Cloud hosting is great if you're building a business website and you want web hosting that's easy to scale up. Your site will be able to pull from a network of servers when it needs more resources so you can grow it exponentially without switching to a different type of hosting. Using cloud hosting also allows your site to retrieve data from a secondary server if the primary server goes down, ensuring more consistent uptime.
I compiled this list of the best cloud hosting companies based on the hundreds of hours I've spent researching and testing web hosting companies for CNET. I've included a balance of low-cost, mid-range and high-cost cloud hosting options, so you're certain to find something that meets both your tech needs and your budgetary requirements.
Our Picks
What is the best cloud web hosting right now?
SiteGround is the best choice for cloud web hosting because it provides a great mix of tools for beginners and developers. Beginners will love the pre-built plans, expert support and WordPress management. Developers will love the staging tools and Git integration, plus the ability to create custom hosting packages for client sites.
Best cloud web hosting in 2025
Best cloud web hosting overall
Pros
- Award-winning customer service
- Full WordPress management
- Easy-to-understand plans and setup
- Custom cloud builds
- Caching and CDN for improved site speed
- Automated daily backups
- Monthly plans available
- 10% discount available if you select a six month or one year plan
Cons
- Base price is $100 a month
SiteGround performed well in our hands-on SiteGround review thanks to its robust WordPress management tools, good server performance and spectacular customer service. SiteGround has also earned a great reputation in the web hosting space more generally, including recognition from the Stevie Awards for its phenomenal customer service.
Cloud hosting customers with SiteGround will enjoy the easy WordPress onboarding process, a specialized optimization plugin that includes caching settings, automated WordPress updates and 24/7 access to WordPress experts via phone, live chat and email. You’ll also get free SSL — secure socket layer — certification and automated backups for improved data security, plus a CDN, or content delivery network for improved global site speeds.
SiteGround offers some developer tools for cloud hosting customers, including staging tools for safer testing of site updates and Git integration for simplified editing of the WordPress source code. Agencies can also create custom hosting packages for client sites and act as resellers.
Plans and pricing
SiteGround offers four pre-built cloud hosting plans. The most affordable plan is Jump Start, at $100 a month, which includes enough storage to host 400 pages (or more, depending on page size) and enough bandwidth (sometimes referred to as data transfer) for five million monthly visitors. Jump Start users can also sign up for six months or one year to receive a 10% discount.
The highest-cost cloud hosting plan from SiteGround is Super Power, which costs $400 a month. You can save 5% of this monthly cost by choosing a three-month plan. SiteGround also lets you create a Custom Cloud plan. You can’t get anything less than the Jump Start plan, but you can adjust individual resources — like storage — to meet your needs. These adjustments increase the cost by increments of $10 a month. You can also increase your CPU cores, memory and storage past what’s offered in the Super Power plan if you need more resources.
Best cloud web host for developers
Pros
- Lots of tools for developers
- Excellent security
- Ability to choose a backup frequency of anywhere from every hour to every 7 days
- WordPress management
- Flexible plans and pricing for sites with varying resource needs
- Monthly plans available
Cons
- No phone support
- No introductory discount
Cloudways is a developer-focused cloud hosting company partnered with cloud infrastructure companies like Google Cloud Hosting and Amazon Web Services. The Cloudways purchase process lets you choose the company you want to purchase cloud space from, then provides an easy-to-use admin interface you can use to manage your hosting. This creates a smoother user interface than you might experience when working with one of these companies separately. The best of these infrastructure options is DigitalOcean thanks to its affordable and flexible pricing.
All Cloudways DigitalOcean plans include free SSL certification, dedicated firewall protection, automated backups — with the ability to choose your backup frequency — 24/7 monitoring, and regular security patches. There’s a Cloudflare CDN and advanced caching built into DigitalOcean servers to improve site speed. Cloudways also offers great developer tools, including an isolated staging area for testing updates without breaking your site and advanced server management. Cloudways customer service is available 24/7 via live chat and support tickets. There is no phone support.
