Hyperoptic vs Community Fibre broadband: two networks that undercut the national brands, and the protections you give up to take one
At almost every address this is not a choice. Hyperoptic sells in dense urban areas across 64 towns and cities and Community Fibre sells in London, so outside London only one of them is on offer, and inside London you need Hyperoptic to have wired your building. So the first thing to do is run the postcode, and the second is to notice what comes back. The useful comparison on this page is not between these two. It is between either of them and whatever national brand you are paying now, because on price, on upload speed and on what customers say, both of these win comfortably. Hyperoptic sells £17 a month for 527 Mbps down and 523 up, which is £10 a month less than Sky charges for 500 Mbps with 60 Mbps of upload. Community Fibre sells a symmetrical gigabit for £21, which is £6 a month less than that same Sky plan. Both are rated far above the national brands. Community Fibre scores 4.7 out of 5 and Hyperoptic 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot, against 4.2 for BT, 2.7 for Sky and 1.8 for Virgin Media. Then the part nobody prints: The trade is real and it is rarely spelled out. Both of these sell a faster, cheaper and better reviewed product than the national brands, and both sit outside some of the arrangements that protect a customer of those brands. Compare both against every other provider at your address at broadbandswitch.uk/compare/.
See every provider at your address, not only these two
One postcode, every provider we can switch you to, sorted by price with the lowest first. On this pairing the postcode does more than usual: both of these build their own fibre, so at most addresses it returns one of them, or neither.
IndependentLowest price firstLive, refreshed dailyPostcode only, nothing stored
Every number here carries the date it was checked, and here is where each one comes from. Hyperoptic's three published prices, their speeds, contract shapes and April increase were read from its own price plans page on 21 September 2026; its coverage and customer figures from its own press release of 24 July 2026, its ownership from its own audited accounts, and its charges from its own price guide. Community Fibre's site renders in the browser rather than in the page source, so its five prices, their promotional speeds, its published Wi-Fi figures and the sentence about its £12.50 tariff were read on screen from its own pages the same day. The speed code, the automatic compensation scheme, the complaints threshold and both social tariffs come from Ofcom; the independent premises count from Think Broadband; the company registrations from Companies House. The live comparison lower down is refreshed daily.
Which one to choose
Direct answer: Whichever one reaches you, and that is not a dodge: At almost every address this is not a choice. Hyperoptic sells in dense urban areas across 64 towns and cities and Community Fibre sells in London, so outside London only one of them is on offer, and inside London you need Hyperoptic to have wired your building. Where you do have a choice, Community Fibre currently gives you more speed for the money and Hyperoptic gives you the cheaper committed price and the only rolling monthly contract between them.
That is the answer to the question in the title. The more useful answer is to a question you probably did not ask. The useful comparison on this page is not between these two. It is between either of them and whatever national brand you are paying now, because on price, on upload speed and on what customers say, both of these win comfortably.
Cheapest committed price, and a way out
Choose Hyperoptic if you want the cheapest committed price or the only rolling monthly contract either of them sells, and if you would rather be inside Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme.
Most speed for the money in London
Choose Community Fibre if you are in London and you want the most speed for the money, the published Wi-Fi figures, or a £12.50 tariff that does not ask you to prove anything.
At most addresses this is not a choice
If neither reaches you, the question was never between these two, and the same money buys a great deal less on the Openreach line most of the country is on.
Before any of that, the thing this page will not let you skip. The trade is real and it is rarely spelled out. Both of these sell a faster, cheaper and better reviewed product than the national brands, and both sit outside some of the arrangements that protect a customer of those brands. That is not an argument against either of them and the evidence on how they treat people points the other way. It is a cost that does not appear on a price list, and you should know it is there.
Run your address through our comparison before you decide between two brands, read our full Hyperoptic review and our full Community Fibre review for either one on its own, and how we rank deals explains why we compare on the average across a term rather than on the headline.
Where each one actually sells, which decides most of this
Direct answer: At almost every address this is not a choice. Hyperoptic sells in dense urban areas across 64 towns and cities and Community Fibre sells in London, so outside London only one of them is on offer, and inside London you need Hyperoptic to have wired your building. Neither resells anybody else's line, so unlike every other comparison on this site there is no shared network underneath: if the fibre is not already in your street or your building, no amount of comparing helps.
