THE HOSTING MARKET,
measured.
By Gautam Khorana · Updated 2026-09-01 · Next capture 1 October 2026
As of September 2026, HostList tracks 7,187 active dedicated web hosting providers across 133 countries. Among the 1,992 providers with public customer reviews, the average HRI is 64/100 (the average across all listed web hosts, including those without public reviews, is 51.3). 1,784 hosts carry a verified Google rating (average 4.46/5 across 301,507 reviews) and 716 carry a Trustpilot score (average 3.3/5). 82 listings are owner-verified, 22 of them claimed in the last 30 days. All figures are aggregated from the HostList directory; no company can pay to appear or to influence the numbers. Methodology and free data below.
1,992 hosts with public reviews
State of hosting, September 2026:
every number earned, none bought
Every figure below is aggregated live from the directory: active listings deduped by brand and scored on one public methodology. No estimates, no sponsorships, no paid placements. A new snapshot lands on the 1st of every month and stays archived for good.
How the industry scores
HRI distribution (0–100) across all scored hosts. Component averages: Trust 3 · Completeness 13.7 · Freshness 22.9 · Performance 11.7 (each /25).
The review landscape
89% of Google-rated hosts sit at 4★ or above.
1,784 hosts Google-rated (avg 4.46/5, 301,507 reviews) · 716 Trustpilot-rated (avg 3.3/5).
What hosting actually costs
Median monthly entry price of published plans per type, from hosting plans listed in the directory. Prices above $5,000/mo excluded as enterprise outliers.
How fast is the industry?
- 1.72sMedian LCP · 498 hosts measured
- 78msMedian INP
- 888msMedian TTFB
- ·Avg uptime · 0 benchmarked
Core Web Vitals medians from Google CrUX field data on hosts' own sites; uptime from independent benchmarks where available.
How scores changed in 30 days
Across the 7,148 dedicated web hosts scored on both 8 Aug 2026 and 7 Sept 2026, these figures count HRI moves of at least three points and positive changes in the two evidence-led pillars. The history series begins 3 Jun 2026.
- 795HRI rose 3+ points
- 1,029HRI fell 3+ points
- 752Completeness improved
- 55Trust improved
Freshness is excluded because it changes with HostList's own write timestamp rather than a new verification event. Signal decay can lower HRI when older evidence loses weight.
Who moved at the top
Highest-scoring hosts right now
Ranked by live HRI, same order as the full rankings, refreshed daily. Aggregate figures elsewhere on this page are the September 2026 snapshot.
How fast is each host's fleet?
Most speed tests measure a host's own marketing site. This measures what a host actually sells: real-user server response times (TTFB) from Google Chrome field data across each provider's actual customer websites, attributed via HTTP Archive technology detection and verified with an independent signal resolver. Each site counts once, so one big customer cannot move a fleet. Site builders are excluded, providers' own domains are excluded from their cohorts, and no cohort under 100 measured sites is shown.
Median of per-site p75 TTFB, mobile first then desktop, from the Chrome UX Report public dataset (June 2026 collection). Cohort = customer sites with sufficient Chrome traffic to appear in CrUX. Percentage is month-over-month change in the mobile figure. TTFB reflects server responsiveness and includes each site's own DNS/CDN choices; it is context, not yet an HRI input. Full methodology publishes with HRI v3.1.
How these numbers are made
On the 1st of each month, HostList aggregates its full directory in one pass: host and country counts, HRI averages and distribution, Google and Trustpilot review coverage, median entry prices of published plans by type, Core Web Vitals medians from field data, and uptime benchmarks. Snapshots are immutable once the month closes, so deltas are auditable.
Nothing here is estimated editorially or influenced commercially: hosting companies cannot pay to be listed, ranked, or represented in these figures. The scoring algorithm itself is published in full.
Take the numbers with you
The complete snapshot behind this page is free to use with attribution (CC BY 4.0), for journalists, researchers, and anyone building on hosting-market data. No API key, no contact form.
<a href="https://hostlist.io/state-of-web-hosting" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://hostlist.io/api/charts/hri-distribution" alt="HostList HRI distribution" width="960" height="540" loading="lazy"></a><a href="https://hostlist.io/state-of-web-hosting" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://hostlist.io/api/charts/hosting-price-index" alt="HostList hosting price index" width="960" height="540" loading="lazy"></a>Common questions
What is the HostList State of Web Hosting?
A free monthly snapshot of the web hosting market computed from HostList's directory of dedicated web hosting providers across 120+ countries. Each edition publishes the industry-average HRI, the customer-review landscape on Google and Trustpilot, a median entry-price index by plan type, Core Web Vitals medians from field data, and the highest-scoring hosts. No figures are estimated editorially; every number is aggregated from listing data with the methodology published below.
Where does the data come from?
Every metric is aggregated from the live HostList directory. Review figures come from Google, Trustpilot, and G2 data attached to listings; prices come from published hosting plans; performance medians come from Google Core Web Vitals field data and independent uptime benchmarks where available. HostList accepts no payment for placement, so the underlying data is not influenced by advertisers.
How often is the State of Web Hosting updated?
A snapshot is captured on the 1st of every month and kept permanently, so month-over-month deltas and long-run trends accumulate over time. The current month’s snapshot may be refreshed if the underlying directory data is corrected.
How is each host's fleet speed measured?
The field-performance table measures real customer websites, not the host's own marketing site. Customer sites are attributed to their hosting provider using HTTP Archive technology detections cross-checked by an independent DNS, header, and network-signal resolver; each provider's own domains are excluded from its cohort. For every attributed site, the 75th-percentile Time To First Byte experienced by real Chrome users is taken from the public Chrome UX Report dataset, and the published figure is the median across the cohort's sites, each site weighted equally. Cohorts under 100 measured sites are not published. TTFB is used because it is the metric most attributable to the hosting infrastructure itself rather than to how each site was built.
Can I use these numbers in my own research or article?
Yes. The data is free to cite with attribution to HostList.io. The full snapshot behind this page is available as JSON at hostlist.io/api/market-insights for programmatic access, no key required.