Plans and pricing
There are two plan types available through Cloudways’ DigitalOcean service: Premium and Standard. Premium servers use the newest generation of hardware, providing a 30% improvement in speed and reliability over the Standard servers. Standard servers use hardware from the previous generation, so the speed and reliability are lower than what you’ll get with premium plans but still good enough for many websites.
Premium plans start at $14 a month and let you create 250 pages (or more, depending on page size) and handle one million visitors per month. The highest-tier Premium plan costs $487 a month for enough resources to create at least 120,000 pages and accommodate nine million monthly visitors. The most affordable Standard plan costs $11 a month for enough resources to create at least 250 pages and accommodate one million monthly visitors. The highest-tier Standard plan costs $1,056 a month for enough resources to create at least 384,000 pages and accommodate twelve million monthly visitors.
Most users should choose a Premium plan, as you’ll only spend a few extra dollars per month for the 30% improvement at most levels. The only reason to choose a Standard plan is if you need more resources than you can get on the Premium servers.
Best variety of plans
Pros
- Managed, partially managed and fully unmanaged options available
- Massive storage and bandwidth on most affordable managed plan
- Enterprise businesses can create custom plans with even higher resource levels
Cons
- The number of options available can be overwhelming
- Low-cost plans require multiple paid add-ons to be functional for people new to web hosting
Liquid Web offers cloud hosting solutions for website owners at all budgets and experience levels, including both managed (where Liquid Web handles all server maintenance for you) and unmanaged (where you handle server management yourself) options. Every Liquid Web cloud hosting plan includes firewall protection, DDoS protection and SSL certification. 24/7 expert support is available through live chat, phone and email.
Plans and pricing
Liquid Web offers three types of cloud hosting: Cloud VPS — virtual private server — Cloud Metal and Managed Cloud.
Cloud VPS starts at $5 a month for enough resources to create at least 300 pages and accommodate one million monthly viewers. That only includes a self-managed VPS. You’ll pay $39 a month for server management, $10 a month for the Interworx server management tool, $28 a month for the more commonly used cPanel, and $0.05 per gigabyte per month for backups, all essential features for first-time site owners. This brings the cost up to $54.05 per month, making the Managed Cloud Hosting plans more cost-effective unless you’re prepared to handle the server yourself.
Cloud Metal plans start at $26.70 for the first six months ($89 a month after) for enough resources to create at least 48,000 pages and accommodate ten million monthly viewers. This option is unmanaged by default, and server management is an extra $39. You’ll also pay $10 for Interworx ($28 a month for cPanel) and backups cost $0.05 per gigabyte per month. Make sure you factor these costs into your budget.
Managed Cloud Hosting includes Interworx, 100GB of backups and full server management, without any additional fees. The most affordable plan starts at $38.40 for the first six months ($128 a month after) and includes enough resources to create over 4,800 pages and accommodate 10 million visitors. Interworx is also included, but cPanel will cost an additional $35. If you can’t find what you need in Liquid Web’s three core cloud hosting offerings, choose Custom Cloud and work with Liquid Web to create a custom plan.
Best AI integration
Pros
- Easy-to-understand plans and setup
- AI tools available
- Both website builder and managed WordPress options
- Email hosting for up to 100 email accounts
Cons
- Traffic limits mean you may need to switch hosts as your site grows
- No phone or email support available
- Introductory discount is only available with a 4-year term
- No custom cloud builds
Hostinger is a rapidly growing web host that received top marks in our hands-on Hostinger review. All Hostinger cloud hosting users get full access to the visual website builder, complete with AI tools for site generation, copywriting and SEO to help beginners quickly set up a website.
Hostinger cloud hosting plans also include one-click WordPress installation, WordPress acceleration through LiteSpeed, smart auto-updates for WordPress, a specialized WordPress vulnerabilities scanner, caching and developer tools like a staging tool and GIT access. You’ll also get support for WooCommerce and an Amazon affiliates plugin. Additionally, you’ll get unlimited SSL certification, a free domain for the first year, a free CDN, daily backups and email hosting for up to 100 email addresses. Your site will be protected by a firewall, enhanced DDoS protection and a malware scanner.
