Who actually owns your web host?
6 September 2026
Four companies control a startling proportion of the hosting brands you have heard of. Here is the ownership map, and why it shows up in your support tickets.
Home → Blog → industry
Arguments about hosting companies rather than instructions — who owns them, what they really cost, where the marketing diverges from the invoice. The guides are the practical half.
6 September 2026
Four companies control a startling proportion of the hosting brands you have heard of. Here is the ownership map, and why it shows up in your support tickets.
sustainability
12 August 2026
Almost every host now claims to be green. The claims are not equivalent — here is the hierarchy, from carbon negative to a certificate someone bought.
uk
4 August 2026
A major British host was acquired, wound down, and its customers migrated to a company founded by its own former team. The most instructive story in UK hosting.
reliability
26 June 2026
A data centre burned down in 2021 and took thousands of businesses with it. The lesson was not "avoid that host" — it was that almost nobody had a backup they controlled.
18 June 2026
A licensing change at one software vendor reshaped budget hosting, pushed several hosts onto their own panels, and is the reason your host may have moved your cheese.
uk
12 May 2026
Slough, Docklands, Manchester and a former paper mill in Erith. A geography of British hosting, and why it explains your latency.
30 April 2026
One company owns WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, a managed host, and enormous influence over WordPress itself. Why that concentration matters to anyone hosting a WordPress site.
26 April 2026
Bluehost, HostGator, Network Solutions, Domain.com and Yoast sit inside one private-equity-owned group. Its business model explains a lot of "best hosting" lists.
uk
6 April 2026
A generation of well-loved British hosting companies was bought by one AIM-listed group. What survived independent, and why the boutique tier still exists.