Web Hosts: How Does Yours Perform?

I mentioned a web hosting comparison site the other day that compares features and specs from various web hosts. Its a great resource... but all said and done you only have the details that each host already gives on their own websites - conveniently all in one place though, of course, which makes it great for quick comparisons.

But how accurate or complete is that information... and is it ALL you need to know in order to choose the right host for your projects? Most people will ask for user reviews and recommendations in the popular discussion forums, but experiences and information there can be conflicting...

But today I ran across another really cool resource to add to your bookmarks: www.realmetrics.com. This site publishes real performance data on various hosting companies...

By performing over 110,000 tests per day against real accounts established with each provider, RealMetrics is able to publish objective reliability, speed, and customer service reports you can trust.

This is how information is gathered for Shared Hosting accounts:

Peak Uptime - Measured every 30 seconds by our monitoring stations checking if a simple web page can be loaded from an account established with the provider. Only includes data from 7:00a-7:00p CST Mon-Fri. Higher is better.
Uptime - Measured every 30 seconds by our monitoring stations checking if a simple web page can be loaded from an account established with the provider. Higher is better.
Web Speed Index - Measured every 30 minutes by averaging the speed at which our monitoring stations can download web pages and images from an account established with the provider. Higher is better.
Support Response Time - Measured by sending tier one support questions to the provider's ticketing system or support email address and measuring the time to respond to the questions with real answers.

Check it out: www.realmetrics.com - you may find this incredibly useful when you're choosing your next web host 😉