Community Fibre puts the point plainly: “We don't just resell other people's cables. We own our infrastructure, which means we can guarantee the speed, reliability, and quality of your connection.” The same is true of Hyperoptic. It is the reason both can sell symmetrical speeds at prices the Openreach retailers cannot match, and it is also the reason the postcode decides more here than anywhere else in this series.
| Hyperoptic | Community Fibre | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose network | Its own fibre, built by Hyperoptic | Its own fibre, built by Community Fibre |
| Where it sells | We focus exclusively on high density urban areas and cover 64 towns and cities in the UK. | London, and thousands of residents in Surrey and West Sussex |
| What it says it has passed | two million homes and businesses | more than 1.3 million premises |
| What an independent count says | 1.4 million premises | Slightly higher than its own figure, not lower |
| Customers | more than 440,000 | 450,000 customers |
| Take-up of the homes it has passed | 31% of the homes it has passed, rising above 60% in its older buildings and above 70% in new builds | about 33% of the homes it has passed, with its earliest areas near 50% |
| Trading since | 2011 | 2010 |
The one row where the numbers do not agree
Hyperoptic says two million homes and businesses and an independent count says 1.4 million premises. The difference is a definition rather than a dispute: Hyperoptic counts homes and businesses its network has reached, and Think Broadband counts premises that meet its own ready-for-service test. We give both because a reader deciding where to live, or whether to wait for a build, is better served by the range than by either end of it. The same check on Community Fibre goes the other way: the independent count is a little higher than the company's own, so this is a fact about one provider rather than a general warning about altnets.
One correction to a belief you will find almost everywhere, including on the page this one replaces. Hyperoptic's own pages offer service to houses as well as flats, so the common description of it as an apartment-block provider is wrong: what it publishes is a focus on dense urban areas, not a rule about the kind of building. What is true is the geography: We focus exclusively on high density urban areas and cover 64 towns and cities in the UK. Hyperoptic also has a route to more addresses that does not involve digging: “Hyperoptic will continue to expand coverage through its wholesale agreement with Openreach.”
Our availability checker shows which networks reach a postcode, and the technology guide explains what each network type actually delivers.
What each one costs today
Direct answer: The two entry prices are identical at £19 a month, and for that Community Fibre currently sells more than twice the speed. In the middle Hyperoptic is £4 a month cheaper and Community Fibre is roughly twice the speed. At gigabit and above Community Fibre is £4 cheaper, and Hyperoptic's plan is the only rolling monthly contract either of them sells.
| Speed band | Hyperoptic | A month | Community Fibre | A month | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The entry tier | Hyperoptic 150Mb 159 Mbps down, 157 up 24 months | £19 | Community Fibre 300 Mbps 350 Mbps both ways 12 or 24 months | £19 | Level on price |
| Around 500 Mbps to 1 Gbps | Hyperoptic 500Mb 527 Mbps down, 523 up 24 months | £17 | Community Fibre 1 Gbps 1 Gbps both ways 12 or 24 months | £21 | Hyperoptic by £4 |
| Gigabit and above | Hyperoptic 1Gb 900 Mbps both ways Rolling monthly | £29 | Community Fibre 2 Gbps 2 Gbps both ways 12 or 24 months | £25 | Community Fibre by £4 |
Read the Community Fibre speeds with a date beside them
Community Fibre is not discounting the price. It is doubling the speed at the same price, so each tile shows the standard speed struck through and the promotional one beside it. Community Fibre's own wording: “Double speed flash sale. Offer ends 14.10.26.” After that date the speeds in the table halve and the prices stay where they are, so a reader arriving in November is looking at a different deal from the one above. Community Fibre prints the next April price on every tile, so its two-year cost can be read off the page. There is one oddity on its own site worth knowing while you are checking: Community Fibre's own comparison table still quotes one of its prices as £22.50 with the note that the offer ended on 16 September 2026, five days before we read it.
Two things sit outside that table. Community Fibre sells a top tier at 8.2 Gbps average both ways for £300 a month, which is the fastest residential broadband in London and irrelevant to almost everybody. And Hyperoptic's ladder has the same oddity TalkTalk's has: its 500Mb plan at £17 is cheaper than its 150Mb plan at £19, so the entry speed is not the entry price.
On what you pay to start and to stop, both are unusually clean. Neither charges to set up. Hyperoptic gives you 30 days to decide with no exit fees and, in its words, no hard feelings. Community Fibre's equivalent: “If within 30 days, you're not happy with your super-fast full fibre broadband, you can leave with no cancellation fees and no hard feelings.” Hyperoptic publishes a list of other charges that is worth a glance before you sign: £85 for an abortive repair visit or a cancelled install appointment, and £70 to replace a Hyperhub that is damaged, out of warranty or not returned. And its switching credit is a ceiling rather than a cheque: Hyperoptic's up to £300 is a ceiling rather than an amount, and its own terms tier it: up to £100 on 150Mb, £200 on 500Mb and £300 on 1Gb, with lower caps again for anyone paying under £25 a month.
Our price and contract checker totals any deal across its term, and our hand-checked deals table carries every figure with the date it was verified.
The comparison that actually matters
Direct answer: The useful comparison on this page is not between these two. It is between either of them and whatever national brand you are paying now, because on price, on upload speed and on what customers say, both of these win comfortably. Hyperoptic's 500Mb is £10 a month less than Sky's 500 Mbps plan and Community Fibre's symmetrical gigabit is £6 a month less than the same Sky plan, and the upload is where it stops being close.
