I have been shopping for hosting here in the UK to ensure I get good value, great service, top features and fast websites.

This comparison has been done by using a domain on each website and then installing just the Kadence theme and one of the starter templates. I haven't spent hours tweaking each platform for speed.

Firstly, Siteground. The GoGeek package enabled me to easily host all 40 websites of mine. Migration is easy using their WordPress plugin. The support is hard to get in touch with; you have to have tried to find the answer online first. Speed was 76% today. The cost (for year one, which is heavily discounted) - £143.86

Next, Closte - this is not an easy option, though the panel is easy to use and the support is most helpful. Closte is super fast using Google servers (which is what SiteGround claims). Pricing is based on actual resources used, but it isn't the cheapest out there. Today, the test site scored 84% (quite low compared to previous results).

I want to love 20i.com, but their offer is expensive (£41.99 per month reseller plan) although it includes a CDN, unlimited sites and space and traffic. Today the test site also scored 84%

If you've seen my post about command-line tools to host websites, you will know I am a big fan of tools like Webinoly. I was inspired by this YouTube guide to set up sites on a totally free Oracle VPS - the speed was quick, but you are on your own… I did also use Cloudflare as suggested in the video, but without spending ages getting the settings right, this actually slowed things up. (Speed test result: 93%)

The last test site is on my current host, Guru, whom I have used for many years. A recent cPanel update to the control panel theme making it much harder to use prompted this review of options. The downsides are that migrating sites in is not easy. Creating a staging site is hard, using Installatron. There is no default (catchall) email address and configuring sites to use Fastmail is slow. The upside is that the sites are super fast, the support is really knowledgeable and everything just works. My speed test results were 82%

I have also recently used Rochen Hosting and their approach is to create separate cPanel accounts for each domain. No parked or pointed domains.

Jolt is run by a great team and I used them for many years. I moved away as it required a support ticket to activate the free SSL certificate.

34sp.com are also worthy of a mention - at present I need more than the 5 site plan and cannot justify the cost of the 10 post plan. Great support and a lovely, fast platform.

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