Best Cloud Server Hosting for 2024
Has your website started to gain traction? Are you receiving traffic spikes regularly now? What’s your next move? If you said “cloud server hosting” then you’re correct. If you didn’t, then you’re fired. We kid!
We’ll explore what this web hosting solution is all about and how it can help your business make it to the next level.
Best Cloud Server Hosting in Brief
- Hostinger: data centers for days
- SiteGround: choose your own storage adventure
- DreamHost: a cloud host that grows with your business
- Hostgator: 99.9% uptime
- Liquid Web: protection at its finest
What is Cloud Server Hosting?
There are many traditional web hosting types for your website, such as shared, dedicated, virtual private servers (VPS), and WordPress hosting. But that’s not all, there’s another one that distributes your site across multiple servers: cloud hosting.
Cloud hosting is the process of hosting websites in the cloud computing environment. Here, individuals and organizations outsource the task of storing the resources to the service providers. It’s like when you look up to the sky and see pillowy white clouds that look like marshmallows, think of this type of hosting as the ultimate safe and fluffy spot for your website.
In this type of hosting, a set of computing servers are dedicated to your website or shared by multiple sites or applications.
Compared to shared hosting, cloud hosting offers several advantages in terms of reliability, improved security, and handling a large amount of data. This hosting, however, is more expensive than shared hosting.
With this hosting type, you pay for the resources, including bandwidth, RAM, CPU, and webspace, which are spread through several devices instead of just one. It helps you overcome the limitations of shared hosting in terms of power and the inability to handle sharp traffic spikes. And while you can go with VPS or a dedicated server, you would still be relying on one server whereas cloud hosting features multiple server hosting capabilities.
When it comes to cloud service delivery models, there are different types, such as SaaS (software as a service), PaaS (platform as a service), and IaaS (infrastructure as a service). Cloud hosting moves the sites and applications in virtual machines over these models.
As to what benefits cloud hosting can offer you, it involves no initial upfront capital cost, making it a cost-effective solution for building websites and applications. Moreover, it offers benefits like high availability, improved scalability, data protection, disaster recovery, and simplifying the process of data retention.
Another key benefit of this is not paying for the resources that you don’t use. While you are paying for only the resources you are utilizing, it also allows you to instantly scale or descale your resources on-demand within your admin dashboard, making it easy for you to handle increased traffic.
Moreover, having many connected and dedicated servers means you will experience less downtime. Unlike traditional hosting, if one server fails, another one takes over, which means less downtime and high productivity.
The features offered by cloud hosting further include customization, fully managed solutions, and constant monitoring of the website.
Over the past couple of years, cloud hosting has grown in popularity as the best option for high-growth websites, web applications, eCommerce stores, and enterprise websites.
The good thing is traditional web hosts also offer cloud hosting packages making it easy for you to choose your hosting provider. But let’s see how you can find the best service provider first.
What to Look for in a Cloud Server Hosting Service
There are several hosting providers available out there for you to choose from and finding the right one can be a daunting task. To help make it easy for you to select the best cloud hosting provider, we’ll cover the factors that you need to consider, such as your website traffic, uptime, scalability, and overall better customer experience.
Price: how much money are you willing to spend on hosting?
Having a budget in mind ensures you won’t go overboard and at the same time, allow you to take advantage of the add-on services that you need for your business. Money-back guarantees also help you avoid getting trapped in a year-long contract for a service you don’t want or even need.
Uptime: always on, never off
One of the most crucial features to look for in a provider is how much your site stays online because if it goes down regularly, your clients and customers will not be able to access your products or services, and your business will be seriously affected. So, find a provider with the maximum possible uptime.
Control: this is your site
Having root access is useful for technically proficient people as this will allow you more control over your server’s environment. Also, you can install software that you want to improve your site. Even if you’re not tech-savvy, most platforms offer basic tutorials to help you navigate the control aspect of your cloud server.