The upload is where the gap stops being a matter of a few pounds. At around 500 Mbps Sky publishes 60 Mbps of upload and Hyperoptic publishes 523. Community Fibre publishes 1,000 on the plan that costs less than Sky's. If you have ever waited for a phone to back up, sent a large file to a colleague or been the person who freezes on a video call while everybody else is fine, the upload column is the one to read. It is also the column the national brands quote least often.
| Hyperoptic 500Mb | Community Fibre 1 Gbps | Sky Full Fibre 500 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A month | £17 | £21 | £27 |
| Average download | 527 Mbps | 1,000 Mbps | 500 Mbps |
| Average upload | 523 Mbps | 1,000 Mbps | 60 Mbps |
| Whose network | Its own fibre | Its own fibre | Openreach, shared with a dozen retailers |
| Annual increase | £4 each April | £3 each April | Not published in advance |
| Next April's price published? | No, only the rule | Yes, on every tile | No |
| Trustpilot | 4.6 out of 5 | 4.7 out of 5 | 2.7 out of 5 |
| Signed Ofcom's speed code | No | No | Yes |
| In the automatic compensation scheme | Yes | No | Yes |
The last two rows are the price of everything above them, and that is the honest shape of this page. The Trustpilot row is not a cost at all: it is the clearest evidence either of them has, and Hyperoptic puts its own version of it bluntly: “More 5-star Trustpilot reviews than BT, Sky and Virgin Media combined.” But Sky has signed the speed code that neither of these has, and a Sky customer who loses service gets paid automatically for every day it is out. A Community Fibre customer does not.
None of which changes the arithmetic. On these numbers a household on the Sky plan in that table, at an address either altnet reaches, is paying more for a slower connection with a fraction of the upload. That is the comparison worth making, and it is not the one the title of this page promised you.
Our cheapest deals ranks the whole market on the average across a term, and full fibre from every network covers the altnets we can switch you to.
What you give up for the price
Direct answer: The trade is real and it is rarely spelled out. Both of these sell a faster, cheaper and better reviewed product than the national brands, and both sit outside some of the arrangements that protect a customer of those brands. Neither has signed Ofcom's residential broadband speed code. Its signatories are BT, EE, NOW Broadband, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk, Utility Warehouse, Virgin Media and Zen Internet, and that list is every large retailer and no altnet. Hyperoptic is in Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme and Community Fibre is not.
| Hyperoptic | Community Fibre | The national brands | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signed Ofcom's residential speed code | No | No | Every large retailer has |
| A guaranteed minimum speed before you buy | Not published | Not published | Published by code signatories |
| In Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme | Yes, since 28 October 2019 | No | BT, EE, Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, Vodafone and others are |
| Appears in Ofcom's complaints table | No | No | The seven largest do |
| Alternative dispute resolution | Communications Ombudsman | Communications Ombudsman | Required of everybody |
| How long before you can escalate | Six weeks, or sooner with a deadlock letter | Six weeks, or sooner with a deadlock letter | The same |
| A month to change your mind | 30 days to decide | 30 days, with no cancellation fees | Fourteen days is the statutory minimum |
The automatic compensation row is the one with money attached. Under that scheme a provider pays a set amount for every day a fault is not fixed, for a missed appointment and for a late start, without the customer having to ask. A Hyperoptic customer is covered by that and a Community Fibre customer is not, which does not mean Community Fibre will not pay, only that nothing obliges it to pay without being asked. On a page where Community Fibre wins most of the other rows, this is the one to weigh against them.
The complaints row needs a caveat rather than a conclusion. Neither appears in Ofcom's complaints table. Ofcom's own methodology explains why: “from Q2 2014 onwards this report now generally includes complaints data for those providers which, for the service being reported, have a stable market share of 1.5% or more in relevant market” So neither is missing because it performs badly; both are missing because they are not big enough to be measured. What that costs you is the ability to check, before you buy, how often other people had to escalate. For the national brands you can look that up in a table. For these two you cannot.
The speed code row is the quietest and possibly the most useful. A signatory has to give you a guaranteed minimum speed at the point of sale and let you leave without a penalty if it cannot fix a shortfall. Neither of these has signed it, so neither owes you that. In practice a dedicated fibre line into the property is far less likely to underperform than a shared copper or part-fibre one, which is probably why both feel able to skip it. Both belong to the Communications Ombudsman, and on either you can escalate after six weeks or sooner with a deadlock letter.
Our guide to minimum guaranteed download speeds explains what a speed promise is worth, and how to complain covers the process if it goes wrong.
What customers say, and what nobody measures
Direct answer: Both are rated far above the national brands. Community Fibre scores 4.7 out of 5 and Hyperoptic 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot, against 4.2 for BT, 2.7 for Sky and 1.8 for Virgin Media. That is the only measure that covers all five of them, and it is the weakest kind of evidence, because people who write a review unprompted are rarely the ones who had a quiet year.