There are two potential drawbacks to Hostinger. First, customer support is only available via live chat. This can be frustrating if you prefer phone or email support. The other potential drawback is that Hostinger uses a proprietary server management system called hPanel. If you’re comfortable with the more commonly used cPanel, you may dislike having to learn a new system, even one as easy to use as hPanel.
Plans and pricing
The Cloud Startup plan starts at $8 a month with a 48-month (four-year) plan and rises to $20 a month on renewal. This plan uses nonvolatile memory express — NVMe storage — for faster performance than the standard solid state drive — SSD storage — and includes enough storage for at least 20,000 pages. Cloud Startup also claims unlimited bandwidth at the top, but if you click “See all features,” it’s revealed that this plan can only handle 200,000 users a month.
The Cloud Enterprise plan sits at the other end of the spectrum, costing $30 a month with a 48-month (four-year) plan and $55 a month on renewal. You’ll get enough storage to store at least 30,000 pages and enough bandwidth to accommodate 400,000 monthly visitors. Hostinger’s cloud hosting plans are great for small-to-medium websites expecting a moderate amount of traffic and growth. They’re an especially good choice if you’re new to cloud hosting and want the simplest managed hosting option around. The traffic limits mean that you may need to switch hosts if your site experiences massive growth.
Best for security
Pros
- Excellent security tools
- Easy-to-understand plans and setup
- Custom cloud package creation available
- Fast customer service -- email responses are guaranteed within 15 minutes or less
- Anytime, unconditional money-back guarantee
Cons
- Additional fee required to use cPanel instead of the proprietary SPanel
- No phone support
- Introductory discounts aren’t available on all plans
ScalaHosting has been recognized as one of the best web hosting companies by numerous outlets. It earns these recommendations with flexible plans, high-quality servers and fast 24/7 customer support via live chat and email. ScalaHosting also offers an unconditional, anytime money-back guarantee, so you won’t be stuck with them if you don’t like the service.
All ScalaHosting cloud hosting users get access to the proprietary SShield, a custom security system that monitors your website 24/7 and claims to block 99.998% of attacks. SShield also sends you information about any attacks -- including a detailed report of any data compromised -- and attempts to resolve any issues created by hacking. You’ll also get SSL certification, basic firewall protection, brute force protection, basic DDoS protection and automated daily backups.
ScalaHosting offers LiteSpeed-enhanced servers, Cloudflare CDN integration, caching and static content compression to improve site speed and reliability. The cloud hosting plans also use NVMe storage for further improvements in speed and reliability.
ScalaHosting uses the proprietary SPanel for server management. SPanel includes WordPress management tools for tasks like manual backups, site cloning and enabling/disabling automatic updates. You can also use this tool to lock your WordPress site, preventing users from modifying your files. All of this makes SPanel great, but you don’t have to use it -- you can buy cPanel licenses starting at an additional $26.50 a month for five licenses.
Plans and pricing
ScalaHosting offers both managed and unmanaged cloud VPS hosting. Self-managed cloud hosting is more affordable -- the introductory rate is $20 per month instead of $30 per month for the lowest-tier plan -- but it’s also more difficult for beginners, so we’ll focus on managed cloud hosting in this section.
There are four pre-built managed cloud hosting plans, all featuring unlimited bandwidth, plus the security and performance features mentioned above. The cheapest option is Build #1, which includes enough storage for at least 50,000 pages and costs $50 on a month-to-month plan. You can save money by signing up for a one-year or three-year contract, with both of these options starting at $30 a month and renewing at $50 a month. This makes Build #1 a great choice for most businesses.
The most expensive pre-built cloud hosting plan from ScalaHosting is Build #4, which includes enough storage for at least 200,000 pages and costs $240 a month on a month-to-month plan. You can save money with a one-year contract, which costs $95 a month for the first term and rises to $240 a month on renewal. A three-year contract for Build #4 starts at $170 per month ($240 a month on renewal). You must sign up for at least one year to receive the introductory discount.
