Community Fibre broadband vs Hyperoptic broadband

Community Fibre offers lower-priced full-fibre broadband, with symmetric speeds and low setup costs.

Hyperoptic, by contrast, offers similar speeds with more contract flexibility, including one-month rolling options.

Community Fibre suits those looking for the lowest monthly cost, while Hyperoptic suits those wanting more flexible contract terms.

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At a glance: Community Fibre vs Hyperoptic

Top picks: Community Fibre and Hyperoptic broadband deals

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Price

Winner: Community Fibre is cheaper than Hyperoptic across every speed tier, with lower monthly prices, no setup fee, and smaller annual increases.

Community Fibre starts at £17.99 per month for 150Mbps symmetrical speeds. Hyperoptic's entry price is £26 - more than Community Fibre charges for 500Mbps, and even 1Gbps.

Setup costs compound the difference. Community Fibre currently waives upfront fees entirely, while Hyperoptic charges £19 on every 12- and 24-month contract.

Here are the entry-level plans side by side:

The gap doesn't close further up the range either. Community Fibre's 500Mbps plan is £20 per month and their 1Gbps plan is £23, both with free setup. Hyperoptic's equivalent tiers cost £31 and £29 respectively - each with that same £19 activation fee on top.

Here's how the mid-range and gigabit plans compare:

At these speeds, both providers offer symmetrical uploads and a WiFi 6 router, so the specs are well-matched. The roughly £10 per month difference is purely about price, not what you're getting.

Neither provider offers an escape from annual price rises. Community Fibre's contracts include a £2 per month increase each April from 2027; Hyperoptic's rises are £4 per month from the same date. That's a meaningful difference over a two-year term - and it's worth factoring in when comparing headline monthly prices.

For anyone on a tight budget, Community Fibre's affordable tariff is open to any customer who needs it - £12.50 per month for 35Mbps average speeds. Hyperoptic also offer a social broadband tariff, but it's restricted to those on qualifying means-tested benefits and costs from just £12 per month for 50Mbps. Both of these plans keep costs low by removing annual price rises and come with free setup.

Community Fibre is cheaper at every tier, with no setup fee and the smaller annual rise. Unless Hyperoptic's flexibility elsewhere in the package matters to you, the numbers consistently point one way.

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Broadband packages

Winner: Hyperoptic offer more contract flexibility and a more accessible WiFi booster add-on, although Community Fibre are cheaper across the board.

Both providers run their own independent full fibre networks, include a WiFi 6 router as standard, and offer phone and WiFi booster add-ons alongside their broadband plans. Community Fibre offer 12-, 18-, and 24-month contracts; Hyperoptic match on 12 and 24 months and go further with a 30-day rolling option too. For two providers operating in a fairly similar space, the differences are more nuanced than they first appear.

Key differences at a glance:

• Hyperoptic offer 30-day rolling contracts on all plans; Community Fibre offer 12-, 18-, and 24-month terms only
• Hyperoptic's WiFi booster is available on any plan for £7 per month; Community Fibre's WiFi guarantee is only available on 1Gbps plans and above, from £32 per month
• Community Fibre include a TV option via Netgem; Hyperoptic offer no TV service
• Community Fibre lines can receive but not make international or premium rate calls; Hyperoptic offer international calls as a paid add-on

Here are both providers' plans side by side:

Community Fibre are cheaper at every equivalent speed tier, and offer symmetrical upload speeds across their entire range - including entry-level plans. Hyperoptic offer symmetrical uploads from their Superfast 150Mbps plan upwards.

Where Hyperoptic pull ahead is on add-on flexibility. Their WiFi booster is a simple £7 per month regardless of which plan you're on. Community Fibre's WiFi coverage guarantee promises 50Mbps in every room, but is only available bundled with 1Gbps plans and above, from £32 per month - so it's not an option for most of their customer base.

