Want to jump straight to the answer? The best cloud hosting company for most people is Kamatera or HostGator.

If your website is outgrowing the traditional hosting service you’ve used for years, cloud web hosting may be exactly what your business needs. With cloud hosting, your data is spread across a virtual network of servers—a cloud environment—instead of a single server.

In this buying guide, we explain what cloud hosting is and how it works. We’ll also review the top 10 cloud web hosting providers on the market today to help you decide which ones to test out.

Best Cloud Hosting Services

  • Kamatera – Best for affordable versatility
  • HostGator– Best cheap cloud web hosting
  • Cloudways – Best customizable managed cloud hosting
  • Scala Hosting – Best cloud hosting for custom resource allocation
  • Hostinger – Most bang for your buck
  • Nexcess – Best cloud hosting for ecommerce sites
  • DreamHost– Best cloud hosting for developers
  • SiteGround – Best cloud hosting for scaling resources
  • A2 Hosting – Fastest cloud web hosting
  • InMotion – Best cloud hosting for small businesses
How to choose the best cloud web hosting plan. Quicksprout.com's methodology for reviewing cloud web hosting plans.

Read on for detailed reviews of each service so you can start comparing features and pricing.

Cloud hosting works a little differently than other popular types of hosting, such as shared hosting, VPS (virtual private server) hosting, or dedicated server hosting.

Each host also does things a little differently as well. After the reviews is a short guide that will help you assess each cloud hosting option.

Kamatera — Best for Affordable Versatility

Kamatera logo

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:

  • One cloud server (up to $100 of any configuration you choose)
  • 1000 GB cloud block storage
  • 1000 GB outgoing internet traffic
Kamatera homepage
Kamatera has a wide range of cloud hosting services to choose from.

Kamatera has a 99.95% uptime guarantee but every speed test we’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 18 data centers around the world, including one in Canada, five in the United States , six in Europe, one in Asia, and five in Israel. 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.

Kamatera custom cloud
You can customize every aspect of your cloud servers with Kamatera.

It is important to note that Kamatera is not incredibly beginner-friendly at first glance. There are no drag-and-drop builders and cPanel is a $20 monthly add-on. But with 24/7/365 customer support and an intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard, even beginners will be able to use it.

Of course, if you want a more hands-off cloud hosting experience, Kamatera offers fully managed hosting at an additional cost.

Here are some of the features you get with Kamatera’s VPS cloud hosting servers:

  • 60-second server setup
  • 99.95% uptime guaranteed
  • Instantly scalable resources–when you add or change your resources, they will be added to your account right away.
  • 60+ operating systems to choose from, including Windows and Windows Server, Linux, Free BDS, Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, Gentoo, or a custom one.
  • You can create unlimited email accounts to use for your website.
  • User-friendly and customizable server management portal
  • A built-in firewall system + a team to help you get servers back up should anything happen

Kamatera does not offer shared hosting or domain registration services, though you do get free automatic SSL certificates with each server.

Kamatera’s pricing is straightforward. It is a true pay-as-you-go system, where you can start out with only what you need right now and then scale up as needed. Add CPU, RAM, load balancers, and more from your dashboard and it will be available immediately. Plus you only get charged for what you actually use.

Here is a look at some of the pricing:

  • Cloud Servers: starting from $4 per month or $0.005 per hour
  • Cloud Block Storage: $0.05 per month per GB
  • Private Cloud Network: Free
  • Cloud Load Balancer: starting from $9 per month
  • Cloud Firewall: starting from $9 per month
  • Fully Managed Cloud Services: starting at $50 per month per server

Kamatera is a great cloud hosting option for anyone looking for extreme versatility and flexibility at an affordable price. And with the generous 30-day free trial, you can try it out in its entirety to make an informed decision about if it is the right provider for your business.

HostGator — Best Cheap Cloud Hosting

HostGator logo

HostGator offers some of the most cost-effective cloud hosting on the market today. They’re certainly the most affordable options on this list.

But just because it’s affordable, it doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing quality.

All HostGator cloud hosting plans come with a free SSL certificate and a free domain for one year. You’re also getting a cPanel control panel, local caching, unlimited subdomains, $200 in search engine marketing credits, free email, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

This is an excellent value when you consider the price and performance you’re getting in return.

HostGator Cloud Hosting page
HostGator offers affordable yet powerful cloud web hosting plans for any site.