Features: the extra-specials
Many cloud web hosts offer unlimited monthly data transfers and huge amounts of storage. As for server operating systems, Linux is typically the default option, with some services offering Windows hosting too.
Customer support: help at the ready
You’ll surely want a web host with responsive 24/7 customer support, available via phone, email, and live chat. Some cloud hosting solutions provide knowledge bases like tutorials, forums, and other useful tools for troubleshooting.
Best Cloud Server Hosting Providers
In this section, we will cover the cloud server hosting providers we love.
Hostinger
Hosting offers three pricing plans for its cloud server hosting that starts from $7.45 per month, which drops if you buy a subscription for a two or four-year program, and comes with a 30-days money-back guarantee. You will have complete control over all resources as the servers run on isolated virtual space.
Once you have set up a server, you will be provided instant activation of cloud hosting features. While offering 3x more speed, Hostinger gets you the latest technology and performance updates. You will further get a domain name, email hosting, and unlimited websites for free with every plan, as well as automatic backups to keep your files and databases safe, unlimited bandwidth, SSL certificates, and websites for your account.
The startup plan offers 2 CPU cores, 3GB of RAM, and 200 GB SSD storage, which increases with its higher-tier plans. Its built-in cache manager meanwhile will make your projects ultra-quick while providing lossless image optimization and minification for CSS, JS, and HTML files.
Other features include a Cloudflare integration for DDoS protection, along with a firewall and malware scanning provided through its partnership with Imunify360. Its millions of users further enjoy one-click installations for applications like WordPress and Magento.
Here, you will find all the essential tools in one place, while the control panel will allow you to efficiently manage the server.
Pros:
- Data centers in the US, UK, Netherlands, Lithuania, Singapore, Brazil, and Indonesia
- Three times faster hosting and free SSL, domain, and email hosting
- A simple control panel optimized for everyone
Cons:
- Uptime guarantee of 99.97% is not the highest
- No over-the-phone support
- Lacks dedicated hosting
SiteGround
For those whose sites live on WordPress, SiteGround may prove to be the right option for you. They offer four monthly plans that range from $100/month with 4 CPU cores and 8GB of memory to their Super Power plan which costs $400/month and comes with 16 CPU cores and 20GB of memory.
One of their strong suits is their free CDN service. A content delivery network (CDN) is a geographically distributed group of servers that work in tandem to get your content out to your clients. This can also speed up load time no matter where on the planet your customers are accessing your site and caches the content on numerous servers around the world.
You can also benefit from a free dedicated IP that is yours and yours only. SiteGround does not share your IP address with anyone which saves you from the possibility of IP backlisting due to fishy tactics.
Pros:
- 24/7 help center
- Free SSL certification
- Choose your own server locations
Cons:
- Storage options are low
- Great for small businesses but not for SMEs
- Works better with WordPress than other CMS
DreamHost
As a business grows, your server should grow with it. With DreamHost’s DreamCompute, your company won’t be stuck trying to push through a small space by outgrowing its cloud server.
With the all-SDD (solid-state drives) cloud servers offered, DreamHost allows you to run applications on whichever Linux OS you choose. You can also select options like $4.50/month for their basic plan $12.00/month for their mid-level plan, and $48/month for their ultimate plan.
Pros:
- Security features are unparalleled
- Cloud services grow with your business
- Storage is backed by software-defined Ceph platform
Cons:
- Usage-based billing
- Sign-up process is time-consuming
- Uptime not as efficient as other cloud hosts
Hostgator
Much like Hostinger, Hostgator also has three plans, with the basic one starting with $4.95 per month that goes down to $3.13 per month for the three-year program while offering a money-back guarantee for 45 days.
Hostgator provides powerful website hosting services for both small businesses and enterprises and covers website building, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated hosting.
Compared to others, the cloud plans offer up to twice as fast load times along with more site statistics as well as the ability to switch your site to another server in the event of a hardware failure. Going for a cloud hosting plan means you can easily and instantly scale up to 8 cores with a click without waiting for someone to process your order, meaning no downtime for your site.