ScalaHosting also lets you build a custom cloud hosting plan. You can’t choose anything with fewer resources -- or a lower cost -- than Build #1, but you can create a custom cloud hosting package that sits between the existing plans in both resources and cost. You can also choose to purchase more resources than what’s offered in Build #4 if you’re building a complex website or expecting massive monthly traffic.
What to Consider
Factors to consider when choosing a cloud web hosting service
Website builder vs. content management system
Website builders and content management systems are different types of tools for creating your website.
A website builder is a visual design tool that typically uses front-end editing, letting you see how your changes will appear to visitors as you make them. These tools are easy to use, with no need to install extensions or update the software yourself. Website builders often have limited design flexibility. Most website builders are also proprietary, making it difficult to switch hosts later on.
A content management system or CMS is a tool for building, maintaining and organizing blog posts and other website pages. They typically don’t require code, but you will need to install themes (site templates) and extensions. The most popular CMS is WordPress — powering 43.4% of all websites — an open-source tool you can install on any third-party web host for free.
Ease of use
Buying cloud hosting can be a highly involved process because most web hosts use complex pricing structures, but once you’re in, you should have an easy time finding server management and site creation tools. Most web hosting companies use cPanel to make this possible.
Managed vs. unmanaged
Managed hosting is where the host handles all of the details of server maintenance and management, often including auto-updates to your CMS.
Unmanaged hosting requires you to update your CMS yourself and may also require you to configure things like your server’s operating system and security software. Unmanaged hosting may be less expensive up front, but you’ll need to invest either time or money to make sure everything is kept up-to-date.
Using a proprietary website builder means your hosting will be managed by default, as the hosting company does all software maintenance and updates to the website builder.
Security
Your cloud hosting service should provide at least three layers of security:
- Secure Socket Layer -- SSL -- certification: A security protocol that encrypts data sent to and from your site, protecting key information like email addresses submitted through your contact form. SSL certification also tells browsers and VPNs your site is safe, and some won’t even let users open a site without it. Google may also penalize sites without SSL certification.
- Firewall: Software that scans all data submitted to your website/web server and filters out malware and spyware. Firewalls can’t promise 100% protection — new malware is created every day — but a good one will filter out the majority of malware to keep your site safe.
- Domain privacy: If you’re registering your domain through your chosen hosting service, make sure the company offers domain privacy. This ensures that your contact information won’t be publicly available in the WHOIS database.
Many cloud hosting services offer additional layers of protection as well, like distributed denial of service -- DDoS -- and brute force protection.
Uptime
Uptime measures how much time your website spends online. This is essential because visitors who can’t access your website will go elsewhere, resulting in lost traffic, lost trust and potentially lost income.
The industry standard for regular web hosting is 99.9% uptime, which means server issues and maintenance shouldn’t shut your site down for more than 10 minutes per week. Some cloud hosting services go beyond this, promising 99.99% or 100% uptime -- a promise made possible by using multiple servers.
Site speed
Site speed is how long it takes your website to load. The faster your site loads, the better -- bounce rate decreases by 32% when loading times go from three seconds to one second.
Most cloud hosting services offer the following tools to improve server/site speed:
- Caching: A system that stores website data in a specialized storage layer called a cache that operates at the speed of the server’s CPU (or sometimes the visitor’s CPU), which is typically faster than the RAM traditionally used to access data.
- Content delivery network or CDN: An interconnected group of servers that store website data in locations around the globe, allowing users’ browsers to pull from the data center closest to their location.
Storage
Storage determines how many files — like blog posts and landing pages — your site can host. Generally, 1GB can store either 10 large pages or up to 100 smaller pages. 5GB is plenty of storage for most static websites, but long-running blogs and e-commerce sites often need more storage.
You’ll also want to consider the storage type. Most hosts use solid state drive — SSD storage — for fast and reliable performance. Some offer NVMe — nonvolatile memory express — storage, which provides slightly faster and more reliable performance than regular SSD storage. If the host’s storage type isn’t specified on this list, assume it uses SSD; we’ve pointed out NVMe storage where applicable.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth, sometimes expressed as data transfer, dictates the amount of data your server can send to users per month. Cloud hosting plans typically express bandwidth as GB or TB. This makes it tricky to figure out how much bandwidth you’ll need because every visitor accesses a different amount of data. If 100 people visit your site each day and view five pages with an average size of 5MB, you’ll need 7.5GB of bandwidth. If those same 100 people view 10 pages, you’ll need 15GB of bandwidth.
