The default starting point for most publishers, AdSense offers unmatched fill rates and brand-safe advertisers. RPMs are modest at low traffic volumes, but reliability and ease of approval make it the consensus first choice.
Adsense is by far the best. I have tried numerous programs over the year but revenue is nothing like Adsense.
At 8k traffic, adsense is rough honestly. The CPMs are terrible at that volume... For monetization right now - affiliate links on relevant product posts will probably earn more than any ad network at 8k.
Mediavine is the premium network publishers aspire to, with RPMs that dwarf AdSense once you hit traffic thresholds. Journey by Mediavine now accepts sites from 1k sessions, making it accessible to smaller blogs while offering a clear upgrade path.
Monumetric accepts publishers at 10k+ pageviews and pays meaningfully better than AdSense, with a low $10 minimum payout that ensures monthly payments even at modest traffic. Community consensus rates it above Ezoic for small publishers.
PropellerAds accepts small sites with no meaningful traffic minimum and supports reward-based ad models, pop-unders, push notifications, and native ads. It's the go-to recommendation for publishers who can't get into mainstream networks.
Media.net is Yahoo/Bing's contextual ad network and performs especially well for English-language content targeting tier 1 audiences. It's a strong AdSense complement or alternative for publishers with US/UK/CA traffic.