Best cloud hosting providers and services in 2023
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Miglė Šeikytė
Content Lead
Cloud hosting is a type of hosting that uses multiple servers instead of just one, unlike shared hosting, dedicated servers, or VPS. With the help of advanced technology, your website or app is deployed to a number of servers, both virtual and physical. As a result, when one server is down, your project doesn’t go down with it – the information can be accessed from another server on the same network. There’s virtually no downtime, you get long-term cost savings, increased security, and multiple resources.
Unfortunately, there’s a myriad of cloud hosting providers and not all of them offer top-notch quality service.
To make things easier, we’ve tested and selected the best cloud hosting providers and made a comprehensive overview of each of the most reliable cloud hosting solutions regarding the tools, resources, performance, security technology used, and more features. Keep reading to find the one that suits your needs the most.
8 best cloud hosting services: ranked
- Hostinger – the overall best affordable cloud hosting provider
- Liquid Web – powerful premium cloud VPS provider
- SiteGround – highly secure cloud web hosting services
- HostGator – the cheapest cloud hosting provider
- ScalaHosting – easily scalable and affordable cloud VPS solutions
- Cloudways – a beginner-friendly cloud hosting solution
- DreamHost – affordable cloud hosting provider with easy navigation
- Nexcess – flexible cloud hosting provider with advanced security
📢 LIMITED OFFER: Cyber Monday! Get 86% OFF Hostinger + 3 months free!
Best cloud hosting providers – our detailed list:
To make the selection process easier for you, we first tested and evaluated the best hosting 2023 providers. From this evaluation, we selected a set of cloud hosting providers and analyzed their features, performance, available plans, and other benefits they offer. Check out the comprehensive list of the cloud hosting solutions we’ve picked.
1. Hostinger – the best cloud hosting solution overall
| Features: | Free SSL, domain, CDN, emails, daily backups, native control panel |
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Speed: | 476ms |
| Best for: | Affordable cloud hosting for larger projects |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Cyber Monday! Get 86% OFF Hostinger + 3 months free! 🔥 |
Hostinger is our top choice cloud hosting provider, which is also a market leader. With plans starting at just $1.79/month, servers all over the world, a custom control panel, and tons of resources, you should really consider Hostinger if you’re looking for an affordable and powerful managed cloud solution.
Interface: Hostinger has fully managed and easy-to-use cloud hosting services, including a custom control panel with easy navigation. The tools you’ll need for efficient management are located in one place to ensure a smooth experience. The provider handles the monitoring and the server uptime while you develop your project.
Features: Hostinger provides a generous set of features and dedicated resources for its cloud hosting – 300 websites, 200GB SSD storage space, 2CPU cores, 3GB RAM, cache manager, free daily backups, CDN, and more.
Performance: Not only does Hostinger have 8 data centers on 4 continents, but its LiteSpeed Web Server technology is designed to boost your website’s performance. It comes with a built-in caching engine whose sole purpose is to enhance page loading speed. Hostinger has a 99.9% uptime guarantee. When it comes to the response time, the result was only 476ms, which is a very good time.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 476ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 0.9s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: With Hostinger, you’ll get 24/7 customer support via live chat. The service is top-notch quality and you’ll be able to get all the needed information.
Pricing: For cloud hosting, Hostinger provides 3 plans with prices ranging from $8.09/month to $29.99/month. One thing to keep in mind, these prices are available with a 48-month subscription only. Plus, you can use a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Overall, Hostinger is an excellent choice for cloud hosting. There are plenty of resources at unbelievably low prices, the services are fully managed, and the custom control panel makes management a piece of cake. Plus, the performance is outstanding.
For more information, visit our Hostinger review.
2. Liquid Web – powerful premium cloud hosting solution
| Features: | Fully managed, free SSL, automated backups, native control panel |
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Speed: | 521ms |
| Best for: | Fully managed cloud VPS for a reliable and powerful hosting |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 74% OFF Liquid Web VPS! 🔥 |
While Liquid Web offers actual cloud hosting, the prices are more on the premium side. However, the provider has great offers on fully managed cloud VPS, which is just as impressive. With competitive prices and feature-rich plans, Liquid Web delivers reliable performance and efficient management.
