History of Fasthosts
Catch up with where we've been, and where we're going
1998 – Fasthosts established
When 17 year old Andrew Michael couldn't find a suitable, cost-effective and reliable hosting service to support his A-level IT project, he decided to create his own - and Fasthosts was born.
2000 – Gloucester HQ
We opened our corporate HQ in Gloucester Quays, providing the ideal base of operations for our expanding team in the appealing surroundings of South West England.
2001 – Our own data centre
Our first purpose-built data centre was completed in Gloucester, guaranteeing the high performance and reliability of our services for customers in the UK, and allowing us to launch dedicated server solutions.
2002 – Growing in the UK
Techtrack 100 ranked Fasthosts as the 2nd fastest growing technology company in the UK, highlighting our rapid development and continued innovation. This was the year we began providing multi-platform web hosting.
2003 – Growing in Europe
Fasthosts was ranked Europe's 10th fastest growing technology company by Deloitte & Touche. This year we also launched multi-server, load balanced hosting architecture, and were the first to support Microsoft's .NET Framework 1.1 in the UK.
2004 – Another cutting edge data centre
We completed our second state-of-the-art UK data centre. We were also ranked the world's top Windows 2003 web host by internet research specialists Netcraft, and Fasthosts business-class email services were rated 4.5 out of 5 by the Independent.
2005 – Revolutionary servers
The revolutionary Fasthosts Dedicated Server range was launched, delivering ultimate performance and reliability for customers on their own hardware. This year we were also ranked in the top 50 UK companies by the award-winning Business XL magazine.
2006 – Part of an international group
Fasthosts was acquired by United Internet, one of the world's largest hosting groups, further strengthening its market-leading position. In 2006 we were also awarded a place on PC Plus magazine's 'Hotlist' for our dedicated servers.
2009 – Cloud services launch
We launched our first cloud services and our Virtual Server range, representing Europe's largest Hyper-V deployment. This was also the year Fasthosts became a Microsoft Certified Partner.
2010 – Industry recognition
Fasthosts received prestigious recognition from Microsoft in 2010, winning Hyper-V Cloud Provider of the Year UK, and also becoming a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.
2011 – Hosting Partner of the Year
In another year of huge achievement, Fasthosts won Microsoft Hosting Partner of the Year and Computer Shopper Best Web Host (and again in 2013–2014), while also becoming a Microsoft Small Business Specialist.
2012 – 10 million domains registered
This year saw the major landmark of our 10 millionth domain registration. Fasthosts continues to offer a full range of classic and new top-level domain names to choose from.
2013 – Building on customer experience
In recognition of our commitment to providing the best possible service and ongoing support for our customers, we received accreditation from the Institute of Customer Service.
2014 – Industry-leading cloud launch
Fasthosts achieved a global first, with our innovative Cloud Server platform combining the very latest Microsoft and Dell technologies.
2015 – Clustered web hosting
Reflecting our expertise and the quality of our domain name registration services, we became a Nominet accredited registrar. We also launched our new, revolutionary clustered web hosting platform.
2016 – CloudNX platform
Fasthosts launched CloudNX, our next-generation cloud servers that scale on demand, with highly flexible pay-as-you-use pricing and a full range of enterprise features.
2017 - Managed Cloud Hosting
CloudNX was expanded with the launch of Managed Stacks and Applications – bringing the scalability and flexibility of cloud hosting to CMS applications like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.
2018 – Bare Metal Servers launch
In releasing our new range of Bare Metal Servers, Fasthosts now offered the power and performance of Dedicated Servers with a flexible billing model and the latest SSD storage technology.
2019 – UK-first for Microsoft Exchange
As well as celebrating our 20th anniversary year, Fasthosts also became the first UK provider of Microsoft Exchange 2019 email.