It is worth being straight about how thin the evidence is on these two. Neither appears in Ofcom's complaints table. Neither appears in Ofcom's service quality report either, which is where the call waiting times and complaint-handling scores on our other comparison pages come from. So the scoreboard that lets us tell you, on this site, that one national brand answers the telephone twice as fast as another simply does not exist for Hyperoptic or Community Fibre.
What does exist: both are rated well above every national brand by their own customers, and both have won awards. Community Fibre publishes over 99.9% of the time with no peak-time slowdowns and holds ISPA Best Consumer ISP 2025, a Which? Great Value Provider award for the second year running, and Opensignal's highest London rating for reliability experience. Hyperoptic's own timeline claims a Uswitch Broadband Provider of the Year award in 2023, a Which? Great Value recognition and a Best Telecoms Innovation award in 2025. Which? currently scores Hyperoptic slightly above Community Fibre, 77% against 72%, and names both as Great Value providers.
Our own reading of that is cautious. Two altnets with high Trustpilot scores and small customer bases are not directly comparable with a national brand carrying millions of accounts and decades of legacy copper, and a 4.7 from 95,000 reviews is a meaningful signal rather than a marketing line. But it is not the same kind of evidence as a regulator's complaints rate, and we would rather say so than let a good score stand in for a measure that is not there.
Our provider hub puts every company's scores side by side, and our speed test records what you are actually getting with a timestamp.
Who owns them
Direct answer: Both are owned by private investors, and neither has published anything about a sale. Companies House shows no change of ownership on either register in 2026.
Hyperoptic's own audited accounts record the position in one sentence: on 1 November 2019, KKR indirectly acquired a majority stake in the company's parent undertaking. Community Fibre's backers are Warburg Pincus and DTCP alongside pension and infrastructure investors, from the investors' own announcement of the deal. Both are therefore owned by funds rather than by a listed parent, which is ordinary for an altnet and is how the networks were paid for in the first place.
There is reporting about sale processes at both companies, it is widely repeated, and none of it appears on this page. No company or investor involved has confirmed any of it, and the registers say nothing: Companies House shows no change of beneficial ownership at either in 2026. If that changes it will show there first, and this page carries a review trigger to go back and look.
Why it matters enough to have a section at all: on a 24-month contract you are trusting a company to still be running your connection in two years, and on a network nobody else sells over you cannot simply pick a different retailer if the owner changes. That is a structural difference from the Openreach retailers, where a dozen companies sell the same line, and it applies equally to both of these.
Our guide to what happens to your contract when a provider is bought or sold covers the general case.
What else comes with each
Direct answer: Neither charges to set up and both include a router. Community Fibre sells television, calls and security alongside the broadband where Hyperoptic sells broadband and a phone line. Hyperoptic is the only one of the two with a rolling monthly option on a full-speed plan.
| Hyperoptic | Community Fibre | |
|---|---|---|
| Set-up | £0, and free installation on the social tariff | £0, on 12 and 24-month contracts |
| Contract shapes | 24 months, or rolling monthly on 1Gb | 12 or 24 months |
| Router | a Hyperhub router | a router included on every package, with a Wi-Fi 7 router on 1 Gbps and above |
| Whole-home Wi-Fi | Total Wi-Fi, which adds a Minihub mesh extender, at £7 a month | Included on its Premium tiers, with guaranteed whole home coverage |
| Published Wi-Fi speeds | Not published | Yes, on every package |
| Home phone | £3 a month | unlimited calls to UK landlines and mobiles for £12 a month |
| TV | Not sold | a 4K TV box from £12 a month, with live football, cinema and entertainment channels and more than 250,000 hours on demand |
| Security | Not included | Norton 360 Premium for £7 a month |
| Price after the term ends | The April increase continues | £4 more, then £3 each April |
| Leaving early | the monthly charges left in the minimum commitment period, less the costs Hyperoptic saves | the monthly charge multiplied by the months left in the minimum period, less 10% |
The published Wi-Fi row is worth more than it looks. Community Fibre publishes an expected Wi-Fi speed beside the wired speed on every package, which almost no other provider does: 350 Mbps on the entry tier, 500 to 750 on a gigabit and 800 to 1050 on 5 Gbps. Almost nobody does this, because the number is always lower than the line speed and it invites an awkward question. Community Fibre publishes it anyway, with its own caveat attached: “WiFI speeds can be significantly lower due to several factors” Since Wi-Fi is what you actually use, a provider that tells you what to expect over it is doing something useful.
The contract row is the clearest practical difference between them. Community Fibre offers 12 or 24 months. Hyperoptic offers 24 months on its two committed plans and rolling monthly on 1Gb, which is genuinely unusual at that speed and at that price, and it is the answer for anybody in a rented flat or unsure how long they are staying.
Our guide to exit fees and setup fees compares the cost at both ends of a contract, and switching broadband covers One Touch Switch from both ends.
