The best cloud hosting services in 2024

Laptop on desk with cloud icon next to it
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Best cloud hosting: Jump menu

The best cloud hosting offers users seeking a web hosting provider an advanced option utilizing cutting-edge cloud technology. Offered by some of the best web hosting services, cloud hosting has revolutionized the market by allowing content to be distributed across an entire network, instead of having a site rely on one server.

As a result, a leading benefit is more scalable websites that can easily add resources should your audience grow, whether it be RAM, storage, or bandwidth. Upgrading (or indeed downgrading) is as easy as a couple of clicks, while fresh server power is added in minutes. Being cloud-based, there's also no downtime to worry about, which is usually one of the bigger headaches for traditional web hosting.

So when it comes to cloud hosting, how do you choose the right web host? Interestingly, while providers share the same underlying technology, most cloud hosts differ from one another, and there are services available for most every need: whether it be managed cloud hosting, email hosting, or replacing a business server.

Regardless of your size and requirements, there are many cloud hosts to choose from, and it even provides green alternatives should you wish to reduce your site's environmental impact. Amazon maintains the lead in the worldwide cloud infrastructure market, but we've tested all the top cloud hosting providers on features, performance, and pricing. Below, we've outlined the best cloud hosting services available for an array of hosting needs.

The quick list

Here’s our selection of the finest cloud hosts. Explore the detailed reviews for a deeper understanding.

The top 3 cloud hosting services right now

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our writers and editors spend hours analyzing and reviewing products, services, and apps to help find what's best for you. Find out more about how we test, analyze, and rate.

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Cloudways: the best cloud hosting service right now
Cloudways offers the best cloud hosting via connections with leading cloud services including Amazon, Google, DigitalOcean, and Vultr. Layering security and management on top, pricing is flexible, and you can choose data center locations for optimal performance.

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DigitalOcean: scalable, flexible cloud hosting
DigitalOcean, one of the largest cloud hosting providers in the US, offers services to small businesses and enterprises via highly-flexible plans. Utilizing "Droplets", or virtual CPUs, customers can buy as many as required, for the ultimate in scalable cloud hosting.

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Microsoft Azure: secure cloud hosting from the tech giant
Microsoft Azure's huge cloud computing platform was built for the world’s largest companies but can help smaller businesses too. You can add all sorts of extra elements to packages, while its highly-secure hosting is market-leading.

The best cloud hosting services of 2024 in full

Best overall

Cloudways logo

(Image credit: Cloudways)
The best cloud hosting service

Specifications

Starting price: $11 a month
Bandwidth: 1TB
Storage: 25GB

Reasons to buy

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Easy to set up
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Free trial with no credit card
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Selection of platforms

Reasons to avoid

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No domain names
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Email not included

Cloudways takes a different approach to cloud hosting than most of the other platforms on the market. Instead of offering its own network, Cloudways connects you with one of four top cloud providers including Amazon, Google, DigitalOcean, and Vultr. 

Cloudways then layers its own management and security framework on top of this computational infrastructure. This approach works well for a wide variety of businesses, not least because you get flexibility in pricing. Cloudways offers multiple plan options for each infrastructure provider, and you can choose to pay either hourly or monthly depending on the scale of your project.

You can also decide exactly where your data center should be located, to ensure you get the best performance for your business and customers. Between the five providers, there are more than 60 data centers spread across 25 global cities.

On top of that, Cloudways’ managed hosting platform is designed to meet a wide variety of demands. It includes Nginx, MySQL, PHP 7, Apache, Memcached, and Varnish Cache, among other core systems. Git is integrated to promote collaboration among app developers, and you can easily clone, back up, and restore a repository with just a single click.

One major downside to using Cloudways for your cloud hosting is that phone support costs extra. Every plan includes 24/7 live chat, but if you want to talk to tech support by phone, you’ll need a Premium support subscription for $500 a month

Read our Cloudways review.

Best for small businesses

DigitalOcean logo

(Image credit: DigitalOcean)
The best scalable cloud hosting service for small businesses

Specifications

Starting price: $4 a month
Bandwidth: 500GB
Storage: 10GB

Reasons to buy

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Specialized Droplets enable scalability
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Works with several Linux distros
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System-level backups

Reasons to avoid

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Relatively expensive
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Intimidating, advanced UI

DigitalOcean is one of the largest cloud hosting providers in the US, but the company caters equally to small businesses and enterprises. Whether you want to speed up your website, develop a cloud-based app, or crunch through massive amounts of data, DigitalOcean has highly flexible options you can turn to.

