As the business of cloud hosting continues to grow, so too does the demand for top-tier providers. To find the best cloud hosting services for your business, you need to do your research. You need to know what features and services are available, and you need to compare prices and provider characteristics in order to make an informed decision. Here’s a look at some key points about cloud hosters: Pros: Cloud hosts come in all shapes and sizes, so there’s a great chance that one will fit your needs perfectly.
Cons: Some cloud hosters chargeeer high fees for features they don’t offer (e.g., deduplication).
Solutions: There are many different types of cloud Hosting Plansavailable, so it can be hard to decide which one is right for you. Consider looking into features such as deduplication, bandwidth caps, storage limits, and email plans before making a purchase.
What is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud Hosting is a service that uses the internet to host your data. Cloud Hosting providers can provide a variety of services, including web hosting, email hosting, and storage. Cloud Hosting can be a good option for small businesses that want to save time and money. Additionally, Cloud Hosting can be good for you if you want to save time on your internet usage and want to keep your data safe.
Cloud Hosting Pros
Cloud hosting is a great way for small businesses to save time and money. For example, if your business is only using a limited number of websites, cloud hosting can be an excellent option. By using cloud hosting, you can save on data costs and have more bandwidth available when needed.
Cloud Hosting Can Save You Time and Money
Cloud hosting can also help you save time by eliminating the need to repeatedly transfer data between your server and your devices. This saves you time and allows you to focus on more important tasks.
Cloud Hosting Can be Good for You if You want to Save On Your Data Costs
If you’re looking to save money on data costs, cloud hostings may be a good option for you. By using cloud services, you can reduce your data usage by up to 50%. Additionally, cloud hostings often offer features that are not available on traditional servers, like faster startup times and increased security measures.
Cloud Hosting Cons
Cloud Hosting is a cloud-based software that allows users to access the internet from anywhere. This service can be limited for some users because it is not available in all areas.
Cloud Hosting can Be Limited For Some Users
Some businesses find that using cloud hosting can be LIMITED for some of their needs because the options are limited for certain types of customers or for certain businesses.
Cloud Hosting can Be Limited For Some Businesses
Best Cloud Web Hosting Providers
1. Hostinger — Most Bang for Your Buck
- NORMALLY $29/MONTH
- MONTH-TO-MONTH PRICING
- FREE DOMAIN AND SSL CERTIFICATE
- 30-DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE
Hostinger offers quality web hosting at competitively low prices. Their most affordable cloud web hosting plan is currently $9.99 per month.
You’ll have to sign a contract to get this deal, but it’ll let you host up to 300 websites for less than 10 bucks a month.
It’s one of the lowest prices for cloud web hosting out there. Couple that with their 99.9% uptime guarantee and decently fast speeds, and you have yourself an excellent host.
These are fully managed plans with 24/7 support. You might think that the low price would mean no customer service, but Hostinger takes care of and the server uptime, monitoring, and automated daily backups.
One thing that really sets Hostinger out from the rest of the pack is their dedicated IP. Customers receive free dedicated IP with any of their cloud hosting plans—which is incredible.
Their hPanel dashboard is also very intuitive and user-friendly. Even if you’re new to using a dashboard like that, you’ll have no trouble getting the hang of it.
Full pricing is as follows. Overall, it’s a very lucrative cloud hosting plan that’ll give you the most bang for your buck.
Pricing for Hostinger cloud hosting starts at $9.99 per month, though the monthly price will go up when you renew. This is completely standard in the hosting industry, but it’s something to be aware of.
What’s helpful about Hostinger pricing is that the longer you sign up, the cheaper it is to renew. You can lock in rock-bottom rates for up to 4 years and get a discount down the road.
HostGator offers even cheaper cloud web hosting than Hostinger–just know that HostGator isn’t giving you as much RAM, a dedicated IP, or automated daily backups.
When it comes to bang for your buck, nothing gets you as much for as little as Hostinger cloud hosting.
2. SiteGround — The Best for Getting The Extra Support You Need
Best for Extra Support
Never built a website before? No problem. Get everything you need to launch your website in a day (with no experience required), plus hands-on customer support that’s always ready to answer your questions and help you out in an affordably priced hosting package with SiteGround.
Overall Score: 3.6 out of 5
Lots of hosting companies promise you the moon, but when things go wrong they don’t have your back.
Not SiteGround. They offer one-on-one support for all their customers and are always available to help via live chat or phone call.Â
SiteGround has real humans answering customer service calls 24/7 in over 10 languages, giving them an advantage over other hosting providers who rely on bots to answer customer questions and avoid the hard work of hiring people to actually speak with customers.
Our experience was pleasant and the best out of all other providers when dealing with customer service.
Here’s how well they did in our testing categories:
- Upfront Cost = 3/5
- Renewal Rates = 1/5
- Onboarding Process = 5/5
- Website Speed = 4/5
- Customer Support = 5/5
- Server Uptime = 5/5
Upfront Cost 3/5 – SiteGround is the most expensive on our list for cheap web hosting. That’s the main reason for the score being so low overall.
