Web Hosting News & Industry Updates
Breaking news, M&A deals, pricing moves, security alerts and in-depth analysis for the web hosting industry — 812 articles across 14 categories.
✦ Featured
Software reviews
A Vercel for Africa? HOSTAFRICA’s HCode Runs in South Africa
HOSTAFRICA launched HCode on November 5 as its answer to platforms like Vercel, with prices in local currencies across six African countries. The apps run in South Africa. HCode, a rebranded version of the Zanode platform HOSTAFRICA bought in May, starts at R50, or about $3, a month.
Monarx Reviewed 65 Hosts: 10 of 12 Large Hosting Brands Sell Website Security Add-Ons
Partners #cybersecurity#monarx
Monarx's review of 65 hosting providers finds 37 including advanced website protection at no extra cost, 31 selling a separate security product and 18 doing both. Mass-market brands lean toward add-ons, while managed WordPress hosts mostly build protection into the plan.
Who Owns Europe’s Largest Hosting Markets: IONOS Controls the Leader in Germany, Poland and Spain
Industry reports #domains#europe
The four largest Swiss-owned hosts hold 39.8% of .ch domains, while the UK has one British-owned operator among its eight largest. We matched the leading operators in Europe's eight largest domain markets with their owners, and IONOS owns the leader in three of them.
DreamHost Confirms File Manager Breach. FTP/SFTP and Some Webmail Credentials Were Exposed
Security #cybersecurity#dreamhost
A security breach prompted DreamHost's October 23 File Manager shutdown and password resets. An attacker exploited third-party software behind the tool and could access FTP/SFTP credentials of users who signed in, plus some webmail logins. Well under 10% of email and FTP/SFTP accounts were affected.
All articles
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Interviews
10,000 Sites Flagged in Weeks: Patchstack and Hostinger on npm Scanning by Default
A month after Hostinger enabled Patchstack's npm scanning by default, the first numbers are in: vulnerable dependencies on more than 10,000 sites. In a dual Q&A, both companies talk auto-fixes, the limits of scanning, and whether hosts will patch dependencies for everyone.
Industry reports
Running a Domain Costs About a Dollar a Year. Here Is What Eight Registries Charge for It.
We compiled the published accounts of eight domain registries. Three independent data points put the cost of operating a domain-year at about a dollar; wholesale prices run from €1 for .de to $11 for .org after its first increase since 2016. Governance, not technology, sets the price.
Industry reports
Hosting’s Next Six Months Are Already Scheduled: Five Dates to Prepare For
September 11 puts vendor silence on a 24-hour clock. Autumn opens the licensing season under a new ownership alignment. Q3 closes the Sedo window. November 1 raises .com to $10.97. January 12 kills egress fees. What prepared operators do before each date.
Software reviews
Blesta 6.0: A Rebuilt Admin, an AI Ticket Autopilot and Native MRR Analytics
Blesta calls 6.0 the biggest release in its history: the Paradigm admin rebuild, an AI layer that answers tickets on a confidence threshold you set, MRR and churn computed natively, and cryptographically signed upgrades. Licenses are $17.95 and $20.95 a month
Industry reports
Montenegro Is Taking .me Back: A State Company Will Run the Million-Domain ccTLD
.me earned 114 million euros since 2008 and the state kept about a third. Montenegro has now started building a state company to take over its ccTLD from GoDaddy and Identity Digital, in the name of digital sovereignty and a bigger share of the money.
Interviews
When 64GB of RAM Costs €3,000: The Shortage Behind Hostinger’s Biggest Server Order
Server costs up 5-6x, components up to 8x, lead times at 30 weeks: Hostinger explains its largest hardware order in our Q&A. COO Aivaras Šimkus on €3,000 RAM, scaling from 5 to 7 million customers, and why certainty is now the main advantage.
M&A
Estonia’s Zone Joins Your.Online, a Roll-Up Now More Than 60 Deals Deep
Your.Online has added Estonia's Zone to a portfolio of 35 brands built through more than 60 acquisitions. The pattern in that list matters: the group already owns Gandi, Blacknight, Heart Internet and o2switch, and is now buying the operators each country names first.
Industry reports
A DNS Record Now Flags Domains for Sale. Adoption Is Up to Registrars.
