# HostDir

> An independent reference for web infrastructure: hosting providers, data centers, domain extensions, free network utilities, and a daily news desk covering hosting, cloud, security, and the wider internet.

HostDir is structured around four reference directories plus a newsroom. Every page has a stable URL, a canonical link, a publication date, and (for editorial content) an attributed author. The site is run independently. There are no paid placements in the editorial feed and no affiliate commissions in the rankings.

Editorial articles and reference data on HostDir are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). You may quote, summarise, and republish content provided you link back to the original page on hostdir.net.

Full citation and machine-access guidelines: <https://hostdir.net/for-agents>

## Reference directories

- [Hosting providers](https://hostdir.net/providers): Verified hosting companies with profiles, pricing, categories, and user reviews. Covers shared, VPS, dedicated, cloud, managed, reseller, WordPress, email, and colocation hosting.
- [Top providers](https://hostdir.net/top-hosting-providers): Ranked by Bayesian-adjusted user ratings.
- [Data centers](https://hostdir.net/datacenters): Carrier-neutral and operator facilities sourced from PeeringDB. Each facility lists carriers, exchanges, and operator metadata.
- [Domain extensions](https://hostdir.net/domain-extensions): Every TLD in the IANA root zone, with registry, sponsoring organisation, type (gTLD, ccTLD, sTLD), and history.
- [Hosting tools directory](https://hostdir.net/toolkit): Third-party hosting tools and software with user reviews.

## Free network utilities

- [DNS lookup](https://hostdir.net/tools/dns): A, AAAA, MX, NS, TXT, CNAME records.
- [WHOIS lookup](https://hostdir.net/tools/whois): Domain registration data.
- [SSL inspector](https://hostdir.net/tools/ssl): Certificate chain, expiry, issuer.
- [HTTP headers](https://hostdir.net/tools/headers): Response headers and redirects.
- [Security headers](https://hostdir.net/tools/secheaders): CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options grading.
- [IP lookup](https://hostdir.net/tools/ip): Geolocation, ASN, reverse DNS.
- [Reverse IP](https://hostdir.net/tools/reverse): Sites sharing an IP address.
- [ASN lookup](https://hostdir.net/tools/asn): Autonomous System details, announced prefixes.
- [Subnet calculator](https://hostdir.net/tools/subnet): IPv4/IPv6 subnet maths.
- [Ping](https://hostdir.net/tools/ping): Reachability and latency.
- [DNS propagation](https://hostdir.net/tools/propagation): Resolver consistency worldwide.
- [Email deliverability](https://hostdir.net/tools/email): SPF, DKIM, DMARC checks.
- [HTTP protocol inspector](https://hostdir.net/tools/protocols): Negotiated TLS, HTTP version, ALPN.
- [Availability monitor](https://hostdir.net/tools/availability): Multi-region reachability check.
- [Punycode converter](https://hostdir.net/tools/punycode): IDN to ASCII and back.
- [Robots.txt tester](https://hostdir.net/tools/robots): Rule evaluation against a path and user-agent.
- [Fingerprint generator](https://hostdir.net/tools/fingerprint): SSH key fingerprints.
- [CDN finder](https://hostdir.net/tools/cdn): Detect Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, etc. fronting a domain.
- [Subdomain finder](https://hostdir.net/tools/subdomains): CT-log derived subdomains for a domain.

## Newsroom

- [News desk](https://hostdir.net/blog): Daily fact-checked reporting on hosting, cloud, data centers, domains, and security. Articles pool multiple primary sources and link back to each.
- [News RSS feed](https://hostdir.net/news.xml): Atom feed of published articles.

## Machine endpoints

- [For agents page](https://hostdir.net/for-agents): Citation policy, license, WebMCP + MCP details, and complete endpoint inventory.
- [WebMCP tools script](https://hostdir.net/assets/webmcp.js): Every page registers HostDir's directory as an in-page WebMCP server (`document.modelContext.registerTool`) for browser agents. Tools: search-providers, get-provider, search-datacenters, get-datacenter, search-domain-extensions, get-domain-extension, recent-news, get-article, hostdir-llms-txt. All read-only.
- [Sitemap](https://hostdir.net/sitemap.xml): Full URL index.
- [Provider JSON](https://hostdir.net/data/providers/{slug}.json): Structured provider record.
- [Datacenter JSON](https://hostdir.net/data/datacenters/{slug}.json): Structured facility record.
- [TLD JSON](https://hostdir.net/data/domain-extensions/{slug}.json): Structured TLD record.
- [Article JSON](https://hostdir.net/data/blog/{slug}.json): Structured news article with sources and fact-checks.

## Optional

- [About](https://hostdir.net/about): Editorial mission and methodology.
- [Forum](https://hostdir.net/forum): Community discussion.
- [Contact](https://hostdir.net/contact): Editorial and data correction requests.