Who should choose which
Direct answer: Hyperoptic on the committed price, on the rolling monthly option and on automatic compensation. Community Fibre on speed per pound, on the open social tariff and on television. The postcode decides more than either.
| If this is you | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Only one of them reaches you | That one | At almost every address this is not a choice. Hyperoptic sells in dense urban areas across 64 towns and cities and Community Fibre sells in London, so outside London only one of them is on offer, and inside London you need Hyperoptic to have wired your building. |
| You want the cheapest committed price | Hyperoptic | £17 a month, £4 below Community Fibre's nearest plan. |
| You want the most speed for the money | Community Fibre | A symmetrical gigabit for £21 while the promotion runs. |
| You do not want a long contract | Hyperoptic | Rolling monthly on 1Gb at £29, the only one between them. |
| You want to be paid automatically when it breaks | Hyperoptic | Hyperoptic is in Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme and Community Fibre is not. |
| You are on a qualifying benefit | Hyperoptic | £12 for 50 Mbps, £13 for 150 Mbps, £17 for 500 Mbps and £20 for 1 Gbps, which is far more speed than Essential for about the same money. |
| You are on a low income and not on benefits | Community Fibre | £12.50 with no eligibility test at all, which almost nothing else in the market offers. |
| You upload a lot | Either, over any national brand | The upload is where the gap stops being a matter of a few pounds. At around 500 Mbps Sky publishes 60 Mbps of upload and Hyperoptic publishes 523. Community Fibre publishes 1,000 on the plan that costs less than Sky's. |
| You want television from the same company | Community Fibre | a 4K TV box from £12 a month, with live football, cinema and entertainment channels and more than 250,000 hours on demand Hyperoptic does not sell television. |
| You want a published guaranteed speed | Neither | Neither has signed Ofcom's residential broadband speed code. Its signatories are BT, EE, NOW Broadband, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk, Utility Warehouse, Virgin Media and Zen Internet, and that list is every large retailer and no altnet. |
Rows six and seven are the pair worth pausing on, because they are the same household in two different circumstances and they give opposite answers. On a qualifying benefit, Hyperoptic sells four times the speed for pennies more. Off benefits and short of money, Hyperoptic has nothing at that price and Community Fibre has the cheapest broadband in the country with no questions asked. Run the postcode first, and if either of these comes back, compare it with what you are paying now rather than with the other one.
The third option this page would otherwise hide
Direct answer: On our own table of 340 deals from 29 providers, read on 1 October 2026, entry prices ran between £23 and £34 a month with a median of £28, and the cheapest was £13.50 a month for the first 12 months, then £18.00 (4th Utility, 150 Mbps on CityFibre).
This page has spent its length arguing that two altnets beat the national brands, so it should say clearly that they are not the only two. Several other companies have built their own fibre and sell it at similar prices, and at a given address the one that reaches you may be neither of these. The same is true in reverse: at most UK addresses neither of these arrives, and the realistic choice is between retailers on the Openreach line.
What the wider altnet market shares with these two is the trade this page has described. Most have not signed the speed code, many are not in the automatic compensation scheme, and almost none is large enough to appear in Ofcom's complaints table. The trade is real and it is rarely spelled out. Both of these sell a faster, cheaper and better reviewed product than the national brands, and both sit outside some of the arrangements that protect a customer of those brands. If that trade is not one you want to make, the national brands are where the published protections are, and you will pay for them.
Run the full comparison to see every provider at your address, or start from the cheapest deals, full fibre from every network or social tariffs.
Hyperoptic and Community Fibre deals at your postcode
See every provider at your address, not only these two
Both of these sell only on networks they built themselves, so at most addresses the useful list is the wider one. The full comparison shows every provider we can switch you to at your postcode, lowest price first, including full fibre from every other network, the cheapest deals and social tariffs.
Show every provider at my postcode →Hyperoptic vs Community Fibre: frequently asked questions
Is Hyperoptic or Community Fibre cheaper?
It depends on the tier and they are closer than the brochures suggest. The two entry prices are identical at £19 a month, and for that Community Fibre currently sells more than twice the speed. In the middle Hyperoptic is £4 a month cheaper, at £17 against £21, though Community Fibre's plan is currently about twice the speed. At gigabit and above Community Fibre is £4 cheaper, £25 against £29, but Hyperoptic's is the only rolling monthly contract either of them sells. Hyperoptic publishes its two committed prices as from prices and adds that prices vary by location, because it prices building by building.
Can I get both at my address?
Usually not. At almost every address this is not a choice. Hyperoptic sells in dense urban areas across 64 towns and cities and Community Fibre sells in London, so outside London only one of them is on offer, and inside London you need Hyperoptic to have wired your building. We focus exclusively on high density urban areas and cover 64 towns and cities in the UK. Community Fibre covers London, and thousands of residents in Surrey and West Sussex. One correction to a common belief: Hyperoptic's own pages offer service to houses as well as flats, so the common description of it as an apartment-block provider is wrong: what it publishes is a focus on dense urban areas, not a rule about the kind of building.