HostGator’s dashboard makes it easy for you to monitor the performance of your website. You can quickly view data related to page speed, uptime, reach, and more.

Scaling your server resources is simple as well. This can be done with just one click, without any downtime, reboots, or data migrations.

Let’s take a look at the three basic cloud hosting plans offered by HostGator:

Hatchling Plan

  • Starting at $4.95
  • 2 CPUs
  • 2 GB of memory
  • Single domain

Baby Plan

  • Starting at $6.57
  • 4 CPUs
  • 4 GB of memory
  • Unlimited domains

Business Plan

  • Starting at $9.95
  • 6 CPUs
  • 6 GB of memory
  • Unlimited domains

These rates are for 36-month contracts. They are 45% cheaper than the actual price, which you’ll end up paying when you renew your contract.

Aside from memory, computing, and the ability to host more than one domain, there’s not a huge difference between the Hatchling and Baby Cloud plans. But the Business plan comes with a dedicated IP and a free positive SSL upgrade.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can read our full HostGator review. This covers the pros and cons in greater detail.

Get started with HostGator Cloud today. All plans are backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Cloudways — Best Customizable Managed Cloud Hosting

Cloudways logo

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 plans run the gamut of pricing. The least expensive is $14 per month including DigitalOcean standard hosting charges, with 1 GB of RAM, 1 core processor, 25 GB of storage, and 1 TB bandwidth.

Cloudways has a wide range of different cloud server options to choose from.

The most expensive is $285.21 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.

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.

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.

Cloudways doesn’t skimp on security, either. Dedicated firewalls, one-click free SSL installation, IP whitelisting, 2FA, and bot protection are just a few of the security features you’ll get.

Image of list of security services offered by Cloudways.
Cloudways offers all the security you’d expect from a cloud hosting provider.

While Cloudways is not perfect — it lacks a cPanel and does not offer domain registration — it does offer a host of add-ons and integrations so it works for your needs. Add-ons include Rackspace email hosting Gmail SMTP, application migration, and more.

You can try Cloudways for free with a three-day free trial that does not require a credit card to get started. Use coupon code QUICKSPROUT to get 25% off for 3 months.

Scala Hosting — Best for Custom Resource Allocation

Scala Hosting logo

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.

Scala Hosting pricing plan page.

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.

Scala’s Entry Cloud plan starts at $14.95 per month. It comes with 2 CPU cores and 2 GB RAM. You’ll also benefit from premium features, including a free domain, real-time malware protection, OpenLiteSpeed caching, blacklist monitoring, and more.

Scala self-managed cloud VPS is completely build-your-own. Here’s a breakdown of that pricing:

  • Starts at $20/month for 2 CPU cores, 4 GB RAM, and 50 GB NVMe SSD.
  • CPU cores: minimum of two, maximum of 24, $6/month per each additional core
  • RAM: minimum of 4 GB, maximum of 64 GB, $2/month per each additional GB
  • SSD storage: minimum of 50 GB, maximum of 460 GB, $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.

Either allows you a wide array of potential resource allocation options and Scala doesn’t really gouge you for adding more in any category. They don’t punish you for scaling to any extent.

You can also choose your preferred data center location, as well as your preferred control panel (on managed plans) or operating system (on self-managed plans).

Another notable standout of using Scala is its free site migration service. So if you’re currently using another hosting provider, you can switch to Scala without any hassle or headaches.

Scala Free Website Migration with information on how to migrate any website in three easy steps

So, Scala Hosting is an excellent option for anyone who knows exactly what they need from their hosting provider—especially if you know of a custom setup that would benefit your site but isn’t commonly offered by other providers (like if you just want blazing speed without a ton of storage space).

And pricing stays competitive despite all the customization you’re allowed. When you get up into the higher ranges of resources, Scala’s custom plans are more than competitive with top-of-the-line cloud hosting offerings from others—even outright beating them on both price and flexibility.

Get exactly what you need, scale freely, and reap the benefits of a precise combination of resources by going with Scala Hosting today.

Hostinger — Most Bang for Your Buck

Hostinger logo

Hostinger is best known for its high-quality web hosting at competitively low prices. With plans starting at just $8.99 per month, Hostinger is one of the most affordable options on the market.

Locking in this low rate does require a contract. But you can use it to host up to 300 sites for under $10 per month.

