HostGrove exists because most web hosting advice is written for two audiences: system administrators who already know the answer, and affiliate sales pages that want you to click within thirty seconds. Almost nothing is written for the person in the middle — the owner of a real business who needs to make one good decision and then get back to work.
That person is who we write for.
What we cover
Everything on this site sits in one category, Hosting Guides, and it stays deliberately narrow: web hosting plans and when to change them, domain names and the fine print attached to them, website builders and the trade-offs between them, and page speed, which touches all three. We would rather publish twenty genuinely useful articles about that than two hundred shallow ones about everything.
How we work
- We start from the questions readers actually ask. Most articles here began as an email or a support conversation that came up three times in a month.
- We test before we describe. When we write about a migration process or a caching configuration, it is because we have done it, usually more than once and usually badly the first time.
- We give ranges, not promises. Performance and pricing depend on your specific site. Anyone who quotes you a precise number without seeing your setup is selling something.
- We name the downside. Every hosting decision is a trade-off. An article that lists only advantages is an advertisement wearing a disguise.
- We update rather than republish. When something changes, we revise the original article and note the change, so the link you bookmarked still holds the current answer.
Who writes here
Marcus Delaney — Editor. Marcus has spent twelve years building and migrating websites for small businesses across the United States, from single-page contractor sites to online stores handling six figures a year. He has moved sites off failing hosts at two in the morning, argued with support agents on three continents, and learned most of what he knows here the expensive way. He writes HostGrove’s guides with one goal: help owners make a confident decision without needing a systems administrator on speed dial. Outside of work he is slowly restoring an old sailboat in Annapolis, a project that has taught him roughly as much about hidden maintenance costs as hosting has.
How this site is funded
HostGrove is free to read and is supported by display advertising and, on some pages, affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy something, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Two things follow from that, and we want them stated plainly. First, advertisers have no say in what we publish; ads are placed automatically by third-party networks and we do not see them in advance. Second, a commission never buys a recommendation. We regularly recommend options that pay us nothing, and we say when a well-known product is a poor fit. Our full disclosure is on the Disclaimer page.
Corrections
We get things wrong sometimes, and this industry changes fast enough that an accurate article can become inaccurate without anyone touching it. If you find an error, write to corrections@hostgrove.inftaran.info. Point us at a source and we will verify it, fix the article, and record what changed.
Get in touch
Reader questions, topic suggestions, and disagreements are all welcome at hello@hostgrove.inftaran.info, or through our Contact page. If several people ask us the same thing, it usually becomes the next article.