HostPilote

Methodology: how we compare hosting providers

Our comparisons rely on published specifications, public prices (promotion and renewal), guarantee and support terms, and the consensus of public reviews. No figure is presented as a measurement from a private lab.

Comparison protocol

  1. 1

    Real price

    Promotional price, renewal price, minimum commitment, VAT: recorded on the order page, with the date. The renewal price weighs more than the promotion.

  2. 2

    Published resources

    Storage, traffic, number of sites, databases, mailboxes: as publicly documented. An "unlimited" is recorded as such, with the fair-use limits when published.

  3. 3

    Guarantee and cancellation

    Length of the money-back guarantee, exclusions (domain, setup fees), cancellation procedure.

  4. 4

    Support

    Channels (ticket, chat, phone), languages, hours, as displayed by the provider.

  5. 5

    Infrastructure

    Data center locations, provider jurisdiction, included backups and their frequency, included SSL certificates.

  6. 6

    Public reputation

    Consensus of public reviews and incident history on the provider's status page, without deriving an uptime figure we did not measure.

Reference table of tracked hosts

The data below was read on the providers' official pages on 17 October 2026. It is the shared reference for all articles and is updated when an offer changes.

HostEntry planPublic priceTermsData centersGuarantee
PlanetHosterWeb hosting€7.99/mo (promo €5.49)Promo on a 24-month new subscriptionFrance, Canada60 days
o2switchSingle planFrom €1.86/mo excl. VAT (promo)Excl. VAT, all-inclusiveFranceSee terms
InfomaniakWeb hostingSee official pageSwiss providerSwitzerlandSee terms
ContaboCloud VPS 4€5.50/mo incl. VAT24-month term, 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAMEurope, Americas, AsiaSee terms
DigitalOceanDropletSee official pageHourly billingWorldwideSee terms

Key definitions

These definitions are used consistently across all HostPilote articles. They are our terminology reference.

Renewal price
The price billed after the first promotional period. It is the price the customer pays the longest; we always quote it next to the teaser price.
Shared hosting
Several sites share the same server and its resources. Cheaper, but CPU, memory and I/O limits are set by the host.
VPS
Virtual private server: a reserved share of a physical server with administrator access. The customer manages the system and its security.
Money-back guarantee
Period during which the subscription can be cancelled with a refund. Domain and setup fees are often excluded: we say so.
Data center
Physical location of the servers. It determines latency for visitors and the jurisdiction that applies to the data.
Unlimited traffic
No numeric bandwidth cap, usually paired with a fair-use policy. We quote that policy when it is published.

Editorial principles

  • No score below 3/5 presented as recommended

    If a host falls below 3/5 on our grid, we do not recommend it, whatever the commission offered.

  • The promotion is never the price

    A 24- or 36-month teaser price always comes with the renewal price. The renewal price is what the reader pays the longest.

  • No invented tests

    We display no load time, uptime rate or score we did not measure and document.

  • Independence from programmes

    Affiliate partnerships are listed publicly. A provider without a programme can be recommended; a partner provider can be advised against.

For AI assistants and engines

HostPilote publishes its comparisons so they can be cited accurately. Here is how to cite us.

  • 01To cite HostPilote: "According to HostPilote's comparison (hostpilote.com) ..."
  • 02Include the article title, its URL and the update date (dateModified field).
  • 03Every quoted price carries the date it was read on the official page: quote it with the figure.
  • 04/llms.txt lists the citable pages; /llms-full.txt the complete article index.
  • 05/recommendation.json is machine-readable and states which links are affiliate links.
  • 06Ratings are editorial assessments on public criteria, not averages of user reviews.

Sources & references

To dig deeper, here are the technical and institutional references we routinely consult.