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Methodology
Every score on this site comes from the same structured research process, built on each provider’s published data and our own independent analysis. No vendor sees the review before it’s published, and no one can buy a better ranking. Here’s exactly how it works.
We collect each provider’s published specifications, pricing, plans and data-centre locations from primary sources.
We compare advertised latency and data-centre proximity to the major broker hubs (LD4 London, NY4 New York, FR2 Frankfurt).
We weigh published uptime SLAs, infrastructure quality and each provider’s track record and reputation across the trading community.
We combine five weighted categories into one 1–10 score, write the verdict, then re-check the data the following quarter.
A VPS isn’t just about speed. A blisteringly fast server that falls over every fortnight, or one with support that never answers, is no use to a trader. So we weight five categories and roll them into a single number.
The single most important factor. We assess advertised round-trip latency, data-centre proximity to broker hubs, single-thread CPU performance (which matters most for Expert Advisors) and the hardware spec — RAM, storage type and CPU — on offer.
We weigh the published uptime SLA against the provider’s infrastructure, redundancy and real-world reputation. A headline “99.99%” counts for more when it’s backed by an established track record.
What you get for the money — not just the headline figure. We look at the real renewal price, what’s bundled (trade copier, backups, extra IPs), trial terms and the refund window.
More data centres near major brokers means lower latency for more traders. We reward genuine presence in Tier-1 financial hubs over a long list of generic cloud regions.
We assess the support channels offered, response expectations and how painful (or painless) it is to get MetaTrader running. Pre-installed platforms and one-click setup score well here.
One number, fully traceable. If you ever want to know why a provider scored what it did, the verdict on each review page breaks the rating down category by category.
Hardware gets refreshed, prices change and data centres open and close. We re-check the data each quarter and date-stamp every review so you can see how fresh it is. Spotted something that looks out of date? Tell us and we’ll re-check it.