It’s harder to find a better bargain in the cloud hosting space. When you pair that price with Hostinger’s 99.9% uptime guarantee and fast speeds, it’s easy to see why so many sites turn to Hostinger for cloud hosting.

Hostinger's cloud hosting landing page promoting plans at $8.99 per month
Get up to 64% off your cloud hosting plan when you sign up for Hostinger.

You might think that the low price would impact Hostinger’s customer service. But you’d be wrong. These are fully-managed plans with 24/7 support. Hostinger also handles all of your server uptime, monitoring, and daily backups.

Hostinger’s dedicated IP is another standout that separates them from the crowd. You’ll get a free dedicated IP with every cloud hosting plan—which is an incredible value.

Plans come with hPanel dashboards that are intuitive and user-friendly. So you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly, even if you’re new to this type of dashboard.

Here’s a quick overview of the plans and pricing.

Hostinger pricing with options for Cloud Startup, Cloud Professional, and Cloud Enterprise plans
All Hostinger cloud plans come with unlimited bandwidth, daily backups, free domain, and free SSL.

Hostinger cloud starts at $9.99 per month. Just be aware that this is a promotional rate that will go up upon renewal, which is pretty standard in the web hosting industry.

It’s also worth noting that the longer you sign up for a Hostinger cloud plan, the better deal you get upon renewal. You can lock in the promotional rates for up to four years and then get a discount down the road.

While HostGator has cheaper cloud plans than Hostinger, you won’t get as much RAM with HostGator, and you’re losing out on the dedicated IP and automated daily backups.

That’s why Hostinger is the best bang for your buck when it comes to cloud hosting. You’ll get a ton of benefits for such an affordable price.

Hostinger also backs its plans with a 30-day money-back guarantee. So you can try it risk-free. Get in touch with Hostinger to learn more.

Nexcess — Best for Ecommerce Sites

Nexcess logo

Nexcess is a web hosting solution brought to you by the good folks at Liquid Web. We’ve featured them before for their great hosting services, and Nexcess is no exception.

Their primary offerings are managed Magento, WooCommerce, and WordPress hosting (along with a few other CMS). That makes them perfect for ecommerce websites looking to grow.

But they also have a standout cloud hosting service too, which is great for scaling businesses. The specific plans vary depending on what your CMS is, they offer a wide variety of them.

Nexcess cloud web hosting landing page
Nexcess cloud hosting plans are built to scale.

That makes Nexcess perfect for growing businesses who plan to rapidly scale their growth—and are looking for a cloud host that will scale with them.

One tool we really like is Nexcess Cloud Accelerator. This is an additional layer in front of the cloud stack that boosts load times. That means your site will be nice and speedy for your customers.

They also have a dedicated support team on call 24/7 to help your business address any technical issues, or if you want to switch plans.

Here’s a look at the plans and prices they offer for cloud hosting:

  • XS – $52 per month (11 sites, 50 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth)
  • S – $104 per month (16 sites, 75 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth)
  • M – $184 per month (21 sites, 125 GB storage, 3 TB bandwidth)
  • L – $315 per month (31 sites, 400 GB storage, 5 TB bandwidth)
  • XL – $578 per month (41 sites, 600 GB storage, 8 TB bandwidth)
  • XXL – $894 per month (51 sites, 800 GB storage, 10 TB bandwidth)

Everything is tuned for online business. You’ll be set up for taking payments securely and all customer info is kept secure.

Traffic spikes? No problem. Nexcess cloud hosting lets you scale up for a limited period of time if you need. You’re not going to be locked into paying for more than you need to handle the busy hours.

You’re also not spending time making sure that your website is up. Nexcess manages everything on the backend so you can concentrate on selling.

Set up your store with Nexcess cloud hosting today.

DreamHost — Best for Developer Projects

DreamHost company logo.

DreamHost has the easiest cloud setup in the industry. You can get your cloud servers live in less than 30 seconds.

With that said, DreamHost cloud is better for developers than regular users. It has server options that are made for databases, web apps, and running tests in addition to websites.

You can continue working the with DevOps tools that you’re already using. DreamHost also gives you full root access for complete control over your cloud servers.

DreamHost landing page for cloud web hosting
DreamHost offers multiple cloud hosting solutions for developers.

There are actually two different types of cloud options to choose from—DreamCompute and DreamObjects.