The key to this versatility is DigitalOcean’s system of Droplets. Instead of signing up for a single plan with a set number of CPUs or RAM, you can purchase as many Droplets—virtual CPUs—as you want from the company. Better yet, you get to decide whether you need general-purpose Droplets for tasks like web hosting or memory-optimized Droplets for storing and accessing a massive database.

Every Droplet can be deployed with any of six Linux distributions, as well as apps like Docker, MySQL, and Node.js. Plus, performance monitoring and system-level backups happen at the level of individual Droplets, so that you never have to worry about a single bad server slowing your business down.

DigitalOcean isn’t the cheapest cloud hosting service on the market. A single general-purpose Droplet with 512MB of RAM costs $4 a month. But, the scalability means that you’ll only pay for exactly what you need, and the company offers hourly pricing options for short-term development projects. 

Read our DigitalOcean review.

Best for big data

Microsoft Azure logo

(Image credit: Microsoft)
The best cloud hosting service to crunch big data

Specifications

Starting price: PAYG
Bandwidth: PAYG
Storage: PAYG

Reasons to buy

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Scalability
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Pay-as-you-go
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Machine learning features

Reasons to avoid

-
Costly tech support plans
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No live chat support

Microsoft Azure is more than just a cloud hosting service. It’s a massive cloud computing platform, built to handle the needs of the world’s largest companies.

Microsoft Azure shouldn’t be the cloud hosting provider you turn to if you just want to build a business website. But, if you want to crunch through a trove of customer data or build a complex internal app, this platform can provide all the resources you need. 

On top of just adding RAM and CPUs to your cloud hosting plan, you can also add machine learning algorithms, bots, and cognitive APIs into your Azure application. Another plus to Microsoft Azure is that it’s one of the most secure cloud hosting solutions on the market. 

The platform is favored by government institutions, including the Pentagon, and it boasts compliance with a number of brand-new cloud security standards. Small businesses might be tempted to shy away from Microsoft Azure since you’ll need a savvy IT team to get the most out of this cloud hosting service. 

But, if your company collects a lot of data and is willing to pay for third-party help, it can still be a very attractive option. 

Read our Microsoft Azure hosting review.

Best for websites

HostGator logo

(Image credit: HostGator)
The best cloud hosting service for your website

Specifications

Starting price: $4.95 a month
Bandwidth: Unmetered
Storage: Unmetered

Reasons to buy

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Simple cloud hosting
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Affordable plans
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Data mirrored

Reasons to avoid

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Only supports websites
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Low uptime guarantee

Looking for a better way to host your website rather than a solution for processing mountains of data? HostGator's relatively simple, website-first cloud hosting service fits the bill exactly.

With HostGator, your website is spread over multiple servers to give you redundancy, speed, and adaptability. The provider advertises that its cloud hosting packages can cut your site’s loading time in half compared to its traditional hosting options. Plus, you don’t have to worry about your website being taken offline by a hardware failure since your data is mirrored on multiple servers.

Best of all, though, is the fact that you can adjust the number of CPUs and the amount of RAM devoted to your website in real time. Is your website overflowing with traffic after a big announcement or a sale? HostGator’s cloud hosting service enables you to quickly and seamlessly adapt to the spike in visitors.

Another plus for small businesses is that HostGator’s plans are very inexpensive. Cloud hosting starts at just $4.95 a month for a single domain and 2GB of RAM. If you need more resources, you can get six CPUs, 6GB of RAM, and a dedicated IP for just $9.95 a month (although the cost jumps to $17.95 a month after renewal).

Read our HostGator review.

Best for UK servers

Clook logo

(Image credit: Clook)

5. Clook

The best cloud hosting service with UK-based servers

Specifications

Starting price: $110.95 a month
Bandwidth: 500GB
Storage: N/A

Reasons to buy

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UK-based data center
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Ultra-fast internal connections
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Managed service

Reasons to avoid

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Expensive plan pricing
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No hourly plans

If your company needs to establish a stronger digital presence in the UK, Clook is one of the best options available. This cloud hosting provider operates a single data center in Manchester, England, which makes for fast connections for London-based offices and customers.

Whereas many cloud hosts leave you on your own once you sign up for their service, Clook puts its customers first. Every plan comes with 24/7 phone and email support from experienced technicians, who understand how the company’s servers are set up and how you can leverage them to meet your business’s needs.

