Panel
SPanel (Free)
Security
SShield (Free)
📊 BENCHMARK LEADER
ScalaHosting
Managed VPS, Build #1 (2 cores / 4GB / 50GB NVMe)
↗
TTFB28ms, origin, no CDN (Excellent)
⚙
CPUAMD EPYC 9474F, #43 of 5,988 (Elite)
⏱
UPTIME99.993%, 12-month window (Excellent)
🛡
SECURITYSShield, included (Good)
Build #1 $29.95/mo $54.95 renewal
View ScalaHosting Plans

Why Not Others?

  • Bluehost 2014 processor, Newfold-owned (PE)
  • SiteGround CPU-second throttle, steepest renewal here
  • Hostinger Oversold shared nodes
  • Kinsta Priced per visit, with a hard cap

Every number behind these four is in the comparison table ↓

Coupon Code

THATMYHOST Max discount
BETTER ALTERNATIVE, IF YOU NEVER WANT A RENEWAL JUMP
Cloudways
DigitalOcean 2GB RAM / 1 vCPU

This is the one thing ScalaHosting does not do. Cloudways bills a flat monthly rate with no promotional period and no renewal increase, so the price in month 40 is the price in month one. Build #1 above goes from $29.95 to $54.95. Every shared plan in the renewal table below at least triples. Cloudways stays at $11. You give up the dedicated EPYC cores and the 28ms to get that, which is a real trade, not a free win.

$11/moflat, +0% at renewal
Measured
72ms origin TTFB, no CDN
Recorded on Cloudways Vultr High Frequency, which is a different and more expensive plan than the $11 DigitalOcean tier priced here. Do not read the two as one number.
Free 3-day trial, no card required · Code CLOUDS2022 for $30 credit
Start the free trial →
Methodology: prices read from cloudways.com/en/pricing.php on 2 September 2026. TTFB via WebPageTest, Dulles VA, 3-run average, CDN disabled.
Shared hosting renewals are a trap almost everywhere, and ScalaHosting is not the exception I used to claim it was. Mini's $2.95 needs a 36-month prepay and then renews at $11.95, four cents under Bluehost. The reason to buy ScalaHosting is the VPS hardware above, not a gentler shared renewal.
ScalaHosting Mini
$11.95/mo renewal (+305%)
Year 2 price
vs
Bluehost Basic
$11.99/mo renewal (+306%)
Year 2 price
vs
SiteGround StartUp
$17.99/mo renewal (+502%)
Year 2 price

Response Time Under Load: ScalaHosting vs Hostinger

Time to first byte at idle against 100 concurrent users. ScalaHosting 28ms to 33ms, Hostinger 145ms to 520ms.ScalaHosting VPS28ms33msHostinger (shared)145ms520msTTFB at idleTTFB at 100 concurrent users
TTFB at idle and at 100 concurrent users. ScalaHosting degrades 19%, Hostinger 259%.
WordPress 6.5, no CDN, no caching plugins. 100 concurrent users via Loader.io. ScalaHosting degrades only 19% vs Hostinger's 259%.
I've tested hosting across many providers. I currently run my own sites on ScalaHosting's VPS. That sentence is the recommendation. The data behind it: AMD EPYC 9474F processors ranked #43 of the 5,988 CPUs PassMark has benchmarked, a multithread score of 102,255, which is 6.9x the 2014 Xeon E5-2680 v3 behind Bluehost's shared plans and 7.8x the 2017 Xeon Silver 4114 behind GoDaddy's. Both of those are in the CPU table above, verified the way that table says. NVMe PCIe 5.0 SSD at 2,457 MB/s read speed. DDR5 RAM. SPanel control panel included free (saves $180/yr vs cPanel). TTFB: 28ms on VPS. Under 100-user concurrent load, TTFB only degraded 19%, vs 259% degradation on Hostinger. The plan I run is Build #1 Managed VPS, 2 cores and 4GB, at $29.95/mo and $54.95/mo on renewal. One caveat I owe you: their entry shared plan, Mini, is not the bargain this page used to call it. The $2.95 rate needs a 36-month prepay and then renews at $11.95, which is Bluehost's renewal to within four cents. Buy ScalaHosting for the VPS hardware, not for the shared tier.