Interface: Liquid Web gives you the opportunity to choose a control panel depending on what you find easier to use. Or what you’re accustomed to. cPanel, InterWorx, and Plesk are all available.
Features: All plans come with a variety of security tools like automatic daily backups, DDoS protection, SSL certificate, server monitoring, and firewalls.
Performance: Liquid Web is one out of the few providers that give a 100% uptime guarantee. While this is hard to achieve, the provider aims to establish its trustworthiness. If you do experience any downtime, you will be compensated.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 521ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.2s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: Liquid Web comes with a guarantee to respond in 59 seconds if you contact customer support via phone or live chat. If you open a ticket, the host will respond within 59 minutes. I went with live chat, and someone was available to answer my question in less than 59 seconds. Hats off to Liquid Web for that.
Pricing: Liquid Web came up with 4 plans with prices of $15.00, $25.00, $35.00, and $45.00 per month. Plus, the host also has a standard 30-day money-back guarantee.
Overall, Liquid Web is a solid choice for cloud web hosting. Its plans are inclusive and not very expensive, you can choose whatever control panel you’re comfortable with, and the performance is on point.
For more information, visit our Liquid Web review.
3. SiteGround – reliable cloud web hosting solution
| Features: | Free SSL, native CDN, daily backups, native control panel, caching |
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Speed: | 588ms |
| Best for: | Reliable and secure hosting for enterprises |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 83% OFF SiteGround + FREE TRANSFER! 🔥 |
SiteGround is not the cheapest cloud hosting provider you’ll come across, but you definitely get what you’re paying for. The service is fully managed, security is top-notch, and the provider ensures easy scaling for growing businesses.
Interface: With a simple and playful interface and a custom control panel called Site Tools, SiteGround is easy to use and navigate. For instance, if you want to install WordPress, you don’t even have to go to your control panel because the option is available in the main dashboard.
Features: While most providers include some security features in their plans, SiteGround goes the extra mile. It doesn’t stop at the usual free SSL certificate. You will get automated daily backups, a real-time monitoring system, a Custom Web Application firewall, and an AI anti-bot system.
Performance: While cloud hosting is much more powerful than shared hosting, SiteGround puts a lot of effort into making it as fast as possible. The host does not only keep its hardware and software up to date but also offers an in-house-developed Ultrafast PHP setup. This enhances the overall performance and decreases server response time.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 588ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.8s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: You won’t be disappointed with SiteGround’s customer support – it offers 24/7 live chat, phone, and ticket support options. The service is professional, fast, and knowledgeable.
Price: As far as plans and prices go, there are 4 options with prices ranging from $100.00/month to $200.00/month. More so, you can also customize a plan yourself.
You can use a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with the product.
Overall, SiteGround is definitely worthy of your consideration. It has some of the best security tools on the market, and feature-rich cloud hosting plans, plus you can configure your own cloud as you see fit.
Read more about SiteGround and its features in our full SiteGround review.
4. HostGator – the cheapest cloud hosting solution
| Features: | Free SSL, domain, emails, caching, cPanel |
| Uptime: | 99.96% |
| Speed: | 576ms |
| Best for: | Very cheap cloud hosting for smaller sites |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Cyber Monday! Get up to 76% OFF HostGator! 🔥 |
HostGator has very affordable cloud hosting – it’s mostly suited for smaller sites and projects. It’s the cheapest cloud hosting service you’ll encounter if you want to scale up your project. The resources are decent, the performance is in optimal parameters, and it’s easy to use.
Interface: For easy site management, HostGator uses the well-known cPanel. No matter if you’re a beginner or an advanced user, you won’t have any problems navigating the panel.
Features: HostGator’s cloud hosting packages include a free domain, an SSL, , unmetered bandwidth and storage, CPU from 2 to 6 cores, and RAM ranging from 2 to 6GB.
Performance: The provider’s performance as a whole is good, but a little more on the average end – the uptime remained higher than promised, and the response time was satisfactory.
| Uptime: | 99.96% |
| Average response time: | 576ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.2s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: HostGator has flexible customer support options – 24/7 live chat and phone. The team is professional and willing to help and solve your issues in a timely manner.