Are these really cheaper than BT, Sky or Virgin Media?
Yes, and the gap is wider than it looks because of the upload. The upload is where the gap stops being a matter of a few pounds. At around 500 Mbps Sky publishes 60 Mbps of upload and Hyperoptic publishes 523. Community Fibre publishes 1,000 on the plan that costs less than Sky's. £10 a month is £10 you keep, but the upload difference is the one you would notice on a video call or backing up a phone. The useful comparison on this page is not between these two. It is between either of them and whatever national brand you are paying now, because on price, on upload speed and on what customers say, both of these win comfortably.
Why is Community Fibre's speed double what it says on the package name?
Because of a promotion rather than a price cut. Community Fibre is not discounting the price. It is doubling the speed at the same price, so each tile shows the standard speed struck through and the promotional one beside it. Community Fibre marks it as: “Double speed flash sale. Offer ends 14.10.26.” If you are reading this after that date, the speeds in the table above will have halved and the prices will not have changed, so check the live block lower down.
Which has the better social tariff?
They are 50p apart and they are not the same kind of thing. Community Fibre's own words: “An ultra-low cost social tariff for £12.50 that is available to all with zero eligibility criteria and skills training to ensure everyone can get online.” Hyperoptic's is on Ofcom's list at £12 for 50 Mbps, £13 for 150 Mbps, £17 for 500 Mbps and £20 for 1 Gbps, and Hyperoptic checks eligibility against the Department for Work and Pensions. Five benefits can be claimed online and four others have to be claimed by telephone. For £0.50 a month more, Hyperoptic sells more than four times the speed. The catch is who may buy it: Hyperoptic's needs a qualifying benefit and a check against the Department for Work and Pensions, and Community Fibre's needs nothing at all. £12.50 is also the lowest price on Ofcom's entire social tariff list, so Community Fibre is selling the cheapest social tariff in the country to people who do not have to prove anything. One thing to know before you look for it: Essential is not on Community Fibre's own cheap broadband deals page. The cheapest package shown there is £19, and the £12.50 tariff appears on its About page, in its help centre and on Ofcom's list, so you have to already know it exists.
Do these providers have the same protections as BT or Sky?
No, and this is the part of the comparison nobody prints. Neither has signed Ofcom's residential broadband speed code. Its signatories are BT, EE, NOW Broadband, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk, Utility Warehouse, Virgin Media and Zen Internet, and that list is every large retailer and no altnet. Hyperoptic is in Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme and Community Fibre is not. Under that scheme a provider pays a set amount for every day a fault is not fixed, for a missed appointment and for a late start, without the customer having to ask. Neither appears in Ofcom's complaints table. Ofcom's own explanation is a size threshold: “from Q2 2014 onwards this report now generally includes complaints data for those providers which, for the service being reported, have a stable market share of 1.5% or more in relevant market” So absence from that table tells you nothing about how good either is, only that the measure does not reach them. Both belong to the Communications Ombudsman, and on either you can escalate after six weeks or sooner with a deadlock letter.
Which is more reliable?
Neither is measured by anybody independent in a way that lets us answer that properly, which is itself the answer. Neither appears in Ofcom's complaints table. What exists is each company's own claim and what customers volunteer. Both are rated far above the national brands. Community Fibre scores 4.7 out of 5 and Hyperoptic 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot, against 4.2 for BT, 2.7 for Sky and 1.8 for Virgin Media. Community Fibre publishes over 99.9% of the time with no peak-time slowdowns, and was given London's highest Opensignal rating for reliability experience. Hyperoptic claims: “More 5-star Trustpilot reviews than BT, Sky and Virgin Media combined.”
How many homes does each one actually reach?
Each publishes a figure, and for one of them an independent count differs. Hyperoptic says its network has passed two million homes and businesses. Think Broadband's count of premises ready for service puts it at 1.4 million premises. The difference is a definition rather than a dispute: Hyperoptic counts homes and businesses its network has reached, and Think Broadband counts premises that meet its own ready-for-service test. Community Fibre says its network passes more than 1.3 million premises, and the independent count for Community Fibre is slightly higher rather than lower, so this gap is specific to one of the two rather than a general altnet caveat.
What happens to the price after the first year?
Both raise it every April and both publish the amount, which is better than several national brands manage. Hyperoptic prints: “£4 increase every April. 24m commitment.” Community Fibre prints £3 a month and, unlike Hyperoptic, prints the resulting price on every tile: “At the end of your contract your price will increase by £4 versus your last month and £3 annually in April thereafter.” Community Fibre prints the next April price on every tile, so its two-year cost can be read off the page. One inconsistency worth knowing: Community Fibre's own help centre still gives a different figure. Its in-contract page says anyone who signed up from 5 November 2024 gets a £2 a month increase every April, while its out-of-contract page and every price tile say £3.