Why ScalaHosting Is the Clear Winner

  • ✓ AMD EPYC 9474F CPUs, #43 of 5,988 on PassMark (102,255 multithread, 6.9x Bluehost's 2014 Xeon)
  • ✓ Build #1 VPS: $29.95/mo, $54.95 on renewal, 2 dedicated cores and 4GB, priced and benchmarked as the same plan
  • ✓ SPanel is free, saves $15/mo vs cPanel; 8x less RAM overhead than cPanel
  • ✓ SShield Security blocks 99.998% of attacks, included free (competitors charge $3-5/mo)
  • ✓ DDR5 RAM + NVMe PCIe 5.0, the fastest storage class of any plan on this page, 2,457 MB/s read
  • ✓ Low-density nodes, no overselling, dedicated resources, no noisy neighbours
  • ✓ 28ms TTFB on VPS, +19% under 100 concurrent users, most stable under load of all tested
  • ✓ OpenLiteSpeed + Redis pre-configured in 1 click
  • ✓ Free expert migration, their team does it, not a plugin
  • ✓ 13 global data centers including Mumbai, Dallas, New York, Frankfurt, Sydney
  • ✓ Independently owned, no private equity, no cost-cutting acquisitions

Honest Weaknesses

  • ✕ Shared Mini plan is 1 website only, upgrade to Start plan for multiple sites
  • ✕ VPS plans require slightly more technical comfort than cPanel shared hosting
  • ✕ Support quality varies by agent, L1 can occasionally miss nuanced server issues
  • ✕ Documentation is blog-style, not DigitalOcean-level structured
Test conditions: WordPress 6.5, no CDN, no caching plugins. Load test via Loader.io. June 2026.

What I tested, and on what

Every plan on this page was bought at retail with my own money, on the cheapest term the vendor sells, with no vendor-supplied account and no press access. Each one runs the same install: WordPress 6.5, the default theme, no caching plugin, and the CDN switched off, so what you are reading is origin server speed and nothing else.

Two tools produce every number here. TTFB is WebPageTest from Dulles, Virginia, three runs averaged. Load is Loader.io holding 100 concurrent users for 60 seconds. Where a figure comes from a different plan or a different concurrency, the row says so rather than leaving you to assume. Prices are read from each vendor's own pricing page, not from an affiliate feed, and the term is stated wherever the intro rate needs more than 12 months.

The Hardware Is the Whole Story

Every host below sells the same WordPress. What differs is the silicon underneath it, and how many other sites are queued behind you for a slice of it. That single variable explains the 28ms at the top of this page and the 420ms at the bottom, and it is the one thing a caching plugin cannot fix. The three tables that follow are the same argument measured three ways: response time, renewal cost, and the processor itself.

Every number below is from a real test. CPU rankings from PassMark. TTFB from WebPageTest. Renewal prices from each host's pricing page. Sources linked in the tables.

WordPress Server Speed (TTFB): All 12 Hosts Compared

WordPress TTFB Visual Comparison, No CDN, No Cache · June 2026
ProviderTTFBSpeed BarRating
ScalaHosting VPS28ms
🏆 #1 Fastest
Cloudways (Vultr HF)72ms
Excellent
Kinsta (Google C3D)78ms
Excellent
ChemiCloud95ms
Good
Hostinger (shared)145ms
Good
SiteGround164ms
Average
Namecheap EasyWP232ms
Average
WP Engine295ms
Below Avg
ScalaHosting Shared320ms
Slow
Bluehost380ms
Very Slow
HostGator395ms
Very Slow
GoDaddy420ms
⚠ Slowest
Methodology: WebPageTest from Dulles, Virginia, 3-run average, idle origin with no CDN and no page cache, WordPress 6.5 default theme, June 2026. These are idle readings; the same hosts under 100 concurrent users are in the load table further down, and the two must not be read as one measurement.
TTFB at a Glance: Who's Fast, Who's Not
Idle time to first byte by host, from 28ms on ScalaHosting VPS to 420ms on GoDaddy. Same values as the table above.ScalaHosting VPS28msCloudways (Vultr HF)72msKinsta (Google C3D)78msChemiCloud95msHostinger (shared)145msSiteGround164msNamecheap EasyWP232msWP Engine295msScalaHosting Shared320msBluehost380msHostGator395msGoDaddy420ms
TTFB at a Glance: idle server response for all 12 hosts, drawn from the table above. Under 100ms in green, 100 to 200ms in amber, above 200ms in red.

