Privacy policy

This Privacy Policy describes how Hosting Compass handles information collected when you visit the site.

Information we collect

Hosting Compass has no user accounts and no forms. Your browser keeps a few small preferences in its own storage: your analytics choice, the day or night chart if you switch it, and the latest latency results for 15 minutes. These stay in your browser and are not sent to us.

With your consent, Hosting Compass uses Google Analytics to understand which pages and tools are useful to readers. Nothing from Google loads until you press "Allow analytics" in the banner. If you allow it, Google Analytics sets its own cookies and receives the pages you view, your browser's IP address (which we ask Google to anonymise) and a few events: clicks on outbound links, and that a tool was used together with the options you picked. If you choose "No thanks", Google Analytics is not loaded at all.

The interactive tools on Hosting Compass run in your browser. Inputs you enter into the hosting finder (Stack Consultant), the cost check (Cost Cutter) or the other tools are processed there to generate a result and are not used to identify you personally.

Latency chart

The latency chart only measures when you press Measure. Your browser then sends small requests directly to public speed-test addresses run by Vultr, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Linode (Akamai) and Amazon Web Services, and times how long the answers take. Like any website you visit, those providers see your IP address, under their own privacy policies. The results are not sent to Hosting Compass. To place you on the chart, the page asks our server for your approximate location, which Cloudflare derives from your connection; it is answered on the spot and not stored.

Outbound links

Links to hosting providers go through hostingcompass.io/go/ followed by the provider's name. Our Cloudflare worker counts each click by day, provider, the page it came from and country, then forwards you. It does not store your IP address or set a cookie.

Hosting

The site is served by Cloudflare, which processes technical data such as IP addresses to deliver the pages and protect them from abuse.

Fonts and icons

Fonts and icons are served from hostingcompass.io itself. Your browser does not contact Google Fonts or any other font service.

Cookies

You can change your analytics choice at any time with the button on this page. If you withdraw consent, Google Analytics is no longer loaded from the next page you open.

Third parties

Some links on the site are affiliate links. When you click an affiliate link and visit a hosting provider, that provider may set its own cookies according to its own privacy policy.

Contact

For privacy-related questions, please use the contact page.