Price: The provider offers prices as low as $4.95/month due to its reliance on its shared hosting infrastructure. If you’d like to try out the service, make sure to use a 30-day money-back guarantee.
All in all, HostGator is a valid choice for cloud web hosting. It’s affordable, easy to use, and the performance is more than adequate.
For more information, visit our HostGator hosting review.
5. ScalaHosting – scalable and budget-friendly cloud VPS solutions
| Features: | Free SSL, domain, emails, daily backups, Native control panel |
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Speed: | 443ms |
| Best for: | Fully managed and secure cloud VPS hosting |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 36% OFF Scalahosting VPS + save an additional 15% with any ScalaHosting plan! 🔥 |
While ScalaHosting is not among the most popular hosting providers, the host proves to be a worthy choice for cloud hosting. The provider offers fully managed cloud VPS, rather than just cloud. Even if you’re looking for cloud hosting, SalaHosting’s powerful and resource-rich plans, accompanied by very good performance, make it a solid choice for the job.
Interface: Like many other providers, ScalaHosting ditched cPanel for an in-house control panel. It’s called SPanel, and it’s just as easy to use as cPanel.
Features: The provider is very well-rounded in terms of features – since all plans come with a free domain, SSL, and email accounts, you won’t have any additional fees.
Performance: Overall, ScalaHosting’s performance proved to be very good – no downtime, fast response time, and quite a few available server locations in the US and Europe to fight latency.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 443ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.8s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: You can contact ScalaHosting’s support via 24/7 via live chat, email, tickets, and phone. The provider promises to respond via live chat in no longer than 30 seconds, tickets – no longer than 15 minutes. Plus, there’s a big knowledge base covering a variety of web hosting management-related topics.
Pricing: ScalaHosting has 4 VPS cloud plans with prices ranging from $29.95/month to $179.95/month. Additionally, you can use a 30-day money-back guarantee.
In sum, ScalaHosting is a resource-rich and relatively affordable cloud VPS provider. You can configure your server according to your particular needs. Security is well taken care of, and ease of use is at the forefront.
For more information, visit our ScalaHosting review.
6. Cloudways – beginner-friendly managed cloud hosting provider
| Features: | Free SSL, domain, website builder, and CDN |
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Speed: | 229ms |
| Best for: | Beginner-friendly and fast cloud hosting |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 25% OFF Cloudways! 🔥 |
Cloudways’ main area of expertise is cloud hosting. It offers a service that sets up and manages servers from leading cloud hosts like Google Cloud, AWS, and others. Additionally, Cloudways provide stable and fast hosting, low prices, loads of server locations to choose from, and more.
Interface: Cloudways hosting uses its own in-house developed panel to manage the servers and applications. Generally, the panel is clean and comprehensive. Additionally, the setting up of the website and installation of SSL certificates is beyond easy.
Features: When you purchase cloud hosting from Cloudways, you get the basics such as free SSL, managed backups, a dedicated firewall, and two-factor authentication. One of Cloudways’ most popular and handy features is its staging environment. The provider allows you to create as many of your site’s copies for staging as you need too.
Performance: Cloudways’ performance is top-notch. The provider truly demonstrates what cloud hosting is all about – trustworthiness and speed. Plus, you can choose from over 20 data center locations.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 229ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 0.9s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: There are several ways to reach out the customer support – via 24/7 live chat and online ticketing. Besides, Cloudways has a knowledge base and a community forum.
Pricing: Cloudways offered plans start at $8.25/month and can go as high as thousands of dollars a month, depending on which server provider and its plan you opt for. As most of our recommended providers, Cloudways offer a 30-day money-back guarantee option.
Overall, Cloudways seems to excel in the resource and performance departments. As one might expect, the prices are not the lowest with some providers, but you’re paying for the added ease of use.
For more information, visit our Cloudways review.