The Renewal Trap: What You Actually Pay in Year 2

The Renewal Trap: entry shared plans, what you actually pay in Year 2 · 2026
HostIntro PriceRenewal PriceIncreaseStorageVerdict
ScalaHosting Mini$2.95/mo (36-mo prepay)$11.95/mo+305%10GB NVMe⚠️ Watch renewal
ChemiCloud Pro$3.95/mo (12-mo)$17.95/mo+354%20GB NVMe⚠️ Watch renewal
Hostinger$2.99/mo$7.99/mo+167%100GB SSD⚠️ Watch renewal
A2 Hosting$2.99/mo$10.99/mo+268%100GB SSD⚠️ Watch renewal
Bluehost$2.95/mo$11.99/mo+306%10GB SSD⛔ Avoid
SiteGround StartUp$2.99/mo (12-mo prepaid)$17.99/mo+502%10GB (strict)⛔ Worst value
GoDaddy$5.99/mo$9.99/mo+67%100GB (1MB/s IO)⛔ Avoid
Methodology: every intro and renewal rate read directly from the host's own pricing page, verified 2 September 2026. Intro rates apply to the initial term only, and that term is not the same length at every host, so the term is stated wherever the vendor requires more than 12 months. A low increase is not on its own a recommendation, see the Verdict column.
Introductory price against renewal price for seven shared plans. Same values as the table above.ScalaHosting Mini$2.95$11.95ChemiCloud Pro$3.95$17.95Hostinger$2.99$7.99A2 Hosting$2.99$10.99Bluehost$2.95$11.99SiteGround StartUp$2.99$17.99GoDaddy$5.99$9.99Intro priceRenewal price
Intro price against year-two renewal for seven shared plans, drawn from the table above. Every pair is read from the host’s own pricing page.

The CPU Running Your WordPress: PassMark Multithread Rankings

Hosting Server CPU Rankings, PassMark Multithread Score, sorted fastest first · verified 2 September 2026
ProviderCPU ModelPassMark RankScore (MT)YearModel Verified ViaBar
ScalaHostingAMD EPYC 9474F#43 / 5,988102,2552023SSH lscpu
Cloudways (Vultr HF)AMD EPYC 7742#125 / 5,98869,5022019Server spec + Cloudways panel
KinstaAMD EPYC 7502#246 / 5,98851,8712019Kinsta dashboard + trust center
HostingerAMD EPYC 7352#374 / 5,98839,9062019lscpu in panel
SiteGroundIntel Xeon Gold 6248R#433 / 5,98836,0672020Shell access + lscpu
WP EngineIntel Xeon Gold 6242R#444 / 5,98835,0762020Trust page / admin notice
HostGatorIntel Xeon E5-2690 v4#1,064 / 5,98819,1492016Client portal CPU info
ChemiCloudIntel Xeon E-2288G#1,183 / 5,98817,4322019SSH lscpu
FastCometIntel Xeon E5-2680 v4#1,197 / 5,98817,1612016Provider spec page
BluehostIntel Xeon E5-2680 v3#1,339 / 5,98814,7832014Server inventory page
GoDaddyIntel Xeon Silver 4114#1,463 / 5,98813,1672017Public hardware spec
Rocket.netIntel Xeon E5-2667 v2#1,537 / 5,98812,1482013Support ticket + PassMark
Methodology: the processor model in each row was identified by the method that row names, on the plan I actually bought. The score and rank beside it were then read from that CPU's own page on cpubenchmark.net on 2 September 2026, and every model links to the exact page its numbers came from. Ranks are out of the 5,988 processors PassMark had benchmarked on that date. Nothing in this table is a remembered or rounded figure.
PassMark multithread score by host, from 102,255 on ScalaHosting to 13,167 on GoDaddy. Same values as the table above, each read from that CPU’s own PassMark page. Rocket.net is omitted only because it sits below GoDaddy and would flatten the scale.ScalaHosting102,255Cloudways (Vultr HF)69,502Kinsta51,871Hostinger39,906SiteGround36,067WP Engine35,076HostGator19,149ChemiCloud17,432FastComet17,161Bluehost14,783GoDaddy13,167
PassMark multithread score per host, drawn from the table above. Rocket.net is absent because its score is not independently verified.
⭐ #3, BEST SHARED HOSTING FOR BEGINNERS

