Tom Rigby is a freelance developer and hosting reviewer based in Austin, TX with 11 years of experience building production infrastructure for small businesses and startups. Furthermore, every hosting review on StackAdvisor reflects Tom’s direct deployment experience across shared hosting, managed WordPress, VPS, and cloud platforms. Because Tom has built infrastructure for 40+ startups since 2015, recommendations are grounded in real build decisions rather than theoretical comparisons. Moreover, Tom has personally migrated dozens of sites between hosting providers, giving him firsthand insight into support quality, downtime handling, and hidden renewal costs. In addition, every platform reviewed on StackAdvisor is tested under identical load conditions so benchmark scores are directly comparable. However, Tom is not affiliated with any hosting provider or SaaS vendor — commission rates never influence rankings. Therefore, when WP Engine or Kinsta appear at the top of a comparison, it is because they performed best in testing. For independent developer standards see Google Web Dev Performance Guide and W3C Web Standards.
Tom Rigby
Freelance Developer & Infrastructure Consultant — Austin, TX
Background
Tom Rigby has been building production infrastructure for startups and small businesses since 2015. Over 11 years of freelance work across Austin and remote clients, he has deployed and managed hosting stacks on shared servers, managed WordPress platforms, VPS environments, DigitalOcean droplets, AWS EC2, and Google Cloud.
The 40+ startups Tom has worked with range from early-stage MVP deployments to established businesses processing thousands of daily transactions. That breadth of experience means he has seen exactly where cheap hosting breaks under real load — and where premium platforms justify their cost.
StackAdvisor exists because Tom got tired of reading hosting reviews written by people who had never actually built anything on the platforms they were recommending. Every score on this site comes from a real deployment.
Platforms & Tools Tom Has Deployed In Production
Hosting
WP Engine
Kinsta
Cloudways
SiteGround
Bluehost
Hostinger
Cloud
AWS EC2
Google Cloud
DigitalOcean
Vultr
Linode
Hetzner
SaaS Tools
HubSpot
Monday.com
Asana
Notion
Zoho CRM
ClickUp
Stack
WordPress
Node.js
React
MySQL / Postgres
Nginx
Cloudflare
How Tom Tests Every Platform
No review goes live until the platform has been deployed and measured under the same conditions as every other platform in that category.
Deploy a standard WordPress install
Same theme, same plugins, same content on every host for a level playing field.
Benchmark TTFB at 50, 100, and 500 concurrent users
Load tested over 7 days — not a single measurement taken once and reported as fact.
Monitor uptime for 30 days minimum
Independent uptime monitoring — not self-reported numbers from the host.
Test support with real technical questions
Response time and quality logged across live chat and ticket support.
Record renewal pricing — not intro pricing
What you pay after year one is what gets reported. Intro discounts are noted but never used as the headline price.
Questions or Corrections?
If you spot outdated pricing or a platform that has changed significantly since Tom’s last test, reach out. Reviews are updated when platforms make meaningful changes.
Contact Tom →This site contains affiliate links. If you purchase through our links we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. All reviews reflect Tom Rigby’s honest opinion based on real testing. Full disclosure →