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Data Aggregator — Updated April 2026

Web Hosting Reliability Score

Go beyond uptime promises. Our reliability score aggregates real incident data, uptime measurements, security audits, and support quality to show you which UK hosts you can actually trust.

View Reliability Scores How We Score

Why Uptime Guarantees Aren\u2019t Enough

Every hosting provider promises great uptime. But a 99.9% SLA guarantee tells you nothing about how many incidents actually occurred, how long they lasted, or how quickly the provider responded. Our Reliability Score goes deeper — aggregating incident reports, performance data, security posture, and support quality into a single, comparable metric across 20+ UK hosting providers.

Think of it as a credit score for hosting dependability. Instead of trusting marketing claims, you can compare real-world reliability data and make an informed decision about who to trust with your website.

89
Average Reliability Score
Kinsta
Most Reliable Host
2.4
Avg Incidents (12 months)
99.992%
Average Measured Uptime
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Reliability Score Ranking

#1Kinsta
97.2
A+
#2Pressidium
96.8
A+
#3SiteGround
96.2
A+
#4WPX
96
A+
#5HostArmada
95.2
A+
#6Liquid Web
95.2
A+
#7Cloudways
92.4
A+
#8HawkHost
91
A+
#9InMotion Hosting
90.3
A+
#10AccuWeb Hosting
90.3
A+
#11Web Hosting Buzz
90.3
A+
#12Flashcloud
88.5
A
#13IONOS
87.6
A
#14Hosting.com
86.6
A
#15DreamHost
85.8
A

Downtime Incidents Timeline

Select a provider to view their incident history over the past 12 months (April 2025 – March 2026).

Select a provider above to view their incident timeline

Full Reliability Comparison Table

Click any row to expand incident details.

#ProviderReliability ScoreGradeUptime SLAMeasuredTTFBIncidentsSecuritySupportFrom
1
Kinsta
9.3/10 overall
97.2A+99.9%100%98ms29.5/109.5/10£30.00/mo
2
Pressidium
9/10 overall
96.8A+99.95%100%100ms29.5/109.5/10£16.79/mo
3
SiteGround
9.1/10 overall
96.2A+99.99%99.999%142ms39.5/109.5/10£2.99/mo
4
WPX
8.8/10 overall
96A+99.95%99.999%94ms29/109.5/10£11.84/mo
5
HostArmada
8.5/10 overall
95.2A+99.9%100%178ms08.5/109.5/10£1.59/mo
6
Liquid Web
8.5/10 overall
95.2A+100%99.999%136ms29/109.5/10£19.00/mo
7
Cloudways
8.5/10 overall
92.4A+99.99%99.998%180ms39/108/10£11.00/mo
8
HawkHost
8.2/10 overall
91A+99.9%100%285ms08/107.5/10£1.97/mo
9
InMotion Hosting
7.9/10 overall
90.3A+99.99%100%245ms08/108.5/10£2.99/mo
10
AccuWeb Hosting
8/10 overall
90.3A+99.9%100%320ms08/108/10£1.57/mo
11
Web Hosting Buzz
7.6/10 overall
90.3A+99.9%100%165ms07.5/108/10£5.17/mo
12
Flashcloud
7.8/10 overall
88.5A99.9%99.999%185ms28/107.5/10£2.20/mo

Reliability Tiers

A+90–100 pts

Exceptional

Minimal incidents, premium infrastructure, enterprise-grade support

KinstaPressidiumSiteGroundWPXHostArmadaLiquid WebCloudwaysHawkHostInMotion HostingAccuWeb HostingWeb Hosting Buzz
A80–89.9 pts

Excellent

Very few incidents, strong uptime, quality support response

FlashcloudIONOSHosting.comDreamHostEuroDNSHostPapaFasthostsBluehost
B+70–79.9 pts

Very Good

Occasional minor issues, solid fundamentals, good recovery

123 RegContabo
B60–69.9 pts

Good

Some notable incidents, adequate infrastructure, room for improvement

No providers in this tier

C+50–59.9 pts

Average

Regular incidents or slow recovery, mixed reviews

No providers in this tier

C/D0–49.9 pts

Below Average

Frequent issues, slow support, or major outages on record

No providers in this tier

How We Calculate the Reliability Score

Our composite score weights six factors. Each provider receives a score from 0\u2013100 based on data from the trailing 12 months.