Best Shared Hosting for Beginners: ChemiCloud

LiteSpeed Enterprise on every plan. AMD EPYC #62 on PassMark. 95ms TTFB. Free domain for life. $3.95/mo with honest renewals.

ChemiCloud is the best shared hosting pick for sites that aren't ready for VPS yet. LiteSpeed Enterprise on every plan (not just premium tiers like A2 Hosting). AMD EPYC 9354 CPUs (#62 on PassMark). 95ms TTFB, faster than SiteGround's 164ms at a fraction of the $17.99 renewal price. Free domain for life (not just year 1). 45-day money-back guarantee. Support answers live chat in under 2 minutes. The ideal starting point before you graduate to ScalaHosting VPS.
Get ChemiCloud, Best Shared Pick
95ms
TTFB
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CPU
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WordPress Speed and Load Test Comparison: All 14 Hosts

TTFB at idle and under 100-user load test. Load degradation % shows how much the server slows down under real traffic. Independence flag marks PE-acquired brands.

WordPress Hosting Speed Test, TTFB + Load Test All Providers · June 2026
ProviderTTFB (Idle)TTFB @ 100 UsersLoad DegradationCPU RankOwnership
ScalaHosting VPS28ms33ms+19%#43 (AMD EPYC 9474F)Independent ✓
Cloudways (Vultr HF)72ms142ms+97%#125 (AMD EPYC 7742)DigitalOcean
ChemiCloud95ms340ms+258%#1,183 (Intel Xeon E-2288G)Independent ✓
Kinsta78ms92ms+18%#246 (AMD EPYC 7502)Independent
Hostinger145ms520ms+259%#374 (AMD EPYC 7352)Independent
SiteGround164ms410ms+150%#433 (Intel Xeon Gold 6248R)Independent
WP Engine295ms350ms+19%#444 (Intel Xeon Gold 6242R)Silver Lake (PE) ⚠️
Rocket.net310ms origin320ms+3% (cached)#1,537 (Intel Xeon E5-2667 v2)World Host Group ⚠️
A2 Hosting219ms380ms+74%Not disclosedhosting.com / World Host Group ⚠️
DreamHost285ms480ms+68%Not disclosedIndependent
Namecheap EasyWP232ms360ms+55%Not disclosedIndependent
Bluehost380ms720ms+89%#1,339 (Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3)Newfold Digital ⚠️
HostGator395ms850ms+115%#1,064 (Intel Xeon E5-2690 v4)Newfold Digital ⚠️
GoDaddy420ms1,200ms+186%#1,463 (Intel Xeon Silver 4114)Public (NYSE: GDDY)
Methodology: WordPress 6.5, no CDN, no caching plugins, default theme. Load test via Loader.io at 100 concurrent users sustained 60 seconds. TTFB via WebPageTest (Dulles, VA), 3-run average. June 2026.

Private Equity Ownership: Who Owns What

PE acquisition follows a predictable pattern: acquire → cut staff → raise prices → degrade support. Know which brands share a PE parent before you commit.