As the name implies, DreamCompute is a cloud computing service. It can be used for hosting websites, software, development and testing environments, advanced network configurations, and more. DreamObjects is an objects-based storage system in the cloud—ideal for web app development, storing files, storing media, and backing up WordPress sites.

The best part about DreamHost is that you only pay for what you actually use. You’ll get charged for resources on an hourly basis based on the size of your server.

Here’s a look at the pricing for DreamCompute:

  • 512 MB of RAM Server — $0.0075 per hour (maximum $4.50 per month)
  • 2 GB of RAM Server — $0.02 per hour (maximum $12 per month)
  • 8 GB of RAM Server — $0.08 per hour (max $48 per month)

The 2 GB server is the recommended option for websites.

You will not be billed anything when you sign up. Instead, you’re billed based on your monthly usage.

DreamObjects starts at $0.025 per GB of storage per month and $0.05 per GB of downloads per month. You can try DreamObjects for free with a 60-day trial.

The only area where DreamHost falls short that we found in our complete review of DreamHost web hosting services is its customer support. You can only contact customer service via email or live chat, which is only available for 16 hours daily. So if you prefer phone support or need help in the middle of the night, you’re out of luck until the morning.

SiteGround — Best for Scaling Resources

SiteGround company logo.

SiteGround offers fully managed, high-performance cloud hosting built on Google cloud infrastructure. This means you’ll get auto-updates, tools to make managing websites easier, optimized servers, and a handy auto-scaling tool so your site stays running even with unexpected traffic spikes.

These plans are fully managed. That means they take care of your account for you.

SiteGround handles the IT of your hosting. This allows you to focus on other areas of your website. Plus, Siteground’s speed and performance are great. Every cloud hosting plan has the SG Optimizer plugin preinstalled and a unique PHP setup for extra speed boosts.

SiteGround cloud plans come equipped with an Automatic Scaling tool, preventing traffic loss and downtime. You can also add CPU and RAM at any time with one click in your admin settings.

With SiteGround, you can completely configure your own cloud and plan based on the resources you need. For example, they have six data centers on four continents to choose from, so you choose the one that is closest to your users. Here is a look at their plans:

Siteground cloud host pricing

The Business or Business Plus plans should be more than enough resources for the majority of you, so that’s what we would recommend starting with. As your traffic rises, you can always scale as needed.

You’ll also benefit from webmaster tools like a dedicated IP, free CDN, free SSL, daily backups, and a private DNS. Check out our in-depth SiteGround web hosting review for more information about their overall services.

A2 Hosting — Fastest Cloud Web Hosting

A2 Hosting company logo.

A2 Hosting offers some of the fastest hosting services out there.

While they don’t offer traditional cloud hosting services, they do offer VPS hosting solutions with dedicated server resources. With a turbo plan from A2, you’ll benefit from a fully optimized hosting solution that’s 20x faster than traditional cloud packages.

In addition to speed, you also have the option to choose between a managed or unmanaged plan.

Screenshot of A2 Hosting's VPS landing page with image of four people working in an office at table
If speed is your top priority, look no further than A2 Hosting’s Cloud VPS packages.

The unmanaged plans are really only designed for experienced developers or business websites with internal development resources. Otherwise, most of you will be better off with a managed VPS from A2 Hosting.

Even if you go with the managed route, you’ll still have root access at the server level. So just because A2 is handling most of the technical aspects for you, it doesn’t mean you can’t customize your server configuration, which is a nice perk.

There’s no shortage of options to choose from either. A2 Hosting has a whopping 12 different plans—and that’s at the VPS tier. Here’s a quick overview of those rates so you can get a sense of your options:

  • Unmanaged (Standard Performance) – Starts at $2.99 per month
  • Unmanaged (Turbo Servers) – Starts at $29.99 per month
  • Managed (Standard Performance) – Starts at $39.99 per month
  • Managed (Turbo Servers) – Starts at $59.99 per month

While A2’s standard servers are still faster than the competition, it’s tough to pass up on the turbo-speed options. That’s really where A2 Hosting shines above the crowd.

A2 Hosting offers a 99.9% uptime promise as well as an anytime money-back guarantee. Although there are some contingencies to both, so make sure you read the fine print of your contract.

If customer support is important to you, then you’ll definitely be satisfied with A2’s 24/7/365 guru support team.

This cloud hosting provider is ideal for those of you who want unmanaged cloud hosting with lightning-fast page loading speed.