Measured Uptime

35% weight

Calculated from real incident data — outages count fully, degradations partially. Maintenance windows are excluded. The higher the uptime, the more points earned.

Security Score

15% weight

Based on free SSL availability, DDoS protection, malware scanning, firewall quality, and security incident history. Strong security prevents reliability issues before they start.

Support Quality

15% weight

Response time, available channels (live chat, phone, tickets), clicks-to-human metric, and resolution quality. Fast support means faster recovery from incidents.

Performance Score

15% weight

Server response time (TTFB), storage type (NVMe vs HDD), CDN availability, and caching technology. Better infrastructure = fewer performance-related incidents.

Incident History

15% weight

Number, severity, and type of incidents over the past 12 months. Critical outages are heavily penalised. Fewer and milder incidents = higher score.

Trust Extras

5% weight

Additional signals like money-back guarantees, free SSL inclusion, transparent status pages, and industry certifications that indicate a reliability-first culture.

8 Factors That Determine Hosting Reliability

Not all reliability factors are equal. Here\u2019s what matters most when choosing a dependable host.

Uptime SLA Guarantee

high impact

The contractual uptime promise (e.g., 99.9%). But SLA guarantees and real-world uptime often differ. A 99.9% SLA allows 43 minutes of downtime per month — some hosts exceed this regularly.

Data Centre Quality

high impact

Tier III+ data centres with redundant power, cooling, and networking. UK-based data centres reduce latency and comply with data sovereignty requirements.

Incident Response Time

high impact

How quickly a host detects, acknowledges, and resolves issues. The best providers have automated monitoring and <15-minute response times for critical incidents.

DDoS Protection

medium impact

Enterprise-grade DDoS mitigation prevents one of the most common causes of downtime. Look for providers with automatic DDoS detection and mitigation at the network edge.

Backup & Recovery

medium impact

Daily automated backups with one-click restore mean faster recovery from data loss. The best hosts retain 30+ days of backups and test restoration regularly.

Resource Isolation

medium impact

On shared hosting, your site shares resources with others. Quality providers enforce strict resource isolation (cgroups, containers) so one site’s spike doesn’t affect yours.

SSL & Security Stack

medium impact

Free SSL, web application firewalls (WAF), malware scanning, and automatic security patching. A comprehensive security stack prevents incidents before they happen.

Status Page Transparency

low impact

Hosts that publish real-time status pages and post-incident reports show accountability. Transparency correlates with better incident management and faster fixes.

Common Incident Patterns Across UK Hosts

Understanding what types of incidents occur — and how often — helps you evaluate what level of reliability your website needs.

Network Outages

Rare but severe

Complete loss of connectivity due to routing failures, switch malfunctions, or upstream provider issues. Usually the most impactful — affecting all hosted sites simultaneously.

Performance Degradation

Common

Slow response times, increased TTFB, or intermittent timeouts. Often caused by overloaded shared resources, database bottlenecks, or CDN edge issues.

Planned Maintenance

Regular

Scheduled updates to hardware, firmware, or platform software. Well-managed hosts perform these during low-traffic windows with zero or minimal downtime.

DNS Resolution Failures

Occasional

When domain name lookups fail, sites become unreachable even if the server is running. Usually caused by DNS infrastructure issues or misconfigurations.

Security Incidents

Varies

DDoS attacks, malware infections, or vulnerability exploits. Providers with strong WAF and DDoS protection experience these less frequently.

Data Centre Issues

Rare

Power failures, cooling system malfunctions, or physical damage. Tier III+ data centres have redundancies that minimise impact, but complete failures still occur.

6 Steps to Choose a Reliable Host

Practical advice for evaluating hosting reliability before you commit.

1

Check measured uptime, not just the SLA guarantee

A 99.9% SLA promise is marketing. What matters is actual measured uptime over the past 12 months. Our reliability scores use incident data to calculate real-world uptime, not just promises.