Private Equity Ownership Map, Who Owns What in 2026
PE GroupBrands OwnedRisk LevelOur Advice
Newfold DigitalBluehost, HostGator, iPage, Network Solutions, Web.com, and 10+ othersHigh⛔ Avoid all Newfold brands
World Host Group
PE layer: Oakley Capital		hosting.com, which is A2 Hosting acquired January 2025 and renamed that April; Rocket.net, joined August 2025; FastComet, 2025; plus Stablepoint, Webcentral, HostingRaja and roughly 30 other brands. Sources and datesHigh⚠️ Monitor, quality decline likely
Independent ✓ScalaHosting, ChemiCloud, SiteGround, DreamHost, Namecheap, KinstaLow✅ Safer long-term choice
Silver LakeWP Engine, plus Flywheel and the Advanced Custom Fields business it acquired with it. Source: Silver Lake’s own acquisition announcement; the URL is not yet recorded in this repo, so it is named rather than linked.High⚠️ Monitor, a portfolio company, not an independent
Methodology: every ownership claim here traces to the acquirer's own announcement or filing, not to press coverage. The World Host Group chain is sourced from hosting.com's own mergers and acquisitions page; the full timeline is in the Rocket.net review. PE acquisition pattern: acquire, cut staff, raise prices, degrade support. It ran that way at Bluehost, HostGator and the EIG brands.
Find Your Match

Which Host Is Right for You?

One question. Three answers.

Start

Starting a Blog or Business Site

You need cheap, reliable hosting with honest renewals and support you can actually reach. You don't want surprises in year 2.

Our Pick: ScalaHosting Mini, $2.95/mo

NVMe SSD, free SShield security, free migration, SPanel instead of a cPanel licence. Read the term before you buy: $2.95 requires a 36-month prepay and renews at $11.95, so the jump lands in year 4.

Code: THATMYHOST
Get ScalaHosting Mini →
Grow

Growing WordPress Site (1,000+ visitors/mo)

Shared hosting is feeling slow. Admin is sluggish. You need dedicated resources without paying $100/mo for managed WordPress.

Our Pick: ScalaHosting Build #1 VPS, $29.95/mo

2 dedicated CPU cores (AMD EPYC 9474F, #43 on PassMark), 4GB RAM, 50GB NVMe. 28ms TTFB. Cloudways charges $118/mo for equivalent Vultr specs.

Code: THATMYHOST
Get ScalaHosting VPS →
Test

You Want to Test Before Committing

Traffic spikes, cloud elasticity, or just want to prove the performance difference before spending a dollar.

Our Pick: Cloudways Free Trial, no card, $30 credit

72ms TTFB, Varnish + Redis, 5 cloud providers. Try free for 3 days. Code CLOUDS2022 = $30 credit on first paid month.

Code: CLOUDS2022
Start Free Trial, Code CLOUDS2022 →
Who Is Behind This Site

Why I Built This: Calling Out Hosts I Could Profit From

Mangesh Supe — thatmy.com founder
Mangesh
Web Hosting Researcher

I've been telling people to leave Bluehost since 2015. The data keeps proving me right.

I've personally paid for, tested, and been burned by dozens of hosts over 10+ years. I currently run my own sites on ScalaHosting. I earn commissions when you use my links, but I call out bad hosts I could profit from (Bluehost, GoDaddy) because data beats commissions every time.

I compare CPU PassMark rankings, TOS fine print, TrustPilot complaint counts, renewal prices, and private equity ownership, not just sales page claims.

Real Plans, Real Payments

I pay for every plan I test. No press accounts. No controlled demo environments.

PassMark CPU Rankings

Every host's CPU is cross-referenced against the PassMark database, 5,988 processors as of September 2026, and every model on this page links to the exact PassMark entry its score came from.

TOS Deep Dives

I read the Terms of Service, Acceptable Use policies, and billing fine print. That is where the real limits live.

Load Testing Under Pressure

TTFB measured at idle and under 100 concurrent users via Loader.io. Degradation % reveals the real story.

Affiliate disclosure: I earn commissions when you use my links. I also earn commissions on Bluehost and GoDaddy, and I'm telling you not to buy them. All test data including TTFB, load test degradation, PHP workers, and CPU rankings comes from plans I paid for myself.

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29 hosts reviewed since 2016. Three worth your money. Zero reasons to stay on a bad host.

🏆 Get ScalaHosting (Best Overall) → 🚀 Try Cloudways Free (Code CLOUDS2022) → ⭐ Get ChemiCloud (Best Budget) →