InMotion — Best for Small Businesses

InMotion hosting logo

InMotion offers some of the most underrated cloud hosting services out there.

They have cloud hosting solutions for everyone.

  • Business cloud hosting – Starting at $14.99 per month
  • Agency cloud hosting – Starting at $35.99 per month
  • Application cloud hosting – Starting at $6 per month
  • Enterprise cloud hosting plans – Starting at $439.99 per month

Altogether, InMotion has nearly 20 different plans and pricing tiers for cloud hosting, which is the most we’ve seen offered by any provider.

For website owners, you’ll want to focus on small business plans. InMotion makes it easy for you to scale your resources as your site grows.

One thing we really like about InMotion is that their customer service is really top notch. It offers 24/7 support by phone, chat, or email. Monitoring and ticketing also happens around the clock.

Image about customer support features from InMotion website.
24/7 customer support ensures that InMotion customers won’t be stuck waiting to resolve issues.

You’ll also get a resource monitoring dashboard, free auto backups, rapid provisioning, and full snapshots of your servers. InMotion offers a free SSL and free cPanel license with all of its cloud business plans.

What Is Cloud Hosting?

Cloud hosting maintains website resources across multiple virtual servers in the cloud.

Each cloud server is responsible for specific sets of tasks. So if one of the servers in the cloud fails or goes down, the others will automatically pick up the slack to provide those required resources. Your website will continue to run smoothly with cloud hosting, even if there is a problem with one of the servers.

With other types of web hosting, your site is hosted on a single server. It could be one that you own or one that you share with other sites.

But when you’re hosting with a single physical server, you’re essentially putting all of your eggs in one basket. This is a huge risk when you’re dealing with something as important as your website.

Cloud hosting eliminates this risk because your host isn’t connected to one physical location.

Benefits of Cloud Hosting

Sites hosted in the cloud benefit from increased uptime rates and won’t be as susceptible to unplanned downtime.

Aside from eliminating the potential problems inherent with one server, cloud hosting will keep your site stable even as your traffic increases.

It’s also really easy to set up. For those of you who want to start hosting on the cloud right away, it can be a faster deployment option than something like a dedicated server or shared server.

Beyond the benefits above, other perks of cloud hosting include:

  • Scalable bandwidth: If you often experience spikes in traffic to your site or if you have different demands at the site during particular times of the year, it’s easy to scale your bandwidth to match these changes.
  • Variable costs: Rather than paying a flat fee for hosting, cloud hosting allows you to pay for only the resources you use. You won’t overpay for services and bandwidth that you don’t use.
  • Limited downtime: If your traditional network has an outage, you don’t have much recourse for rerouting traffic. However, with cloud hosting, the traffic naturally travels in multiple paths, providing ways to avoid bottlenecks and downtime.

Overall, cloud hosting has the edge over other types of web hosting for a wide range of use cases.

Who Is Cloud Hosting For?

Cloud web hosting is ideal for medium to larger-sized businesses and websites that are growing rapidly. Most cloud hosting plans have flexible pricing options, meaning you’ll only pay for the resources that you’re actually using.

If you’re anticipating random traffic surges or a steady increase in website traffic in the coming years, then cloud hosting is the perfect option for you.

However, cloud web hosting isn’t right for everyone.

For those of you who have a small personal website, small blog, or micro-business, you probably don’t need to use cloud hosting if there is no growth coming in the future. A shared hosting plan is fine for those types of websites.

Check out our comparison of cloud vs. shared hosting to dig into more specifics.

When you’re ready to grow your website, you should consider upgrading to a cloud hosting plan as opposed to a VPS. While a virtual private server will be able to deliver enough server resources, a cloud plan is usually more cost-effective.

Enterprise-level websites with the need to customize their server settings would benefit from a dedicated hosting plan rather than a cloud solution.

Any website with more than 50,000 monthly visitors is a viable candidate for cloud hosting. It’s the perfect option for larger websites that can’t afford to have any downtime.

How to Find the Best Cloud Hosting Plan For You

Not every cloud hosting plan is the same. Some hosting providers offer different features and benefits compared to others.

When you’re evaluating a cloud web host, these are the factors that you should take into consideration.

Scalable Resources

You need to make sure that you get a web hosting plan with enough bandwidth, storage, and disc space. To do this, you need to know how much traffic you’ll get. But new websites face a common dilemma when they’re looking for a hosting plan.