Is either of them being sold?
Both are owned by private investors, and neither has published anything about a sale. Companies House shows no change of ownership on either register in 2026. Reporting about sale processes at both companies exists and is widely repeated. None of it is confirmed by any company or investor involved, so none of it is on this page. What is on the register: Hyperoptic's own accounts say KKR acquired a majority stake in its parent company on 1 November 2019, and Community Fibre's backers include Warburg Pincus and DTCP alongside pension and infrastructure investors.
Can I leave either one easily?
Both give you a month to change your mind. Hyperoptic offers 30 days to decide with no exit fees. Community Fibre's wording: “If within 30 days, you're not happy with your super-fast full fibre broadband, you can leave with no cancellation fees and no hard feelings.” After that, Hyperoptic's 1Gb plan is rolling monthly so there is nothing to leave, and on the committed plans the monthly charges left in the minimum commitment period, less the costs Hyperoptic saves. Community Fibre charges the monthly charge multiplied by the months left in the minimum period, less 10%, and both need 30 days' notice.
What is the fastest either of them sells?
Community Fibre, by a distance, and it is the fastest residential broadband in London. It sells 8.2 Gbps average both ways for £300 a month on a 24-month contract, sold by telephone rather than online. Hyperoptic's top consumer tier is 1Gb. For almost every household this is irrelevant, and the tier worth looking at is the one in the middle.
In short
- At almost every address this is not a choice. Hyperoptic sells in dense urban areas across 64 towns and cities and Community Fibre sells in London, so outside London only one of them is on offer, and inside London you need Hyperoptic to have wired your building.
- The useful comparison on this page is not between these two. It is between either of them and whatever national brand you are paying now, because on price, on upload speed and on what customers say, both of these win comfortably.
- The upload is where the gap stops being a matter of a few pounds. At around 500 Mbps Sky publishes 60 Mbps of upload and Hyperoptic publishes 523. Community Fibre publishes 1,000 on the plan that costs less than Sky's.
- The two entry prices are identical at £19 a month, and for that Community Fibre currently sells more than twice the speed. In the middle Hyperoptic is £4 cheaper; at gigabit Community Fibre is £4 cheaper.
- Rolling monthly is the only rolling monthly broadband contract either of them publishes, on Hyperoptic's 1Gb plan.
- Community Fibre is not discounting the price. It is doubling the speed at the same price, so each tile shows the standard speed struck through and the promotional one beside it. Double speed flash sale. Offer ends 14.10.26.
- For £0.50 a month more, Hyperoptic sells more than four times the speed. The catch is who may buy it: Hyperoptic's needs a qualifying benefit and a check against the Department for Work and Pensions, and Community Fibre's needs nothing at all.
- £12.50 is also the lowest price on Ofcom's entire social tariff list, so Community Fibre is selling the cheapest social tariff in the country to people who do not have to prove anything. Essential is not on Community Fibre's own cheap broadband deals page. The cheapest package shown there is £19, and the £12.50 tariff appears on its About page, in its help centre and on Ofcom's list, so you have to already know it exists.
- Neither has signed Ofcom's residential broadband speed code. Its signatories are BT, EE, NOW Broadband, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk, Utility Warehouse, Virgin Media and Zen Internet, and that list is every large retailer and no altnet.
- Hyperoptic is in Ofcom's automatic compensation scheme and Community Fibre is not. Under that scheme a provider pays a set amount for every day a fault is not fixed, for a missed appointment and for a late start, without the customer having to ask.
- Neither appears in Ofcom's complaints table. That is a size threshold rather than a verdict.
- The trade is real and it is rarely spelled out. Both of these sell a faster, cheaper and better reviewed product than the national brands, and both sit outside some of the arrangements that protect a customer of those brands.
- Run the postcode first, and if either of these comes back, compare it with what you are paying now rather than with the other one.
Each line stands on its own and carries its date. Reviewed by a person at least quarterly, last on 21 September 2026.