Right out of the gate you pay $3.99/month for 12 months, which equals $47.88 for year one of hosting.
This does not include a domain name. If you need one, it’s $17.95/year. And, to add domain protection, you’re looking at another $12/year.
That is a total upfront cost of $77.83 for your first year.
Aside from hands-on support, you also get a good array of benefits and features on the cheapest plan, including:
- 10 GB of storage space (plenty for new websites)
- Daily backups in case something happens to your site
- Unlimited email accounts
- A free content delivery network (CDN)
- Automatic core and plugin WordPress updates
- A complimentary SSL certificate
Renewal Rates 1/5 – When it’s time to renew, you get the same high-quality service and benefits. However, now it’s $14.99/month for 12 months, which comes to $179.88 for the second year of hosting. That’s a 276% increase in price.Â
3. Kamatera — Best for Affordable Versatility
- EXTREMELY FLEXIBLE AND SCALABLE
- STARTS AT $4 PER MONTH
- 99.95% GUARANTEED UPTIME
- 30-DAY FREE TRIAL
Kamatera has been in the IT business since 1995 and has become a global cloud services platform provider working with startups through enterprise-level organizations.
One of Kamatera’s most attractive features happens before you ever pay one cent for its services: a full 30-day free trial. The free trial is available for all cloud-based products and requires no contract or commitment.
Free trial users get full access to Kamatera’s cloud management platform, a designated account manager, 24/7 tech support, and includes the following:
- 1 cloud server (up to $100 of any configuration you choose)
- 1000 GB cloud block storage
- 1000 GB outgoing internet traffic
Kamatera has a 99.95% uptime guarantee but every speed test I’ve seen has shown 100% uptime. Along with affordable rates and instant scalability and flexibility and you get a fantastic VPS cloud hosting experience.
Kamatera has 13 data centers around the world, including one in Canada (Toronto), three in the United States (New York, Texas, California), three in Europe (the Netherlands, Germany, the UK), one in Asia (Hong Kong), and five in Israel (Petach Tikva, Rosh Haayin (2), Tel Aviv, Haifa). Each data center is AICPA SOC 2 Type II-compliant or better and every single component has a parallel backup, including the main power supply.
Developers and other experienced IT professionals will love the performance and customization options, which include choosing from 60 operating systems, RAM, processors, storage, IP address, and more.
4. Bluehost – Best Cheap “Feature-Rich” Hosting
Bluehost offers three main price points, depending on the contract length that you choose. The cheapest one at $2.75/mo is a good offer if you’re planning to keep your site up for at least three years.
Feature-wise, there’s everything that you might need to get started with one website. You get 10 GB of disk space and the bandwidth is unmetered, which means that as long as you’re not getting huge traffic spikes, your site will continue to work.
On top of that, you also get a free domain name for the first year.
Current pricing for their cheapest plan:
| Monthly Plan | 1-Year Plan | 2-Year Plan | 3-Year Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not available | $33.90 (renews: $9.99/mo) | Not Available | $178.20 (renews: $8.99/mo) |
There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee.
This includes:
- 1 website
- Unmetered bandwidth
- 5 email accounts
- Free domain (for 1 year, renews at $12.99/year)
- SSL (https:)
This does not include:
- Domain Privacy ($11.88/year)
- CodeGuard Basic ($35.88/year)
- Bluehost SEO tools ($23.88/year)
- SiteLock security ($35.88/year)
5. Scala Hosting — Best for Custom Resource Allocation
- FULLY CUSTOMIZABLE VPS RESOURCES
- GENEROUS MAXIMUMS ON CPUS, RAM, & STORAGE
- AFFORDABLE AT SCALE
- FLEXIBILITY TO ADJUST ON THE FLY
Scala Hosting offers cloud VPS for customers, bringing the granular management of VPS together with the flexibility and scalability of cloud hosting.
But Scala truly rises above the pack in terms of its customization. They’re one of the only hosting providers out there that lets you set a precise, custom set of resources before you even sign up.
While they do offer pre-configured hosting plans starting at $14.95 per month, Scala allows you to create a bespoke hosting package with the perfect blend of memory, storage, and processing power to fit your specific needs.
Best of all, it’s super easy to do this. Scroll down on Scala’s main cloud VPS page, and you can move the sliders for each up and down to your heart’s content. Minimums and maximums depend on whether you choose Scala’s managed or self-managed options.
Preset Scala managed cloud VPS plans:
- Start at $14.95/month for the Start Plan and go up to $152.95 for the Enterprise plan.
- CPU cores: Start provides 2 cores, Advanced gives 3, Business has 5, and Enterprise has 9 cores.
- RAM: Starts at 4GB and goes up to 18GB.