They have to decide if they want to get the highest possible bandwidth, even if they won’t come close to exceeding those limits. Or should they start with a lower bandwidth plan and upgrade as their traffic starts to increase?

Cloud hosting solves this dilemma.

Since your website is hosted on multiple servers, you won’t have to worry about exceeding bandwidth. If one server is maxed out, you can always pull resources from another.

Look for a cloud hosting plan that lets you easily manage and configure your server resources in-real time.

Here’s an example of what this looks like on HostGator Cloud, which is a provider that we reviewed earlier in this guide.

Hostgator Resources

We recommend a cloud hosting plan that allows you to scale your server resources without needing any approval from the provider. This is something that can be managed from your admin dashboard.

Price

Most traditional hosting plans require you to pay a fixed monthly rate. You’ll be charged this amount even if you don’t use all of the resources on the server.

But cloud hosting is much more flexible in terms of pricing. So we’d look for a hosting provider that charges you based on the resources that you actually use.

Here’s an analogy. Let’s say you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, where the food options can also be purchased à la carte. The buffet price is $20 per person, which is the most you’ll have to pay, regardless of how much food you eat.

But if you only eat $10 worth of food, then wouldn’t it be nice to get $10 back?

That’s how some of the best cloud hosting plans are structured.

This relates back to our previous point about being able to scale your resources on demand. For example, let’s say you just built a bunch of new backlinks and you’re expecting a particular blog post on your website to go viral.

Rather than upgrading your entire plan (which you’d have to do with other types of web hosting) you can just increase the resources needed during that traffic spike and put everything back to normal when your traffic levels out.

In this case, you’d only pay for the actual server usage during the surge. Here’s an example of this pricing structure from another one of the providers on our list, DreamHost.

Dreamhost Useage

As you can see, pricing is based on usage. Each plan has a maximum monthly rate. Even the fine print at the bottom of the page states that you’ll only be billed for what you use.

So look for a hosting provider that offers a similar pricing structure.

Speed and Performance

If your hosting plan doesn’t deliver the best performance, then it’s a pretty crappy hosting plan.

The majority of cloud hosting servers will increase the capacity of your website, which boosts your page loading speed.

Cloud hosting doesn’t put as much strain on a singular server. If your website has lots of resource-intensive data such as videos, images, and other media content, then cloud hosting is something that you need to take advantage of.

Look for a cloud hosting plan that delivers content from the nearest remote server. This will ensure that all of your loading times are as fast as possible.

At the end of the day, your website visitors don’t care what type of hosting plan you’re using. They just want your site to be responsive and load quickly.

By prioritizing things like uptime and loading speed with cloud hosting, your website will ultimately perform better from the user end.

Security

No matter what type of web hosting plan you have, website security always needs to be a priority.

Fortunately, cloud hosting is known to be very safe. That’s because your website is isolated from any potential problems with a physical server. Everything is being handled remotely, which wouldn’t be the case if you were relying on a singular server that’s hosted locally.

If a local server was compromised, then your website would be at risk. Whereas if one server in your cloud network was hacked, failed, or had a system overload, your website would stay up and running without any downtime or delays.

Look for a web host that offers any additional security protection as an incentive with your cloud hosting plan.

Technical Expertise

In general, cloud hosting can support a wide range of websites and projects. But certain plans and providers are geared toward professionals, while others are intended for the average person who doesn’t have any technical expertise.

For example, DreamHost has specific packages designed for hosting development projects in the cloud. It’s great for those of you who need a place to store files, media, or back up your web development work.

A2 Hosting also offers unmanaged hosting plans for professional users. They’re affordable and come with full root access at the server level—so you can customize everything to your specifications and liking.

If this stuff sounds like a foreign language to you, don’t worry about it. Go with one of the managed services on our list. Or choose something that doesn’t require you to personally make changes on the backend when you need to scale.

Best Cloud Web Hosting Plans: Your Top Questions Answered

The Top Cloud Hosting Plans in Summary

Cloud web hosting is a great solution for growing websites. If your shared plan can no longer accommodate the needs of your site, then you should consider switching to a cloud solution since it can give you more resources, space, and performance power.

The majority of websites can benefit from cloud hosting. The increased flexibility, scalability, and resilience make it ideal for companies that need hosting resources on-demand. It’s a good choice for interactive sites, online stores, web apps, and IoT deployments.