This provider offers a ton of features including an intuitive dashboard, resource management, and integrated caching. By spreading the load of your website across the virtual servers, Hostgator offers you more scalable and reliable hosting.
Besides offering scalability of up to 8GB RAM, it comes with migration services for websites. The basic plan also provides you with one domain, unmetered bandwidth to help you serve fluctuating traffic, distributed varnish caching, 2GB RAM, and two core sharing. On updating your plan to a high tier, you also get a dedicated IP, a private SSL, and increased RAM and CPU cores.
Its unmetered storage is beneficial for those with a large website or a media-heavy site. It also has its own website builder that has a drag-and-drop facility for ease of use. Hostgator’s affordable plans come with an impressive 99.99% uptime and free migration services.
Pros:
- An outstanding 99.99% uptime
- Solid range of plans
- Good customer service
Cons:
- Doesn’t support windows-based VPS hosting
- No free backups and no root access
- Extra fees for Gmail and malware
Liquid Web
A high-end web host, Liquid Web offers powerful forms of hosting, covering dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, cloud dedicated hosting, VMware private cloud hosting, managed WordPress, managed WooCommerce, Private VPS Parent, and database hosting. The dedicated server plans are available for US Central, US West Servers, and EU Netherlands.
The dedicated cloud server is inexpensive and the most accessible cloud service, where you get your own dedicated server but with the speed and scalability of cloud technology. You can further choose between Linux, several distributions available, and Windows-based servers.
Its servers can have up to 1.7TB of SSD storage, 62GB of RAM, and 16 CPU cores. While daily backups are available, you’ll have to pay an extra cost for that. Other features offered include Cloud Load Balancer, Web Application Protection, and PCI Compliance Scanning.
Liquid Web also makes cPanel, Plesk, and InterWorx available as control panel applications to make it easier for you to manage your own server. You also get root access for even more control. It further handles your security and DDoS protection while a CDN network is provided via Cloudflare.
Besides offering a 100% uptime guarantee, it provides SSL certificates in all plans, makes site migration service available at no extra cost, and has Solid State Drives installed on all servers.
Liquid Web is a high-end hosting company with a high entry-level price because of an average user, it targets those with more advanced needs.
Pros:
- Attractive range of premium features
- Server protection for Windows and Linux
- Fully-managed cloud hosting is available
Cons:
- Better for large enterprises than smaller businesses
- Windows server plans are more expensive
- Limited data center locations, only in the USA and Europe
Can You Rent a Cloud Server?
The server rental cost varies significantly based on the amount of CPU, memory, and disk space required as well as the configuration. But the latest technology, cloud hosting, is a pooled server resource hosted and delivered over a network, typically the Internet. This is why cloud servers have a much lower price point and can be rented out for just a few dollars. Cloud servers are particularly known for their instant, cost-effective scalability and limited downtime.
Are Cloud Servers Good for Small Businesses?
For small businesses, cost-effective cloud servers are a great option. This web hosting server type offers high uptime and availability, on-demand access to resources, mobility, data backups, speedy server setup process, faster website speed and performance, automatic software updates, backup and disaster recovery, access to value-added services, increased collaboration, and security.
Managing costs is very important for small business owners, and through cloud servers, they can benefit from a flexible pricing structure and reduced infrastructure.
Are There Free Cloud Servers?
While you may be tempted to use a free cloud server hosting service, it is best to commit to a paid plan unless you are just looking to experiment. Free cloud platforms not only have heavy limitations, but they can also turn out to be more costly with the reliability issues and lack of resources and customer support. Cloud hosting is actually a cost-effective option, and a professional provider ensures the utmost flexibility, security, loss prevention, and performance.
Final Word: Take Your Site Into the Clouds
If you are experiencing surges in traffic and need a reliable solution, cloud hosting, even the simplest package, gets you resources on a single server covering domain name, bandwidth, and webspace. Cloud hosting platform technology can be cost-efficient and ensures increased server uptime and security as well as scalability of resources and backup and disaster recovery.