The good news about cloud hosting is that many plans come with 1TB or more of bandwidth (or 1,000GB), meaning that you won’t need to worry about this math until you’re getting more than one million monthly visitors.
Customer support
You should be able to contact customer support quickly — and get helpful solutions — if your site breaks. Most high-quality web hosting companies offer 24/7 customer support via live chat, phone and email. Many companies offer both generic customer support and specialized WordPress experts.
Technically, being able to access 24/7 support doesn’t always mean you’ll get the help you need, though. Some hosting companies’ customer service is quite slow and/or relies on poorly trained customer service agents, making it difficult to get help with advanced issues. This is where sites like Trustpilot come in: you can read reviews there — or the web hosting reviews here on CNET — to find out how effective a company’s customer support is.
Pricing
There are a few things to watch out for when considering web hosting prices:
- Introductory pricing: Many web hosting companies offer steep discounts — often 50% or more — for the first term. When your contract renews, you’ll pay what’s typically listed as the “regular price.” Always factor this price increase into your long-term budget.
- Contract length: You may be required to sign up for a two- or three-year contract to get the best discount. This means you’ll have to multiply the monthly price listed on the site by 24 or 36 to understand what you’ll actually be paying.
- Additional fees: These include things like your domain and maybe email hosting and security tools. Some companies provide domain registration for free in the first year of hosting, but you’ll be required to pay annual domain registration fees in future years.
There are also two types of pricing for cloud hosting specifically:
- Package pricing: Cloud hosting packages with resources — like bandwidth and processing power — and cost predetermined by the hosting company. These packages typically allow for a significant amount of website growth before you need to upgrade.
- Modular pricing: A package you create by choosing the exact amount of bandwidth, storage and processing power you need, with a price based on the resources you require. You can then add resources incrementally — for example, adding 100GB of storage at a time — as your site grows. Adding resources incrementally may be more affordable than upgrading from one pre-set package to another.
Package pricing is easier to understand, especially if you’re new to web hosting, but modular pricing can be more cost-effective.
How CNET tests web hosting
Our test process for web hosting starts with reading a hosting company’s website to evaluate the overall quality of its plans and pricing. If a hosting company’s plans look good, we move on to reading reviews on Trustpilot and checking the Better Business Bureau for complaints against the company. Companies with at least 4 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot and minimal unresolved complaints on the Better Business Bureau website can be included in our best lists.
We also have an extensive web hosting test process that involves purchasing a plan, creating a test site and reviewing the following:
- Ease of use
- Uptime
- Server speed
- Customer service
These tests look at shared hosting, so results for uptime and server speed may not be relevant for cloud hosting and are not included in this list. Notes about ease of use and customer service have been added to hosts we’ve reviewed. Companies that performed poorly in our reviews are excluded from our best lists, even when discussing services other than shared hosting.
Other cloud web hosting
PlanetHoster
PlanetHoster offers dedicated cloud server hosting that it calls “HybridCloudwho.” The base plan — priced at $85 a month — allows for unlimited traffic and includes enough disk space for at least 60,000 pages. There are no other plans listed on the main page, but you can customize the plan with additional CPU cores, RAM and storage during checkout.
PlanetHoster’s HybridCloud solution includes firewall protection, SSL certification, DDoS protection, brute force protection and daily backups. You’ll also get email hosting for unlimited accounts.
FastComet
FastComet offers managed cloud hosting plans that include full WordPress management — installation, auto-updates and tools for staging/cloning sites — on top of the server management. FastComet protects its cloud hosting servers with SSL certification, a firewall, brute force protection, malware monitoring/protection and automated daily backups.
Cloud hosting through FastComet starts at $46.16 a month ($66 a month on renewal) for one CPU, 2GB RAM, 50GB of storage and 2TB of bandwidth, enough resources to build at least 50,000 pages and handle two million monthly visitors.