Hy.
When you are looking for a hosting company there are many factors to take in consideration and many times if you do your homework you could probably find cheaper and better company then the all the big brands in the business.
Beside the common things that you must look for like up time, features, script allowed etc the second thing that you must look for is witch clients do you target and try to find a hosting company that have the same location as your clients, geo location also have a role in the SEO part, not so important but it exist.
So when you say you look for an alternative or for a hosting company say what are you looking for exactly.
Second the hosting section in the marketplace is a good point to start a research.