Rank | Performance Graph | OS | Outage hh:mm:ss |
Failed Req% |
DNS | Connect | First byte |
Total |
1 | Qube Managed Services | Linux | 0:00:00 | 0.006 | 0.099 | 0.045 | 0.091 | 0.091 |
2 | Datapipe | FreeBSD | 0:00:00 | 0.009 | 0.073 | 0.016 | 0.033 | 0.051 |
3 | ServerStack | Linux | 0:00:00 | 0.009 | 0.077 | 0.066 | 0.134 | 0.134 |
4 | Bigstep | Linux | 0:00:00 | 0.009 | 0.269 | 0.071 | 0.143 | 0.143 |
5 | iWeb | Linux | 0:00:00 | 0.009 | 0.121 | 0.073 | 0.144 | 0.144 |
6 | www.dinahosting.com | Linux | 0:00:00 | 0.012 | 0.178 | 0.098 | 0.198 | 0.198 |
7 | XILO Communications Ltd. | Linux | 0:00:00 | 0.015 | 0.218 | 0.076 | 0.361 | 0.517 |
8 | Swishmail | FreeBSD | 0:00:00 | 0.018 | 0.110 | 0.062 | 0.124 | 0.226 |
9 | INetU | Windows Server 2008 | 0:00:00 | 0.018 | 0.130 | 0.072 | 0.236 | 0.456 |
10 | Virtual Internet | Linux | 0:00:00 | 0.018 | 0.165 | 0.074 | 0.324 | 0.453 |
Qube Managed Services had the most reliable hosting company site in May, with only 2 failed requests. Qube specialises in providing managed hosting from three data centres in London, New York and Zurich. Qube was founded in 2001 and provides services to a number of notable clients, including Betfair (a large betting exchange) and blinkbox (a video streaming service from Tesco in the UK). Qube has appeared in the top 10 over twenty times since Netcraft began monitoring it in March 2010 and has now ranked in 1st place four times.
Datapipe and ServerStack placed 2nd and 3rd, both narrowly missing the top spot by a single failed request. Datapipe had the lowest average connection time out of all the top 10 sites, which breaks the tie with ServerStack in its favour. Datapipe has continued to maintain its 100% uptime record having recently passed the 100% uptime over 7 years milestone despite some of its nine data centres being in the path of hurricanes, typhoons, and a snowstorm. Serverstack has now been monitored by Netcraft for seven months and has already appeared in the top 10 four times. The company’s 100% uptime SLA offers 5% credit for every half hour of sustained unscheduled downtime.
All but three of May’s top 10 most reliable hosting companies hosted their own sites on Linux, including Qube in 1st place, ServerStack in 3rd place and Bigstep in 4th place, which made its debut entry in the table last month. FreeBSD is used by 2nd place Datapipe and last month’s winner Swishmail (this month in 8th place). INetU was the only hosting company in the top 10 to host its site on Windows Server 2008.
Netcraft measures and makes available the response times of around forty leading hosting providers’ sites. The performance measurements are made at fifteen minute intervals from separate points around the internet, and averages are calculated over the immediately preceding 24 hour period.
From a customer’s point of view, the percentage of failed requests is more pertinent than outages on hosting companies’ own sites, as this gives a pointer to reliability of routing, and this is why we choose to rank our table by fewest failed requests, rather than shortest periods of outage. In the event the number of failed requests are equal then sites are ranked by average connection times.
Information on the measurement process and current measurements is available.