2

Count incidents, not just downtime minutes

A host with one 60-minute outage is arguably more reliable than one with ten 6-minute incidents. Frequent disruptions — even brief ones — indicate systemic infrastructure problems.

3

Look beyond uptime to recovery speed

When things go wrong (and they will), how fast does the host respond? Premium providers like Kinsta and SiteGround have <15-minute response times. Budget hosts may take hours.

4

Prioritise UK data centres for UK audiences

Closer data centres mean lower latency and fewer network hops that could fail. SiteGround, Kinsta (via Google Cloud), Fasthosts, and Krystal all offer UK-based infrastructure.

5

Test the support BEFORE you commit

Open a pre-sales chat or ticket and gauge the response time and quality. Support quality during an incident is the difference between 10 minutes of downtime and 10 hours.

6

Monitor your own uptime independently

Use free tools like UptimeRobot or Better Uptime to monitor your site. Don’t rely solely on your host’s claims. Independent monitoring catches issues your host may not report.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a hosting reliability score?
A hosting reliability score is a composite metric that aggregates multiple factors: measured uptime, incident history, security posture, support quality, and server performance. Unlike a simple uptime percentage, it gives you a holistic view of how dependable a hosting provider truly is. Our scores range from 0 to 100, with grades from D (poor) to A+ (exceptional).
How is the reliability score different from an uptime guarantee?
An uptime guarantee (SLA) is a contractual promise — it tells you what the host commits to. Our reliability score measures what actually happens based on real incident data, security audits, support response testing, and performance benchmarks. A host can promise 99.99% uptime but deliver 99.5% in practice. Our score captures this gap.
How do you collect incident data?
We aggregate data from multiple sources: public status pages, third-party monitoring services, community reports, and our own testing. Incidents are categorised by type (outage, degradation, maintenance, security) and severity (critical, major, minor). This data covers the trailing 12-month period from April 2025 to March 2026.
Which UK hosting provider is the most reliable?
Based on our reliability scoring for 2026, premium managed providers like Kinsta, Pressidium, and SiteGround consistently score highest. They combine excellent uptime, minimal incidents, fast support, and strong security. However, "most reliable" depends on your budget — IONOS and 20i offer excellent reliability at lower price points.
Does 99.9% uptime mean a host is reliable?
99.9% uptime allows approximately 43 minutes of downtime per month or 8.7 hours per year. Whether that is acceptable depends on your site. For a personal blog, it is fine. For an e-commerce store processing £10,000/day, those 43 minutes could cost over £290 in lost sales. Our reliability score weights uptime alongside incident frequency and severity for a more nuanced view.
What factors matter most for hosting reliability?
The three most impactful factors are: (1) data centre quality and redundancy, (2) incident response speed, and (3) DDoS and security protection. Uptime SLA guarantees matter less than you might think — what matters is how quickly a host detects and resolves problems when they occur.
How often are reliability scores updated?
We update our reliability scores monthly based on the rolling 12-month incident window. Provider scores can rise or fall as new incidents occur or as past incidents age out of the window. Major scoring updates (methodology changes) happen quarterly.
Can shared hosting be reliable?
Yes — quality shared hosts like SiteGround and 20i deliver excellent reliability through strict resource isolation, modern infrastructure, and proactive monitoring. However, budget shared hosting (under £2/mo) often cuts corners on infrastructure and support, leading to more incidents. Our reliability scores help you identify which shared hosts truly deliver.
What should I do if my host has a low reliability score?
Consider migrating to a higher-rated provider. Use our reliability scores to identify hosts that match your budget and requirements. Many providers (SiteGround, Kinsta, Cloudways) offer free migration assistance. Before switching, back up your site independently and test your new host with a staging site.
Is expensive hosting always more reliable?
Not always, but there is a correlation. Premium providers like Kinsta (from £24/mo) invest more in infrastructure, support, and security. However, mid-range hosts like SiteGround (from £2.99/mo) and 20i offer excellent reliability at a fraction of the cost. Our "Best Value" sort mode identifies hosts that deliver the highest reliability per pound spent.

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Find the Most Reliable Host for Your Website

Use our data-driven reliability scores to compare UK hosting providers. Real incident data, not marketing promises.

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