Those same technicians are in charge of monitoring Clook’s network, and they do an excellent job of it. The company boasts more than 35 monitoring services that work around the clock to detect security threats, hardware failures, and any other issues that could impact the cloud’s performance. Clook also stands out for using ultra-fast 10Gbps connections for all internal storage nodes and hypervisors.

Of course, a cloud network built and maintained by IT experts doesn’t come cheap. An entry-level cloud hosting plan includes just one CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 500GB of bandwidth and costs $110.95 a month. If you need enough computational power to crunch a lot of data—say, four CPUs, 8GB of RAM, and 2TB of bandwidth—it’ll cost you at least $328 a month. There’s also no option to pay-as-you-go at an hourly rate.

The best cloud hosting services, compared

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Cloud hosting serviceStarting priceBandwidthStorage
Cloudways$11 a month1TB25GB
DigitalOcean$4 a month500GB10GB
Microsoft AzurePAYGPAYGPAYG
HostGator$4.95 a monthUnmeteredUnmetered
Clook$110.95 a month500GBN/A

Cloud hosting services FAQs

What are cloud hosting services?

Cloud hosting is a form of web hosting that operates via a network made up of physical and virtual servers, interconnected across the cloud. A site that is hosted via cloud hosting has more resources to use, more flexibility, and more scalability, with the ability to spread data across multiple geographical regions in private and public forms.

What are the benefits of cloud hosting?

There are three main benefits of cloud hosting: scalability, reliability, and versatility. It offers access to near-unlimited levels of resources and processing power, and you can scale either up when required, as quickly as you need it.

With cloud hosting sites shared across a disparate, widespread machine network, yours will remain online even if one server goes down because the other units will pick up the slack. Last but by no means least, you have complete freedom to choose the appropriate solution required as per whatever exacting specifications you need.

How to choose the best cloud hosting service for you

Choosing one of the best cloud hosting services for your business ultimately comes down to what your goals are. The demands you’ll place on your cloud provider when hosting a site are very different from the demands of app development or managing a massive database. 

Carefully consider whether you need the ability to scale your resources up and down at any moment and whether RAM, bandwidth, or built-in storage are most important to you. You’ll also need to think about what type of software infrastructure you need. While most cloud hosts are based on Linux, some offer pre-installed apps like Node.js or Git to help jumpstart app development. 

You may also be able to get access to advanced machine learning algorithms for data analysis depending on your cloud hosting provider. Of course, you should always take the time to check out a prospective service’s performance history

If your cloud host isn’t reliable, you lose out on many of the benefits of turning to distributed computing in the first place. Make sure your cloud hosting service is managed by IT professionals who understand the network and monitor it around the clock.

How we review the best cloud hosting

Whatever type of hosting a provider offers, when we review web hosts we first build a website (with the host should it include a website builder, or with another before importing it). We then sign up for a hosting plan, before testing server response and uptimes over a two-week period.

Both of those factors are absolutely key to the performance of your website: should your site go offline or be unresponsive, you could lose business and money. While cloud hosting is incredibly reliable, we still undertake this testing to ensure that we've evaluated a host's performance, and how it meets customer expectations.

As mentioned earlier, if a site builder wasn't included, we'll instead investigate and test out a platform-specific tool or feature. When it comes to web hosting security, we test how easy setting up an SSL certificate is, while also taking a deep dive into how strong and comprehensive general security is too.

Should you hit a problem you can't solve, you'll want your host to respond quickly and competently. We test customer service and support responsiveness and knowledge to define this for you. With cloud hosting offering its own, complex, and unique pricing structures, we examine pricing in-depth to help you understand what exactly you're paying for and when.

 See our testing methodology page for more information.

Next steps with web hosting and website builders

When it comes to buying a web hosting service, there are important steps to follow along the way. Start by learning how to host a website if you've no idea, and find out how to avoid common hosting mistakes

Look into anonymous website hosting if you're privacy-focused, and search for the best website builders with which to create your site.

Once all that is done, choose a domain name and register your domain. Before you publish your site, understand how hosting can affect SEO too. 

We've also set out guides to a range of other hosting types, including the best web hosting for cheap (updated monthly with the best deals), the best unlimited web hosting, and the best VPS hosting.

Michael Graw

Michael Graw is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Bellingham, Washington. His interests span a wide range from business technology to finance to creative media, with a focus on new technology and emerging trends. Michael's work has been published in TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Business Insider, Fast Company, Salon, and Harvard Business Review. 

With contributions from