Two decades of hosting experience
Over 20 years in web hosting, from building Hungary's second-largest domain registrar to creating a platform that does things the right way. Hostney is the result of everything I've learned.
14 days free. No credit card. No commitment.
Since 2003
In hosting, not adjacent to it
Same price
On renewal, every year
99.99%
Uptime, last 12 mo
Daily
Backups kept up to 30 days
210+
Tasks Ellie handles
The founder
A passion that started in 2003
Hostney was founded by Gabor Leszlauer - someone who's been living and breathing web hosting for over two decades.
I started my first web hosting company in 2003 in Europe. What began as a curiosity about Linux servers and web design quickly became a career. By 2012, that company had grown into Hungary's second-largest domain registrar. We served over 70,000 customers and managed everything from shared hosting to clustered high-availability systems.
After the company was acquired by an investor group, I relocated to the United States, where I currently serve as Director of Quality Control at Sequentur, a managed service provider. That role gives me a broad view of enterprise infrastructure, security, and what it takes to keep systems running reliably at scale.
But hosting never left me. I kept thinking about what a modern hosting platform should look like if you started with a blank page and made every decision based on what's actually best for the customer. Not what's cheapest to license, not what's easiest to resell - what's genuinely better.
That's how Hostney was born in 2019. Every account is isolated in its own Podman container, hardened so a process inside it cannot gain privileges or execute anything it uploaded. Behavioral bot detection scores every visitor across 20+ signals. There's an AI assistant that proposes the change you asked for and applies it once you confirm. And the pricing is honest - no fake “unlimited” plans where inodes quietly limit you, no hidden renewal fees, no bait-and-switch.
Hosting is not just my job. It's been my craft for over 20 years, and Hostney is the best version of everything I've learned along the way.
- Gabor Leszlauer, Founder
What we believe
Our values
Not statements on a wall. Each of these is a decision that costs us something.
Security is the baseline
Container isolation, behavioural bot protection, real-time malware scanning and daily backups. Not a premium tier - the same on the cheapest plan as the most expensive, because a tiered security product means selling somebody a knowingly weaker one.
Honesty over marketing
No "unlimited" plans that are quietly limited by inodes, no stock-photo testimonials, and no renewal price hidden in the small print. We would rather lose a sale than win one that ends in a complaint.
Simplicity through engineering
Making something simple to use is expensive to build. That cost belongs with us rather than with a customer spending an evening learning how hosting works.
Your feedback shapes it
Every feature request is read and every bug report is investigated by the people who wrote the thing. Several items on the roadmap below started as a ticket.
Roadmap
Shipped, and what is next
Kept honest in both directions - the things that landed are marked, and the things that have not are not dressed up.
Next up: bring your own server
WordPress staging
ShippedOne-click staging for WordPress. Test changes on a copy, then push what worked back to live.
SSR applications
ShippedNode.js, Next.js, Nuxt, Python and Ruby apps deployed from Git into containers. The foundation is done; more frameworks and controls are still coming.
Advanced security
ShippedExpanded WAF rules, threat intelligence feeding the scoring, datacenter and AI-crawler controls, and per-site rate limiting.
Granular access control
ShippedDelegate access by hosting account and by feature, view or edit - including view-only invoices for an accountant and the audit log for a security reviewer, with Ellie held to the same access. Single-site scope comes next.
Malware quarantine explorer
ShippedEvery quarantined file is on the malware report with what matched it. Download it as a password-protected zip (up to 25 MB) to inspect it, or restore it to where it was - with a note for the audit log, and no ticket to wait on.
Ellie improvements
In progressWider task coverage, better context, faster replies. Continuous rather than a release.
Free server manager
PlannedAdd a server you already own and let Hostney run it - the panel, containers, bot protection and Ellie on your hardware, at no licence cost.
Open API
PlannedA public REST API for accounts, domains and settings, so the platform is scriptable from outside the panel.
WordPress AI assistant
PlannedEllie inside WordPress itself, for content and site management without leaving wp-admin.
n8n integration
PlannedOne-click workflow automation running in a container of your own.
Try us for free
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14 days free. No credit card required. Container isolation, bot protection, daily backups and Ellie in every plan.
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