7. DreamHost – cheap cloud hosting solution with easy navigation
| Features: | Free SSL, domain name, daily backups, domain privacy |
| Uptime: | >99.99% |
| Speed: | 710ms |
| Best for: | More advanced users and bigger sites, databases |
| Current deal: | 🔥Get DreamHost with 79% OFF🔥 |
DreamHost offers affordable and highly powerful cloud hosting solutions. Cloud server hosting plans provide customizable and scalable architecture and open-source code (for advanced users). Overall, it's a highly flexible and easy-to-use cloud hosting provider. Let’s take a closer look at what it offers.
Interface: DreamHost has a custom-built control panel, which is intuitive and very functional. It definitely doesn’t lack good user experience – the interface has a menu with all the important functionalities, such as adding additional domains, managing subdomains, and many more.
Features: Depending on the plan you choose, you will get features like unlimited websites, free email hosting, as well as unlimited storage, SSL, content delivery network, unmetered bandwidth, and daily backups.
Performance: DreamHost delivers great performance in the long run. Its uptime is brilliant – 100%, it can load both light and heavy pages in a flash, and can provide decent server response time averaging at 710ms.
| Uptime: | 100% |
| Average response time: | 710ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 1.4s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: DreamHost provides multiple customer support options – a live chat (5:30 AM - 9:30 PM PT), phone support, and 24/7 email tickets. Plus, you can consult with DreamHost’s extensive knowledge base and access its community forum.
Pricing: For cloud hosting, DreamHost offers 3 plans: 512MB RAM Server ($4.50/month), 2GB RAM Server ($12.00/month), and 8GB RAM Server plan ($48.00/month). All accounts come with 100 GB of block storage and free bandwidth.
Overall, DreamHost is a reliable and really affordable provider with cloud hosting deals. With its excellent uptime, strong security and privacy, extensive resources, and other hosting services, it’s a great choice for beginners.
For more information, visit our DreamHost review.
8. Nexcess – flexible and secure cloud hosting with advanced security
| Features: | Free SSL, unlimited email accounts, daily offsite backups |
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Speed: | 479ms |
| Best for: | Professional users, cloud hosting for enterprise and bigger sites |
| Current deal: | 🔥 Get up to 60% OFF Hosting! 🔥 |
Nexcess is another pick of ours for the best cloud hosting. It belongs to the LiquidWeb family and definitely doesn’t lack the power. Nexcess selection of cloud hosting plans is focused on professional users like developers, agencies, online stores, and enterprises. Let’s explore more of its features.
Interface: Nexcess has a pretty straightforward native user interface – it also serves as the website management panel. It’s intuitive and very well structured. Both beginners and professionals won’t have any trouble navigating.
Features: All the plans that run on cloud infrastructure come with free SSL, unlimited email accounts, daily offsite backups, PCI compliance, at least 50GB storage, and a minimum of 1TB bandwidth.
Performance: Nexcess is both very reliable and fast. In terms of performance and speeds, it has resulted in a near-perfect uptime of 99.99% during our tests. The average response time has averaged out at 479ms. Overall, it definitely didn’t disappoint.
| Uptime: | 99.99% |
| Average response time: | 479ms |
| Fully built site loading time: | 2.5s |
| On-site traffic: | 50VUs |
Customer support: Nexcess has multiple customer support options – 24/7 live chat, phone calls (limited to a certain area), and a knowledge base. Overall, it’s pretty extensive and will definitely help you with all-things cloud hosting.
Pricing: Nexcess offers 4 cloud hosting plans – XS ($37.20/month), S ($68.40/month), M ($116.40/month), L ($195.00/month). All of the plans provide free SSL, free email, and a 30-day money-back guarantee option. The main difference is the number of hosted sites, storage, bandwidth, and PHP workers per site.
Generally, Nexcess is a secure, simple cloud hosting service with good performance, security, and a professional customer support team. One of the downsides of it would be premium-priced plans and some absence of security features.
For more information, visit our Nexcess review.