References
- Hyperoptic
Hyperoptic. (2026). Home broadband price plans, the three published prices, their speeds, contract shapes and the April increase. hyperoptic.com
- Hyperoptic
Hyperoptic. (2026). Fair Fibre Plan, the social tariff, its prices, terms and qualifying benefits. hyperoptic.com
- Hyperoptic
Hyperoptic. (2026, July 24). Hyperoptic delivers strong growth as network reaches two million homes, the coverage, customer and take-up figures. hyperoptic.com
- Hyperoptic
Hyperoptic. (2025, September 29). Growth and network expansion in 2024, the sentence on expanding coverage through its Openreach wholesale agreement. hyperoptic.com
- Hyperoptic
Hyperoptic Limited. (2025, July 14). Report and financial statements, year ended 31 December 2024, the sentence recording KKR’s majority stake from 1 November 2019. hyperoptic.com
- Hyperoptic
Hyperoptic. (2026, July 9). Guide to charges and fees, the £85 and £70 charges and the rest of the price guide. hyperoptic.com
- Hyperoptic
Hyperoptic. (2026). Switching credit terms, the per-package caps behind the “up to £300” headline. hyperoptic.com
- Community Fibre
Community Fibre. (2026). Cheap broadband deals, the five published packages, their promotional speeds, future April prices and the sale end date. communityfibre.co.uk
- Community Fibre
Community Fibre. (2026). About us, the £12.50 tariff with zero eligibility criteria, the premises passed, customer numbers and founding year. communityfibre.co.uk
- Community Fibre
Community Fibre. (2026). 8.5 Gbps Full Fibre, the top tier, its price and its published average speed. communityfibre.co.uk
- Community Fibre
Community Fibre. (2026). What speeds should I be getting?, the wired and Wi-Fi speeds published for every package, including Essential. help.communityfibre.co.uk
- Community Fibre
Community Fibre. (2026). In-contract and out-of-contract price increase FAQs, the £2 and £3 figures that do not agree, and the Essentials exclusion. help.communityfibre.co.uk
- Ofcom
Ofcom. (2026, August 17). Social tariffs, the listed price and speed of Community Fibre Essential and of Hyperoptic’s four Fair Fibre tiers. ofcom.org.uk
- Ofcom
Ofcom. (2026, July 20). Automatic compensation, the member list that includes Hyperoptic and not Community Fibre. ofcom.org.uk
- Ofcom
Ofcom. (2025, July 16). Codes of practice on broadband speeds, the residential signatory list, which includes neither provider. ofcom.org.uk
- Ofcom
Ofcom. (2024, April). Methodology for telecoms and pay TV complaints, the 1.5% market share threshold that keeps both providers out of the complaints table. ofcom.org.uk
- Think Broadband
Think Broadband. (2026, August 3). Broadband report, July 2026, the independent premises-ready-for-service counts for the largest full fibre networks. thinkbroadband.com
- Companies House
Companies House. (2026). Hyperoptic Ltd 07222543 and Community Fibre Limited 07413288, filing histories and registers of persons with significant control. find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk
- BroadbandSwitch.uk
BroadbandSwitch.uk. (2026). Hyperoptic broadband deals, our own hand-checked tier prices and the date each was verified. broadbandswitch.uk
- BroadbandSwitch.uk
BroadbandSwitch.uk. (2026). Community Fibre broadband deals, our own hand-checked tier prices and the date each was verified. broadbandswitch.uk
- BroadbandSwitch.uk
BroadbandSwitch.uk. (2026). Broadband deals, checked by hand, the market median and range quoted here. broadbandswitch.uk
Ready to compare Hyperoptic and Community Fibre against everyone else at your address?
Both of these sell only where they have built, so at most addresses the useful list is the wider one. One postcode shows you every provider that can reach you, lowest price first, including Hyperoptic and Community Fibre themselves.
Compare at your postcode →
The £12.50 question, and who is allowed to ask it
Direct answer: Both run a cheap tariff and they are £0.50 a month apart, which makes them look like the same product. They are not. For £0.50 a month more, Hyperoptic sells more than four times the speed. The catch is who may buy it: Hyperoptic's needs a qualifying benefit and a check against the Department for Work and Pensions, and Community Fibre's needs nothing at all.
Community Fibre's own About page is unambiguous: “An ultra-low cost social tariff for £12.50 that is available to all with zero eligibility criteria and skills training to ensure everyone can get online.” £12.50 is also the lowest price on Ofcom's entire social tariff list, so Community Fibre is selling the cheapest social tariff in the country to people who do not have to prove anything. We have checked a lot of social tariffs on this site and we have not found another that is both the cheapest on Ofcom's list and open to anybody who wants it.
Read the third row and the fourth together, because the trade is in the pair of them. On a qualifying benefit, Hyperoptic is the better buy and it is not close: £12 for 50 Mbps, £13 for 150 Mbps, £17 for 500 Mbps and £20 for 1 Gbps, so for £0.50 more than Community Fibre's Essential you get more than four times the speed, and for £17 you get 500 Mbps. Off benefits, Hyperoptic will not sell you any of that and Community Fibre will sell you Essential without asking a question.
The last row is a criticism of Community Fibre and it should be said plainly. Essential is not on Community Fibre's own cheap broadband deals page. The cheapest package shown there is £19, and the £12.50 tariff appears on its About page, in its help centre and on Ofcom's list, so you have to already know it exists. A tariff that is genuinely open to everyone, and genuinely the cheapest in the country, ought to be on the page called cheap broadband deals. Community Fibre also says it has gone further than the tariff alone: Community Fibre also says it has partnered with the Department for Work and Pensions and selected Jobcentre Plus sites to give 1,000 eligible low-income households twelve months of free full fibre.
Our social tariff guide lists every provider's tariff with its price and who qualifies, and the cheapest deals covers the open market.