Phone plans follow a similar pattern. Hyperoptic charge £4 per month for evening and weekend calls, with anytime UK landline calls available for £7 per month and international calls available as a further add-on. Community Fibre charge £12 per month for anytime calls to UK landlines and mobiles - more expensive, and the line can only receive international calls, not make them.

Hyperoptic's 30-day rolling contracts are the clearest differentiator in this section. The flexibility comes at a cost - the Superfast plan rises from £26 to £37 per month, and the Hyperfast plan from £29 to £42 - but there's no minimum commitment and no early exit fees, with a £29-£39 activation fee to get started. Full details are on our Hyperoptic deals page.

Hyperoptic edge this round on flexibility, but for most customers on a standard fixed term, the add-on advantages are modest. Community Fibre's lower prices and wider contract length options make them the more practical choice for the majority.

Read more in our reviews of Hyperoptic broadband and Community Fibre broadband.

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Broadband speed

Winner: Community Fibre offer symmetrical upload speeds across their entire range and faster multi-gigabit options, although Hyperoptic's minimum speed guarantee is a meaningful consumer protection.

Community Fibre install a full fibre cable directly into each customer's home, a setup technically capable of up to 10Gbps in both directions. Hyperoptic have been moving towards the same standard, but many existing connections are still fibre to the building, with a short coaxial cable run for the final stretch into the home - similar to how Virgin Media's network operates.

In practice the speed difference is unlikely to be noticeable day-to-day, but the underlying technology does give Community Fibre more headroom as speeds increase over time.

Here are Community Fibre's average broadband speeds:

And Hyperoptic's:

Community Fibre's range covers more ground, with eight tiers from 75Mbps up to 5Gbps, including two multi-gigabit options at the top end. Every plan offers symmetrical uploads - so what you get downstream, you get upstream too.

That matters more than it used to. With video calls, cloud storage, and remote working now a routine part of home broadband use, upload speed is no longer an afterthought, and Community Fibre's approach means you're never trading one off against the other.

Hyperoptic offer symmetrical uploads from their Superfast 150Mbps plan upwards, which covers most of their customer base. Their 50Mbps plan delivers just 5.7Mbps upload - fine for light use, but a real limitation for households that rely on a stable upstream connection.

Minimum speed guarantee

Neither provider has signed Ofcom's voluntary code of conduct on broadband speeds, but Hyperoptic do offer something Community Fibre don't: a minimum guaranteed speed. If your speed falls below that threshold for three consecutive days and Hyperoptic can't resolve it within 30 days, you can leave your contract without penalty.

What makes it meaningful is that Hyperoptic set the guarantee at the advertised speed, not a softer fallback figure:

Most broadband providers set their minimum guarantee well below the headline rate, so there's usually a significant gap between what's promised and what you're actually protected against. Hyperoptic close that gap entirely.

For customers who want that contractual certainty - particularly on a faster plan where the cost of a persistent speed problem is higher - it's a genuine advantage.

Community Fibre's symmetrical speeds across all tiers give them the edge on paper, but Hyperoptic's minimum speed guarantee is the kind of protection that only becomes visible when something goes wrong - and that's exactly when it counts.

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Router

Winner: Community Fibre, whose router lineup has moved well ahead of Hyperoptic - particularly for customers on faster plans.

Hyperoptic provide all customers with the same router regardless of plan: the Zyxel EX3301 Hyperhub, a WiFi 6 dual-band device with four 1Gb ethernet ports and mesh support. It's a capable, consistent choice, and the move to a single router across all tiers simplified things considerably when it launched in 2024.

Community Fibre's router picture is more varied - and more interesting. Customers on entry-level 75Mbps plans receive a Linksys Velop WiFi 5 device, which lags behind. But from 100Mbps up to 1Gbps, the standard router is the Linksys WiFi 6 Intelligent Mesh - broadly comparable to what Hyperoptic provides.

Yet it's at the top of the range where Community Fibre pull clear.