RFC 10023 defines a "_for-sale" DNS record so a domain owner can advertise a name directly, price and contact included. SIDN built it to loosen the secondary market's grip, but it only works if registrars put the button in front of customers.
Security
N-able’s First Patch Left the Door Open, and Attackers Walked Back Through It
A second CVE in N-able N-central exists because the first patch was incomplete, and it is being exploited to take over MSP consoles and reach every machine they manage. The August 2 hotfix closes the way in, but no vendor statement says it removes the attackers' persistence.
Industry reports
$227,000 to Apply for a New Domain Ending: The First ICANN Round Since 2012 Closes August 12
ICANN's first new gTLD window since 2012 closes August 12: $227,000 per application, country names banned outright, cities needing government letters. Bali wants .bali, and ICANN 87 lands on the island in October, where the bid is due to be announced.
Industry reports
GoDaddy Q2 2026: More Revenue From the Same Customers
GoDaddy's Q2 2026: revenue up 6.6%, EPS up 30%, customers up by just 22,000. ARPU, upsell and an $851.8 million buyback are doing the work, and the segment split shows domains and hosting growing slowest of all.
M&A
Infomaniak Goes Public Without Losing Control
The Swiss host is listing on the SIX Swiss Exchange by reversing into Perrot Duval, a company listed since 1905, to fund sovereign-cloud data centres. The twist: its foundation keeps majority voting rights, so Infomaniak reaches the market while writing permanent independence into its structure.
Expert's Voice
The Hosting Price Squeeze, Part 3: The Playbook
In the final part of the series, BrandForge CEO Michiel Grotenhuis turns to the practical question: what do you actually do about rising hosting costs? He borrows from streaming, SaaS, and retail, shares what the community is doing, and argues for reducing dependence on any single vendor.
Security
Two of cPanel’s Three New Flaws Cross the Line Between Accounts
cPanel patched three vulnerabilities on July 29, across every supported branch. Two matter most on shared servers: an unauthenticated request-smuggling bug that can alter other users' responses, and a database flaw that lets an ordinary account reach admin rights and possibly the host itself.
Pricing updates
The Renewal Multiplier Index: What Hosting Costs After the Intro Price
First edition of our quarterly index, measured July 29: SiteGround renews at up to 5.3x, the price-lock club at 1.0x, and GoDaddy, HostGator, and Namecheap mid-band at 1.7–3.7x. At every provider with a full plan range, the entry plan renews at a higher multiple than the top plan.
Security
A Model Found the Artifactory Zero-Day; Only Self-Hosted Users Had to Patch
During a controlled OpenAI evaluation, a model found a real zero-day in self-hosted Artifactory, escaped its sandbox, and broke into Hugging Face to steal its own benchmark answers. For anyone running a registry, the real exposure is the gap between managed and self-hosted patching.
Pricing updates
Leaseweb’s VPS Increase Falls Hardest on the Cheapest Plans
Leaseweb raises VPS prices on August 1, but not evenly: the cheapest US plan nearly doubles while premium tiers rise far less and some mid-range plans hold. It is less a broad memory tax than a deliberate reset of its cheapest plans, and it lands hardest on the price-sensitive buyers who chose cheap in the first place.
M&A
Thirty Deals in Six Months: The H1 2026 Hosting Consolidation Map, and the Two Clocks Driving What Sells Next
H1 2026 produced a US$1B Polish hosting-commerce merger, a $450M registrar champion, serial buyers closing two deals apiece within a fortnight, and a $40B data-centre record, while Google's AdSense shutdown forced Sedo and Team Internet to market. The map, the multiples, and the debt walls pushed to 2028-2029.
Security
Freenom Is Back, and No Longer Free. The Free-Domain Registry Behind Years of Phishing.
Freenom gave away millions of domains and became the internet's biggest source of phishing, until Meta sued and it promised to quit. Now, per Domain Incite, it is back, running .tk, .cf and .gq again from €8.22 a year. What changed is what fueled the abuse: the domains are no longer free.
Industry reports
Parked Domains Lost Their Ad Engine. What Replaced It Is Drawing Scrutiny.
For a decade, parked domains earned money showing Google ads. On February 10, 2026, Google ended AdSense for Domains and the parking economy collapsed: Bodis closed, Sedo's revenue fell 66%, Team Internet's search revenue fell 63%. The traffic moved to zero-click redirects ICANN is now examining.