Today is October 15, 2025. Are there any legitimate web hosting review sites yet?
No. Sorry.
Have you ever wondered why every single web hosting review site lists the very same 5-10 web hosting companies, even though there's thousands more out there?
It's because the reviews are fake. Here's how it works:
1. Authors publish articles that indicate 'great results' from hosts willing to pay them significant cash to get listed.
2. Site owner gets a kick-back for every sale they facilitate with each hosting company.
3. The complicit host providing the largest kick-back gets top-billing in these 'reviews', rather than the actual best hosting company, which likely isn't even in the list.
Can you see why we consider them fake?
FAQ
It's not the affiliate kick-backs we take issue with. It's the review content itself: it's always either entirely fabricated or only partly true.
Rather than actually purchasing hosting from hosting companies and writing real reviews, the author purposefully targets hosting companies with the largest kick-backs, makes up a review about them, and posts it, purely to generate traffic for their affiliate links.
This is what makes them fake.
If you read through the reviews, you'll notice that the actual content of them is written in a passive manner (because it's generic content and not actually specific to that host - think horoscopes), and that the actual review results are always 4/5 or 4.5/5 stars. This is because nobody believes a 5 star review and nobody will click on a review less than 4 stars. And of course, without clicks, the author won't get paid.
To make matters worse, this fake review content looks so much like actually useful content that Google can't tell the difference, so these 'review' sites get top billing. It's gross.
Known Fake Review Sites
Here's a list of confirmed fake review sites that use affiliate links + always glowing reviews, rather than provide an actual review of the listed hosting companies.
- https://hostingcanada.org/
- https://hostingfoundry.com/
- https://hotframeworks.com/hosting/best-wordpress-hosting-canada/
- https://techdaily.ca/wordpress-hosting-canada/
- https://www.websiterating.com/web-hosting/best-web-hosting-canada/
- https://mangomattermedia.com/web-hosting-canada/wordpress/
- https://themeisle.com/blog/best-wordpress-hosting-canada/
- https://www.techradar.com/web-hosting/best-web-hosting-service-websites
- https://www.wpbeginner.com/hosting/
- https://www.forbes.com/advisor/ca/business/software/best-wordpress-hosting-services/
- https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-wordpress-web-hosting-services
- https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/best-wordpress-hosting/
Non-Complicit + Independent Web Hosting Companies 2025
The following are some independently owned web hosting companies that do not participate in false-review kick-back programs. This is not an exhaustive list. We have not tried all of these hosts ourselves, but we're also not providing affiliate links nor reviews about them.
Canada
- [NS] Websavers - https://websavers.ca
- [BC] Host Utopia - https://hostutopia.com
- [BC] FullHost - https://www.fullhost.com
- [ON] Direct Hosting - https://directhosting.ca
- [SK] Varial Hosting - https://varialhosting.com
United States
- [Texas] Rad - https://radwebhosting.com
- [Texas] Nixi - https://www.nixihost.com
- [Georgia] KnownHost - https://www.knownhost.com
- [Colorado] Evolve - https://www.evolvewebhosting.com
- [California] WebHostPro - https://webhostpro.com
United Kingdom
- HostPresto* - https://hostpresto.com
- SetraHost - https://www.setrahost.com
Greece
- Cubric - https://www.cubric.gr
India
- HostRainbow - https://hostrainbow.in
- ApiqHost - https://apiqhost.com
If you operate a web hosting company that is independently owned and does not participate in fake review listings (and optimally, also does not have dramatically reduced first-term pricing), it would be our pleasure to add you to this list!
DISCLAIMER: This website was created by the team behind independently owned and operated Canadian web hosting company Websavers.ca. There are no affiliate links on this website.