The list in brief
1. Best overall: Cloudways
2. Best value: DigitalOcean
3. Best budget: Microsoft Azure
4. Best for configurability: ScalaHosting
5. Best month-to-month: InMotion Hosting
6. Best for high-traffic sites: SiteGround
FAQs
How to choose
How we review
Cloud hosting offers unparalleled flexibility and scalability. Unlike traditional hosting, it distributes your website across a network of servers, ensuring better reliability and performance.
At Tom's Guide, we've put the top cloud hosting providers through their paces, testing everything from resource allocation to uptime reliability. Our goal is to help you find a cloud host that can grow with your business without breaking the bank.
Cloudways is our top pick, impressing us with its flexible pricing, extensive global data center network, and powerful features. But is it the right option for your needs? Read on to find out.
The quick list
Here’s our selection of the best cloud hosts. Explore the detailed reviews for a deeper understanding.
The best cloud hosting service
Offering a unique cloud hosting experience by connecting users to top providers like Amazon and Google, Cloudways excels with its flexible pricing and diverse global data center locations.
The best scalable cloud hosting service for small businesses
Tailored for small to medium enterprises, DigitalOcean's specialized Droplets system ensures scalable, versatile hosting solutions with a range of Linux distributions and app integrations.
The best cloud hosting service to crunch big data
Microsoft Azure is ideal for big data processing and complex app development with its scalable resources, machine learning features, and robust security measures.
The best cloud hosting service for configurability
ScalaHosting offers an incredible degree of customization for its cloud VPS plans, allowing you to fine-tune resources to perfectly match your needs.
The best cloud hosting service for flexible billing cycles
InMotion Hosting offers affordable, Linux-only cloud VPS hosting with consistent pricing for monthly and annual plans. It provides a choice between standard SSD and faster NVMe SSD storage, along with features like live snapshots and DDoS protection.
The best cloud hosting service for resource-intensive businesses
SiteGround offers powerful cloud hosting solutions built on Google Cloud infrastructure, ideal for businesses with high-traffic websites and resource-demanding applications. It provides robust security, a built-in CDN, and flexible scaling options, including auto-scaling.
The top 3 cloud hosting services right now
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The best cloud hosting services of 2024 in full
Best overall
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, and DigitalOcean.
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.
Cloudways gives you incredible control over scaling resources to match your workload. You can easily increase or decrease server RAM, processing power, and storage with just a few clicks. This flexibility is ideal for websites or applications that experience traffic fluctuations. For example, if you anticipate a surge due to a sale or seasonal event, you can temporarily boost resources, ensuring your site remains responsive – then scale back down afterwards to avoid unnecessary costs.
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 value
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's focus on simplicity makes it remarkably easy to spin up new resources or experiment with configurations. Want to try a different Linux distribution or quickly test a new application? Their one-click Droplet creation allows you to deploy pre-configured servers in under a minute.
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 budget
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.
Microsoft Azure's true power lies in its vast array of integrated services. Beyond virtual machines, you can tap into advanced analytics tools, Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, and even blockchain solutions.
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 configurability
ScalaHosting impresses with its highly customizable VPS plans and user-friendly approach. With over 15 years of experience, this Dallas-based provider offers a good mix of flexibility, performance, and support.
ScalaHosting offers both self-managed and managed VPS cloud hosting. You can create custom plans with up to 24 CPU cores, 64 GB RAM, and 2,000 GB storage. ScalaHosting's intelligent resource suggestion tool helps you select the ideal configuration based on your website's daily traffic, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes and technical expertise levels.
All plans include NVMe SSD storage, which can deliver up to 10 times faster website speed compared to standard SATA SSDs. Additional features like CloudFlare CDN, protection from brute-force attacks, and automatic offsite backups are included across all plans.
ScalaHosting's proprietary sPanel control panel offers enhanced security, lightweight performance, and extensive functionality compared to the industry-standard cPanel. Unlike cPanel, sPanel allows hosting unlimited accounts and websites at no extra cost.
The provider also offers free site migrations, an unconditional 30-day money-back guarantee, and prorated refunds for cancelled plans. The combination of customizability, performance, and support makes ScalaHosting a strong contender in the cloud hosting market.
Best month-to-month
InMotion Hosting is a veteran hosting provider established in 2001, offering a robust and affordable cloud VPS solution. What sets it apart is its flexible billing cycle—the pricing remains consistent whether you opt for monthly or annual payments, making it ideal for businesses that prefer short-term commitments.
Despite the budget-friendly approach, InMotion doesn't compromise on performance. It offers a choice between standard SSD and faster NVMe SSD storage, catering to different needs and budgets. Even the base plan, starting at $6 a month, comes packed with features like 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 30 GB SSD storage, 2 TB bandwidth, live server snapshots, and DDoS protection.
Security is another strong suit, with features like a dedicated IP address and enterprise-grade fiber optics for secure and fast data transfer. While InMotion's cloud VPS is Linux-only (CentOS, Ubuntu, Alma, Debian), it excels in customer support.
Users can access help 24/7/365 through phone, email, live chat, online tutorials, and a community Q&A forum. This comprehensive support system, coupled with the consistent pricing and performance-oriented features, makes InMotion Hosting a solid choice for businesses seeking reliable and flexible cloud VPS hosting.
Best for high-traffic websites
Leveraging Google Cloud infrastructure, SiteGround ensures exceptional speed, reliability, and security.
Unlike budget-oriented providers, SiteGround focuses on delivering robust resources. Even its entry-level cloud plan, starting at $100/month, boasts 4 CPU cores, 8 GB memory, 40 GB SSD storage, and 5 TB bandwidth, exceeding the requirements of most small businesses.
SiteGround's scalability is a key strength. You can add CPU or RAM on-demand or utilize the auto-scaling feature, which automatically adjusts resources based on traffic fluctuations. This makes it ideal if your business experiences unpredictable traffic spikes.
Google Cloud's multi-layered security measures, including restricted server room access and 24/7 security teams, ensure data protection. SiteGround complements this with a geo-distributed daily backup system and continuous server monitoring.
While SiteGround's robust features and higher price point may not suit small businesses with basic needs, it's an excellent option for businesses requiring powerful, scalable, and secure cloud hosting for high-traffic websites and demanding applications.
The best cloud hosting services, compared
| Cloud hosting service | Starting price | Bandwidth | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudways | $11 a month | 1TB | 25GB |
| DigitalOcean | $4 a month | 500GB | 10GB |
| Microsoft Azure | PAYG | PAYG | PAYG |
| ScalaHosting | $19.99 a month | Unmetered | 50GB |
| InMotion Hosting | $6 a month | 2TB | 30GB |
| SiteGround | $100 a month | 5TB | 40GB |
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.
