Hosting speed ranking 2026: TTFB tests of 32 providers

Hosts like to promise 'high speed' and rarely show numbers. So we measure ourselves. On 10 October 2026 we tested 39 hosts from our catalog: 32 answered normally and 7 shut out automated requests. This is an updated version of the article we first published in June, and every figure in it is now from October. The full data is on the speed tests page, and a shortlist of fast plans is in the fast hosting category.

How we measured, and what the numbers don't show

A curl script runs on a GitHub runner in the US. Each domain gets three attempts, and the table takes the minimum TTFB (time to first byte), which cuts off random network noise. We also record full HTML load, HTTP version and TLS handshake time. Three limitations are worth knowing.

• We measure the host's public website, not a plan you can buy from them. It is a decent proxy for infrastructure, network and CDN quality, but a company's own site may run on a different stack than your VPS.
• There is one vantage point, in the US. For a visitor in Ukraine the absolute milliseconds will differ, usually upward. Comparing hosts with each other is fair; predicting your own speed from these numbers is not.
• Only three attempts. A gap of a few dozen milliseconds between two runs should not be read as a change in quality: it may be noise.

How we score providers overall and where the data comes from is described on the methodology page.

What changed since September

Median TTFB across the sample was 688 ms on 2 September, 700 ms on 1 October and 596 ms on 10 October. Over the last month it fell by 104 ms, about 15%. One vantage point can't say why: it could be a real speed-up, CDN changes or just a good day. Three values are not a trend, so we draw no conclusions about individual hosts from one month to the next.

The sample itself shifts too. In this run 7 hosts returned 403 instead of a page; among them is Contabo, which was still in the ranking in the June version of this article (968 ms). Don't compare the June figures with the current ones directly: the set of hosts is different.

Top 10 by response time

Five hosts came in under 100 ms: 1Gbits, HostIQ, Railway, MyForexVPS and DigitalOcean. Six more are under 300 ms: Hostinger, Friendhosting, RunPod, GMhost, Zomro and Bunny.net, 11 of 32 in total. From the US, values like these most likely mean the page is served from a cache or a CDN node near the runner, not that an especially powerful server sits behind it. All ten run on HTTP/2.

Hosts with a data centre in Ukraine

For our audience this is the main question, so here is a separate table: every measured host that has a Ukrainian location in our catalog.

HostIQ leads the group (82 ms), followed by GMhost (252 ms), HyperHost (433 ms) and Fozzy (486 ms). The group's median is 896 ms, against 255 ms for the other measured hosts. Don't read that as 'Ukrainian hosts are slow'. For some of them the TLS handshake from our vantage point takes 380 to 730 ms (Mirohost 382, TheHost 414, BestHosting 437, Cityhost 502, Ukraine.com.ua 644, UAhosting 734), which looks like the price of the distance between Ukraine and the US. For a visitor in Kyiv these hosts may well run faster than in our table.

The tail of the ranking: what is slow and why

Eight hosts take longer than a second: HostPro (1036 ms), Ukraine.com.ua (1099), FreeHost (1154), HostLife (1337), S-Host (1356), PS.KZ (1564), SIM-Networks (1571) and Serverspace (1578). The causes differ, and you can see them in the neighbouring columns of the dataset.

• HostPro: the TLS handshake took 43 ms, yet the first byte arrived after 1036 ms. The connection is fast and the server spends almost a second building the page, which is most often a sign of a slow backend or no cache. Deltahost (TLS 38 ms, TTFB 774 ms) and HostKey (TLS 36 ms, TTFB 886 ms) show the same picture.
• HostLife and PS.KZ: here most of the time goes on the connection itself (TLS 1097 and 1143 ms), and both answer over outdated HTTP/1.1. AlexHost and UAhosting are also still on HTTP/1.1; the other 28 of 32 hosts use HTTP/2.
• Serverspace: TTFB is 1578 ms, but full HTML load is 5465 ms. After the first byte the page takes almost four more seconds to arrive.

The reverse case exists as well. GMhost sends the first byte in 252 ms, but the full HTML takes 1402 ms to load. So look at both numbers, not just TTFB. The median full load across the sample is 976 ms.

Seven hosts missing from the ranking

Contabo, Fornex, Inferno, is*hosting, MivoCloud, Time4VPS and Vultr answered our request with a 403. Most likely their sites sit behind bot protection (a WAF) that doesn't let automated requests from GitHub's data centre through. That doesn't make them slow: we simply couldn't measure them, so they are not in the speed ranking. Check their cards in the catalog, and test their speed during a trial.

How to choose and verify it yourself

• Filter with the table: if your audience is in Europe or the US, look at the top of the list; if it is in Ukraine, add hosts with a Ukrainian data centre to the shortlist.
• Take a trial or a money-back window and measure TTFB three times from your own region. Take the minimum of the three, as we do.
• Compare plan with plan: your own site on a trial VPS, not the host's marketing site.
• Look beyond TTFB at full page load and HTTP/2 support.

The measuring command (the result is in seconds): curl -o /dev/null -s -w "%{time_starttransfer}\n" https://example.com

Not every host offers a trial or a refund guarantee. According to our catalog data, GMhost gives 7 trial days, Zomro 30 trial days, and HostIQ 30 trial days plus 30 days of money-back. How to use that time is covered in the article on VPS with a free trial.

The table tells you who to test, not who to buy. Buy after you've measured TTFB from your own region during the trial.

Igor Jazov, Tophosting editor

Who fits what

• Audience in Ukraine, classic hosting: HostIQ. 82 ms, the fastest among hosts with a Ukrainian location; in our catalog from $7.67/mo and 30 days of money-back.
• Cheap VPS in Europe: Friendhosting (140 ms, from $2.22/mo) and Zomro (254 ms, from $4.45/mo, 30 trial days).
• Minimal budget and a Ukrainian location: GMhost, 252 ms, from $1.49/mo. Note the full page load: 1402 ms.
• Fastest response in our sample: 1Gbits, 56 ms, VPS from $14.49/mo, locations NL, DE, US, GB, FR.
• Quick app deployment: Railway (86 ms) and DigitalOcean (95 ms). For a VPS aimed at a Ukrainian audience, see 'how to choose a VPS for Ukraine'.

Partner links do not affect a host's place in the table: the ranking is by TTFB alone.

Bottom line

As of 10 October 2026 the fastest responders were 1Gbits, HostIQ, Railway, MyForexVPS and DigitalOcean, and the sample median is 596 ms. This is a snapshot from one vantage point in the US, so for a Ukrainian project the table works as a shortlist, and the final choice should be confirmed with curl during a trial. Measurements repeat monthly, and the date of the current snapshot is always shown on the tests page.