Best cloud hosting providers compared
Let’s check out how all the cloud hosting providers we recommend compare to each other:
| Provider | Hostinger | Liquid Web | SiteGround | HostGator | ScalaHosting | Cloudways | DreamHost | Nexcess |
| Brand |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Speed | 511ms | 521ms | 217ms | 525ms | 443ms | 229ms | 231ms | 479ms |
| Uptime | 100% | 100% | 99.99% | >99.99% | 100% | 99.99% | >99.99% | 99.99% |
| Data center location | Yes, 8 | Yes, 3 | Yes, 7 | US only | Yes, 7 | Yes, 65+ | US only | Yes, 8 |
| VPS or Cloud hosting | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Control panel | hPanel | multiple | Site Tools | cPanel | cPanel | Custom | Custom | Custom |
| Free SSL | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Free domain | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Customer support | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 |
| Price range | From $8.09/month | From $15.00/month | From $100.00/month | From $4.95/month | From $ 29.95/month | From $8.25/month | From $4.50/month | From $37.20/month |
How to choose the best cloud hosting provider?
Choosing a hosting provider is not a very difficult task. It all comes down to you and your needs. So before you go and make a choice, sit down and evaluate how many different resources you’ll need, set a budget, and see if your favored provider’s performance is up to your standards. Here are the key aspects to consider when choosing the cloud hosting provider:
- Resources and tools. Make a list of what resources and how many of those you will need for your project. Consider the size of your website – how big or small you’re planning your site or project to be. The more content you’ll have – the more storage, bandwidth, and CPUs you’ll need.
- Security. Make sure the provider is secure enough. How much security you’ll need depends on the purpose of the project you’ll be running. If it’s a blog, a simple SSL certificate, DDoS protection, and automatic backups will be enough. However, if it’s an eCommerce site, you will need more tools like firewalls, threat scans, and PCI-compliant servers.
- Budget. The bigger your project is, the more resources it’ll need, making your hosting inevitably pricier. Most providers offer the lowest prices with the longest billing period available. This could be either a year or even 4 years. If you’re not sure you’ll need services for that long or paying upfront is not your cup of tea, look for a host with a month-to-month billing option.
- Performance. It’s very important to evaluate the provider’s performance before you fully commit. There are a couple of things you should focus on - uptime and response time. When it comes to cloud hosting, downtime should be as close to 0 as possible, but most often, a provider will issue a standard uptime guarantee of 99.9%. Response time – a good provider will give you an average response time of 600ms at the most. Simply put, anything above that falls among the slow bunch, and anything below is considered to be very fast.
- Customer support. All cloud hosting providers offer a variety of support options. See what kind of support channels the host has: what ways are there to contact it, whether you reach it 24/7, and whether the agents of any help.
Best cloud hosting: final recommendations
Choosing the best cloud hosting provider can be tricky, but it should all be smooth sailing as long as you know what you need. Our definite winner and top pick of cloud hosting is Hostinger – an affordable solution that offers resource-rich plans that benefit larger projects. Besides, there are more providers all coming with different pros and cons.
Therefore, you can pick the one that suits your needs the most and has all the features you’re looking for, whether that would be a long-term saving cost, increased security of your domain, resources, speed loss prevention, and more. Don’t hesitate to get through our tested providers’ list and pick your winner.
Best cloud hosting FAQs
Which is the best cloud hosting?
Hostinger is the best cloud hosting provider on the market. It provides fully managed and easy-to-use cloud hosting services – you get all the tools for efficient management and top-notch performance technology designed to boost your website’s performance. It comes with loads of server resources, fast speeds, and very low prices.
Which is the best free cloud hosting?
Free hosting, including cloud hosting, is rarely possible and none of our the recommended providers have such a deal. Therefore, we recommend getting affordable and wallet-friendly web hosting solutions, such as Hostinger.
Why is cloud hosting the best?
Cloud hosting has a myriad of advantages, such as affordable prices, ease of use, faster loading times, easy access, and flexible sharing options. It’s worth noting that cloud hosting providers back up their data on the cloud, meaning that you can be sure you’ll never lose it.
Is cloud better than hosting?
Simply put – yes. Cloud hosting is more quickly scalable than other hosting solutions, it’s able to handle large amounts of traffic, has developed security protection, and in general, is more reliable. There are different pros and cons for different users, however, cloud hosting is one of the most flexible hosting options.
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