- SSD storage: Start has 50GB, Advanced has 80GB, Business has 160GB, and Enterprise has 320GB.
Scala self-managed cloud VPS is completely build-your-own and starts at:
- Starts at $59/month for 4 CPU cores, 8GB RAM, and 240GB SSD.
- CPU cores: minimum of four, maximum of 24, $6/month per each additional core
- RAM: minimum of 8 GB, maximum of 64 GB, $2/month per each additional GB
- SSD storage: minimum of 240 GB, maximum of 2 TB, $1/month per each additional 10 GB
There are also a bunch of additional add-ons you can purchase for self-managed cloud hosting, including LiteSpeed domains, WHMCS licenses, cPanel licenses, and more.
6. GreenGeeks — The Fastest Cheap Web Hosting
Fastest Cheap Web Hosting
Get blazing fast site speed (the fastest out of all of the hosts we tested), reliable uptime, and great customer support at an affordable monthly rate. Get the most bang for your buck and the fastest loading speeds while giving back to the environment today with GreenGeeks!
Overall Score: 3.4 out of 5
If you want raw speed at a low price, go with GreenGeeks.
When we did our 30-day test, we were floored by how GreenGeeks blew away the competition in many categories.
And the truth is, they don’t boast about site speed like other providers. That makes GreenGeeks even more enticing as a cheap web host because they do so many other things well along with being blazing fast out of the gate.
Let’s see how GreenGeeks did on our scorecard:
- Upfront Cost = 4/5
- Renewal Rates = 3/5
- Onboarding Process = 2/5
- Website Speed = 5/5
- Customer Support = 4/5
- Server Uptime = 4/5
Upfront Cost 3/5 – GreenGeeks’ upfront pricing is right in the middle of the pack. So, it’s not the cheapest by any means.
To get started, you pay $4.95 per month for 12 months, which comes to $59.40 per year.
This includes a free domain name. For domain protection, though, you’ll have to pay $9.95.That brings your first-year hosting cost to a reasonable total of $69.35.
GreenGeeks falls in the middle of the pack for pricing. But, as we said, this gives you one of the fastest web hosts on the market.
With GreenGeeks, you can beat competitors for rankings on Google and provide a better website experience than most that use a standard cheap web hosting plan.
The standard plan includes:
- A free domain name
- Unlimited email accounts
- Nightly backups
- A complimentary SSL certificate
- A free content delivery network (CDN)
- Zero-day vulnerability fixes
- One-click WordPress installation
- 24/7/365 live chat, phone, and ticket support
Renewal Rates 3/5 – The rate for renewals is $10.95/month for 12 months, which totals $131.40 for your second year of hosting. This is a 121% increase in price after promo pricing goes away.Â
7. Cloudways — Best Customizable Managed Cloud Hosting
- SEVEN DATA CENTER OPTIONS.
- VERY FAST MANAGED HOSTING.
- MANY CMS TO CHOOSE FROM.
- USE COUPON CODE QUICKSPROUT TO GET 25% OFF FOR 3 MONTHS
Cloudways sets itself apart from many other cloud-based web hosting services with its flexibility and customizable options along with lightning-fast speeds and 24/7/365 support.
In terms of options, you are unlikely to find a host with more of them. As a managed cloud host, Cloudways takes care of server management for you. When getting started, you select your CMS and can be ready to go in moments. Cloudways prides itself on simplicity with exceptional performance.
CMS options include:
- WordPress
- Magento
- Drupal
- Joomla
- Koken
- Media Wiki
- PHP Stack
- Prestashop
For plans and pricing, the rates depend on several factors, including selecting from seven data center options (and locations) and what level of RAM, processor cores, storage, and bandwidth you need. The data center options are:
- Linode
- DigitalOcean
- DigitalOcean Premium Droplets
- Vultr
- Vultr High Frequency
- AWS
- Google Cloud
The plans run the gamut of pricing. The least expensive is $12 per month including DigitalOcean standard hosting charges, with 1 GB of RAM, 1 core processor, 25 GB of storage, and 1 TB bandwidth.
The most expensive is $274.33 per month including the AWS hosting charges. That plan includes 16 GB of RAM, 4 vCPU, 20 GB of storage, and 2 GB of bandwidth.
All plans come with 24/7/365 support, free SSL, CDN add-on, free migration, unlimited application installation, 24/7 real-time monitoring, automated backups, advanced caches, auto healing, and more.
What is more impressive is the pay-as-you-go type of pricing. Cloudways offers some hourly packages that only actually charge you for any time you use, as opposed to paying for an entire month even if you cancel after 2 weeks. Of course, Cloudways also offers regular monthly plans, too.
Conclusion
Cloud Hosting can be a great way to host your data, save time and money, and reduce costs. However, some Cloud Hosting providers may not have the features or options that are desirable for certain businesses. Overall, Cloud Hosting is a great option for small businesses who want to save money and time.