Customers on the 2.5Gbps plan receive the Linksys M60 (SPNM60CF), a WiFi 7 dual-band router with 2.5Gb multi-gigabit LAN ports and Multi-Link Operation - a technology that lets devices connect across multiple bands simultaneously for faster, more stable wireless.

The 5Gbps plan goes further still with the Linksys M62 (SPNM62CF): WiFi 7 tri-band including the 6GHz band, plus 2x 10Gb and 2x 2.5Gb ethernet ports - properly specced to carry the full line speed over a wired connection.

The M62 has dedicated spatial streams on each of its three bands - 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz - rather than sharing capacity across them. In practice, that means a laptop streaming video, a games console online, and a phone on a video call can each occupy a separate band without competing for the same wireless resource. In a busy household, or in a flat where neighbouring networks add interference, that separation makes a meaningful difference to consistency.

Here's how the routers compare across the range:

For the majority of customers on mainstream plans, the routers are well-matched on the specs that matter day-to-day. Hyperoptic's Zyxel holds its own against Community Fibre's WiFi 6 Linksys - it has an extra ethernet port, and the consistency of a single device across all plans is a practical advantage when it comes to support and setup.

The gap opens up as speeds increase. Community Fibre's multi-gigabit routers are properly matched to the plans they come with: the M60's 2.5Gb ports suit the 2.3Gbps line speed, and the M62's 10Gb ports are what you need to actually realise 5Gbps over ethernet. Hyperoptic simply has no equivalent at this end of the market.

WiFi 7 is also worth understanding in context. Most current devices don't yet support it, so the headline upgrade is more relevant for future-proofing than immediate performance. What matters today is that both the M60 and M62 support Multi-Link Operation, which improves reliability and reduces congestion even on existing devices - particularly useful in flats and dense urban environments where interference is more of an issue.

Community Fibre's router range has moved on considerably, and for customers on faster plans, the hardware they receive is in a different class to anything Hyperoptic currently offers.

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Call plans

Winner: Hyperoptic offer cheaper home phone options than Community Fibre, although Community Fibre include mobile calls and voicemail by default.

Both providers offer an optional digital phone line delivered over the broadband connection - which means it relies on a mains power supply to work. Neither is a traditional landline, and both would go down in a power cut without a backup battery.

The way each provider structures their phone plans is quite different. Hyperoptic start at £4 per month for evening and weekend UK landline calls - evenings defined as before 7am and after 7pm Monday to Friday, plus all day at weekends. Customers who want more can layer on anytime UK landline calls for £7 per month, international calls for £5 per month, or a discounted mobile call plan for £3 per month. That last option reduces UK mobile call costs by 50%, but doesn't include them free at any price point.

Community Fibre take a simpler, all-in approach: £12 per month for unlimited anytime calls to UK landlines and mobiles. There's no cheaper entry tier, and no international calling - the line can receive international calls, but can't make them.

Here's how the plans compare:

On calling features, the two providers are now well-matched - both include caller display, call waiting, call forwarding, and call barring as standard. The meaningful differences come down to price, mobile calls, and voicemail. Community Fibre include voicemail by default and cover UK mobile calls in their single plan; Hyperoptic require a call to customer service to activate voicemail, and don't include mobile calls free at any tier.

Hyperoptic's tiered approach suits customers with straightforward needs - landline-only callers who want to keep costs down, or those who regularly call abroad. Community Fibre's plan suits households that want mobile calls included and voicemail ready to go, without managing multiple add-ons.

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TV

Winner: Community Fibre offer an optional TV service through Netgem; Hyperoptic offer nothing comparable.

Community Fibre have partnered with Netgem TV to offer a broadband-delivered TV service for £12 per month, delivered via a Netgem 4K TV box. It brings together live channels via the Freely platform, catch-up apps, and on-demand streaming services in one place.

The box supports over 200 live channels - UK broadcast channels via Freely plus more than 150 additional live channels - alongside major streaming apps including Netflix, Prime Video, NOW, Disney+, Discovery+ and Apple TV+. These apps are available via the Google Play Store, though subscriptions must be paid for separately; nothing beyond the base Netgem service is bundled in.

