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How we rate hosting providers

The exact scoring rubric NorseHost uses for hosting, VPS, and registrar reviews -- the same rubric every post applies, in the same order.

This page is the single scoring rubric every NorseHost review follows. A review that skips a criterion below – or adds one that isn’t here – is an error and should be reported.

1. Data centre location & latency

Nordic readers care about this more than the average US-focused reviewer assumes. We measure latency from Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki via global.turbobytes.com and quote the median. A Frankfurt-only hosting provider is not a failure – but it’s disclosed in the first 200 words.

2. Real-money price

  • Quoted in EUR + the provider’s own billing currency.
  • Renewal price first, promo price second. If the promo renewal is 3x, we say so.
  • Includes bandwidth overage, backup, TLS cert, DNS, and SLA credits when they’re line items on the real invoice.

3. Performance

  • Apache/Nginx + WordPress on the provider’s cheapest plan for that use case
  • k6.io load test at 50 concurrent users for 60 seconds
  • Report 95th-percentile TTFB, error rate, and the provider’s bandwidth meter
  • Repeat once off-peak (03:00 UTC), once at peak (19:00 UTC Nordic timezones)

4. Control & portability

  • Can you export a full site and walk? Time taken + format.
  • SSH root, sudo, or locked-down PHP-only panel?
  • Can you BYO DNS, or must you use theirs?
  • What happens at invoice default – grace period, hard suspension, or immediate wipe? (Documented, with the clause quoted.)

5. Support

  • We open one routine ticket (an inconsequential question) and one slightly hostile ticket (e.g. “why was my ticket closed without a fix?”)
  • We measure first-response time and time-to-resolve
  • We report the support channel: e-mail only, ticket system, chat, phone. Phone during Nordic business hours is worth points.

6. Trust signals

  • Independent audit date (SOC 2, ISO 27001, Schrems II data-residency certs when relevant)
  • Transparent status page with real post-mortems – not just “all systems operational” 24/7 forever
  • Ownership & jurisdiction (relevant if you host personal-data-heavy EU workloads)

7. Nordic-specific

  • .dk / .se / .no / .fi domain registration + price
  • Danish/Swedish/Norwegian/Finnish support language availability
  • GDPR data-residency commitments in writing

Grade

Each criterion is 0-5. Weighted average with these weights: price 20%, performance 20%, support 15%, control 15%, data centre 10%, trust 10%, Nordic 10%. A provider scoring below 3.0 isn’t recommended regardless of affiliate offer.

Re-verification

Top-10 reviews are re-verified every 90 days. If a provider changes pricing or ownership the review is re-scored and dated in the “Updated” field. We never ghost-edit old reviews.