Independent infrastructure buying guide

Find the right infrastructure.

Specs, real renewal prices and payment methods across 10 categories of hosting and infrastructure — recorded, dated and comparable. So the decision rests on evidence, not on a landing page.

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01

The index

Every layer of the stack, catalogued and dated.

All providers →
6
Domains

Registrars compared on renewal honesty, WHOIS privacy, and payment options.
4
Shared hosting

Shared and managed web hosting, specs first.
4
VPS / VDS

Virtual servers filtered by the specs that matter: virtualization, dedicated cores, port speed.
4
Dedicated servers

Bare metal, from budget boxes to custom builds.
8
Email hosting

Mailbox platforms from Workspace resellers to E2EE providers.
4
SSL / TLS

Certificates compared honestly — including when Let's Encrypt is all you need.
4
Managed databases

Serverless and provisioned databases: branching, pooling, real free-tier limits.
5
Edge compute

Isolates, WASM, and containers at the edge.
4
CDN

Delivery networks by PoPs, purge behavior, and pricing model.
4
DNS

Managed DNS by anycast footprint and features.

 ···
All providers

Every company we list →
02

Side by side, on the numbers

verified 7 Oct 2026

Build your own →
Attribute
Top editorial score Zoho
8.3 / 10
Purelymail
8.0 / 10
Google Workspace
7.5 / 10
Microsoft 365
7.4 / 10
Fastmail
7.3 / 10
Migadu
6.9 / 10
MXroute
6.2 / 10
Porkbun Email Hosting
3.3 / 10
Platform
Proprietary
Proprietary
Google workspace
Microsoft 365
Proprietary
Proprietary
Proprietary
Open source stack
Datacenter locations
19 locations
1 locations
—
—
2 locations
1 locations
5 locations
—
Protocols
IMAP, POP3
IMAP, POP3
IMAP, POP3
IMAP, POP3
IMAP, POP3, JMAP
IMAP, POP3
IMAP, POP3
IMAP, POP3
Payment methods
Card, PayPal
Card
Card
Card
Card, PayPal
Card, PayPal, Crypto (BTC)
Card, PayPal
Card, PayPal, Crypto (stablecoins), Alipay
API access
Mailbox, Admin
Admin
Mailbox, Admin
Mailbox, Admin
Mailbox
Admin
Admin
—
Price
from $0/user/mo
$10/account/yr
from $4.90/user/mo
from $48/user/yr
from $4/user/mo
from $9/account/mo
from $59/account/yr
$36/user/yr
Renews at
✓ same
✓ same
✓ same
✓ same
✓ same
✓ same
✓ same
✓ same
Cheapest plan per provider, list prices. 14 further attributes in the full table. Compare side by side
03

Providers

Most services listed, across all categories.

All 37 providers →
Cloudflare
Edge compute · CDN · DNS
Build for the agent era
3
→
IONOS
Domains · Shared hosting · VPS / VDS
Get online fast, stay online for years
3
→
Cherry Servers
VPS / VDS · Dedicated servers
Scale Your Infrastructure, Not Your Cloud Bill
2
→
Fastly
Edge compute · CDN
Instant. Programmable. Global. Choose three.
2
→
Hostinger
Domains · Shared hosting
Your idea, online. Made easy.
2
→
Hostwinds
Shared hosting · VPS / VDS
Enterprise Level Solutions. Personal Level Support.
2
→
04

Changelog

Every change to a ranking formula ships with a written rationale.

Full history →
10 Oct VPS / VDS formula v3 — v3 scores what the whole VPS line-up offers, not just company facts. Formula
10 Oct Dedicated servers formula v2 — v2 scores dedicated servers on what it costs to start — the cheapest server's no-commitment monthly price (20%, scaled… Formula
10 Oct Edge compute formula v2 — v2 scores edge compute — code (functions or a whole app) running near users — on cost first: what one standard… Formula
10 Oct CDN formula v2 — v2 puts cost first: what one standard workload (1 TB/month split North America + Europe, ~10M requests) costs, 25%… Formula
09 Oct Managed databases formula v2 — v2 adds price — an example bill for one stated small-production workload (20%; $0 best, $60+ worst; basis shown on… Formula
09 Oct DNS formula v2 — v2 keeps the technical core — anycast reach, API/Terraform, DNSSEC (15% each), CNAME flattening/ALIAS (10%) — and adds… Formula
47
Products
37
Providers
10
Categories
05

How we work

Rankings aren't for sale

Position comes from the published formula. Sponsored placements exist, and are always labelled as such.

Renewal price, every time

The intro price never appears without the price you'll actually pay when it renews.

Transparent methodology

Scores render from the live formula configuration, versioned, with every change logged.

Dated prices

Every price shows when it was last checked and whether a crawler or a person verified it.

Ownership disclosed

Products owned by our parent company are marked on every listing and scored by the same formula as everyone else. Full disclosure.

No invasive tracking

No third-party trackers, no ad-tech cookies. Affiliate links are labelled and use rel="sponsored".

06

Questions

What is InfraList?

InfraList (infralist.io) is an independent comparison site for internet infrastructure — domain registrars, web hosting, email hosting and SSL certificates — that shows the renewal price beside every intro price. It isn't owned by any provider it lists.

How are the scores calculated?

Every score comes from a published formula for each category — nobody types a score in. The weights and every change, with its reason, are public on our methodology page.

Do affiliate links affect rankings?

No. Some links earn us a commission and are labelled as such, but the scoring formula never reads affiliate status, and the order is the same with or without one.

Why do you show the renewal price?

Many providers advertise a cheap first year that renews at two to five times the price. We show what year two costs next to what year one costs, so you can compare the real price.

How current are the prices?

Each price shows when it was last checked and how: "auto-checked" by our collectors, or "verified" by hand.