It's worth being clear about what Netgem is and isn't. It sits between a basic Freeview setup and a full pay-TV service like Sky or Virgin Media - broader than the former, but without the premium sports, bundled subscriptions, or recording functionality of the latter. For households that mainly watch free-to-air TV and want a tidy hub for their streaming apps, it does the job well enough. For anyone who wants more, Sky Stream is worth considering - it works with any broadband provider, requires no satellite dish, and starts from £15 per month with Netflix and Sky Atlantic included.

Hyperoptic offer no TV service of their own and have no current partnership deals with TV providers.

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Customer service

Winner: Community Fibre edges ahead on Trustpilot, though both providers are rated well above the industry average.

Neither Hyperoptic nor Community Fibre feature in independent customer service reports due to their size, but both are among the highest-rated broadband providers on Trustpilot - a meaningful contrast to the poor scores of most major ISPs.

Community Fibre currently holds a TrustScore of 4.7 from over 83,000 reviews, with 90% of customers rating them Excellent. Hyperoptic sits at 4.6 from around 49,000 reviews, with 85% rating them Excellent. Both scores are well above what you'd see from Sky, Virgin Media or BT, and reflect two providers with a genuine track record of resolving issues quickly. In Which?'s most recent broadband survey, Hyperoptic ranked second out of 12 providers, with Community Fibre third.

On industry recognition, Community Fibre won Best Consumer ISP at the ISPA Awards in 2023 and took home Best Community Engagement at the 2025 ceremony. Hyperoptic's founder Dana Tobak was awarded the ISPA 25th Anniversary Award in 2023 in recognition of her contribution to the UK broadband industry.

Community Fibre also operate UK-based call centres, while Hyperoptic's customer support is understood to be handled from Serbia. For customers who prefer to speak to someone based in the UK, that distinction is worth knowing. Find out more about which UK broadband providers have UK call centres.

The gap between the two is small, and either provider is likely to leave you better served than most of the major names. Community Fibre edges it on Trustpilot score, review volume, and call centre location.

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Verdict: Hyperoptic or Community Fibre?

Overall winner: Community Fibre is cheaper, has a wider router range, and edges ahead on customer service - but Hyperoptic is a strong alternative, particularly for those who want flexible contracts.

Londoners who can access either of these providers are well served. Both run independent full fibre networks, include a WiFi 6 router as standard, offer phone add-ons, and have Trustpilot scores that put the major ISPs to shame.

Both providers offer:

• Full fibre broadband with symmetrical speeds on faster plans
• 12- and 24-month contract options
• Optional phone add-ons with a range of call plans
• WiFi 6 routers as standard, with Community Fibre offering WiFi 7 on multi-gigabit plans

Community Fibre edge ahead on a number of fronts:

• Cheaper prices across every equivalent speed tier
• Symmetrical uploads on all plans, including entry-level
• No setup fee on any plan
• Smaller annual price rise (£2/month vs £4/month from April 2027)
• An optional Netgem TV add-on with access to Netflix, Prime Video, NOW and Disney+
• Marginally higher Trustpilot score and UK-based call centres

Hyperoptic have their own strengths that will suit some customers more:

• 30-day rolling contracts available on all plans, with no minimum commitment
• WiFi booster available on any plan for £7 per month
• International calls available as a phone add-on
• A minimum speed guarantee set at the advertised rate - something Community Fibre don't offer

The decision is likely to come down to priorities. If price and value are the main concern, Community Fibre win comfortably. If flexibility matters more - whether that's a rolling contract, a booster on a standard plan, or the assurance of a speed guarantee - Hyperoptic make a compelling case.

Read more on how Community Fibre compares with Virgin Media, and also up against Sky in these head to head guides. Meanwhile, you can compare Hyperoptic vs Virgin Media too.