An independent hosting ranking, on purpose.

Top Picks is a small editorial site at gettoppicks.com. It exists to answer a narrow question: which web host should you actually buy in 2026 if you are launching a site, a shop, or a side project — not if you are running an enterprise platform.

The internet is full of hosting roundups that read like they were assembled from affiliate briefs. Twenty logos, identical scores, and a “winner” that happens to pay the highest commission. This site is the opposite shape: five providers, a written argument for each, and a method you can disagree with.

There is no newsroom and no lab. The copy is written by one person, from public pricing, product pages, and how these tools behave when you try to get a site live. When a claim depends on a promo, we say so. When we have not measured something — uptime, TTFB, support wait times — we do not invent a decimal for it.

How the site is funded

Some outbound buttons are affiliate links. If you buy hosting after clicking, the provider may pay Top Picks a commission. That should not change the price you see. It does create a conflict of interest, which is why the ranking method and the disclosure are public.

Order is not for sale. A program that is not approved yet still appears if it belongs on the list. A program with a higher payout does not automatically move up.

What will change

This is an early version of the ranking. Scores will move when pricing changes, when a product gets worse for the audience on its badge, or when real usage contradicts the write-up. They will not move because a vendor sent a pitch deck.

If something on a review is wrong, the fix belongs in the article — not in a buried footnote. Start with the methodology if you want to know why Hostinger is first for most people and Hetzner is first for anyone who already has SSH keys.