Popular Cloud VPS Hosting Companies You Should Consider

For a lot of companies, there always comes a time when shared hosting can no longer keep up with the increasing website traffic. This is when switching to a more powerful type of hosting service can save the day. Cloud VPS hosting is definitely an upgrade worth considering.

Cloud computing is a method of using resources through a network of interconnected remote servers as opposed to one dedicated machine. Cloud VPS hosting provides a dedicated set of server resources, customization flexibility, seamless scalability, and outstanding site speed. In this article, we will take a closer look at the most popular cloud VPS Hosting companies for you to help pick the best cloud VPS provider.

Cloud VPS (virtual private server) hosting strikes the perfect balance between the affordability of shared hosting and the operational power of a dedicated server

Quick summary:

1. ScalaHosting ⇣ – Fully managed cloud VPS hosting with strong security and performance, for the same price as shared hosting
2. Liquid Web ⇣ – Premium managed cloud VPS hosting with five-star customer service.
3. InterServer ⇣ – Budget-friendly cloud-based VPS that easily scales.
4. SiteGround ⇣ – Managed cloud hosting powered by Google Cloud infrastructure.

TL;DR Cloud VPS hosting is VPS hosting on cloud steroids. The unique combination of virtual private servers and cloud computing makes this type of web hosting the most cost-effective solution available right now. Scala Hosting is the best budget cloud VPS host thanks to its rich, fully managed, and affordable plans.

What Are the Best Cloud VPS Hosts in 2024?

In this article, I’ll focus on the very best cloud hosting companies in the industry and explore their strengths and weaknesses so you can make an informed decision before signing up.

1. ScalaHosting

ScalaHosting is an innovative host, recommended by the co-founder of Joomla, the world’s second-largest open-source CMS (content management system). It is one of the most popular cloud VPS providers.

ScalaHosting’s managed cloud VPS hosting delivers much faster site loading times than traditional shared hosting and comes with unlimited bandwidth and SSL certificates.

All of ScalaHosting’s plans include:

• Free website migration
• Free domain
• Free SSL certificates
• Unmetered bandwidth
• SPanel control panel
• SShield security
• Daily website backups
• HTTP/3 support
• Dedicated IP address
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Fully managed VPS — Once you purchase one of the managed cloud VPS bundles, you won’t have to do anything. ScalaHosting’s team of experts will set up, optimize, and maintain every aspect of your hosting service, so you can focus your time and energy on your business.
• Enterprise-level SSD drives — Scala uses enterprise-grade SSD drives, thanks to which the hosting company delivers outstanding site loading times. According to their official website, we’re talking up to 20 times faster than the average speeds.
• Free website migration — Each managed cloud VPS plan entitles you to this service. If you’re already hosted elsewhere, ScalaHosting will transfer all your sites and make sure they’re up and running without charging you extra fees.
• Free sophisticated security — Scala’s managed cloud VPS hosting packages come with SShield — a unique feature that will protect your website(s) from all sorts of web attacks while helping you achieve the highest standards of cybersecurity.
• Freedom to configure your server — If your online presence outgrows your cloud VPS hosting package, you’ll be able to upgrade your server to support your website success. You can do this by adding more CPU core units, more SSD disk space, more RAM, or more daily website copies to your plan. Alternatively, you can reduce your CPU cores, RAM, etc. if you realize your site no longer needs as many hosting resources.
• Amazing introductory prices — ScalaHosting sells its managed cloud VPS hosting plans at extremely affordable prices. If you’re ready to commit to the entry-level cloud VPS package for 1, 2, or 3 years, you’ll save 8%, 41%, or 50% respectively. The discounted introductory prices aren’t valid for monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual subscriptions.

Cons:

• 1 free daily website backup in all plans — Scala doesn’t include more than 1 free daily website copy in any of its cloud VPS bundles. This means the cloud VPS host keeps backups of your data only for the last 24 hours. However, you have the option to increase this limitation by purchasing 3 or 7 daily website backups for $3 or $7 respectively.
• None of the plans comes with proactive monitoring or LiteSpeed Web Server — If you want SH to check your VPS 24/7 and make sure it operates properly, you’ll have to pay an additional $5 per month. A LiteSpeed Enterprise license costs extra, too. To take advantage of the super-fast web server for both static and dynamic content, you’ll need to pay from $10 to $36 a month.
• Expensive cPanel licenses — If you want to use the most popular control panel, you’ll have to pay extra as ScalaHosting’s default control panel option is SPanel. The most basic cPanel license you can opt for covers 5 accounts and costs $16. Still, Scala’s very own SPanel is a wonderful alternative and comes absolutely free of charge.

Key Features

The most important cloud VPS hosting features ScalaHosting provides are:

• Full, round-the-clock server management — ScalaHosting allows its customers to choose between fully managed and self-managed cloud VPS hosting. If you select ‘managed’ when placing your cloud VPS order, your plan will come with pre-installed software (SPanel or cPanel depending on your choice, along with web, email, DNS & MySQL database services) and numerous services, including free setup and optimization, automatic updates, remote server backups, server uptime monitoring, and real-time malware scanning.
• User-friendly in-house control panel — Scala has developed its own control panel called SPanel. It supports multiple PHP versions and comes with Let’s Encrypt SSL integration. SPanel’s graphic interface is built to help you manage your server, email accounts, database, FTP, and DNS services with ease. Unlike cPanel, the most widely used control panel right now, SPanel doesn’t overuse your server resources, which is a huge plus.
• Award-winning 24/7 hosting support — ScalaHosting doesn’t let its customers wait long to get the help they need. The support team has an impressive 30-second live chat response time. If you submit a support ticket, you won’t wait longer than 15 minutes until someone gets back to you.
• 30-day money-back guarantee — Having the option to cancel your hosting plan without losing a cent is always more than welcome. ScalaHosting gives you the chance to test-drive its hosting service risk-free for 30 days. If you realize you’d be better off with another web host during this time, you’ll be able to receive a full refund without having to explain why.

Plans and Pricing

ScalaHosting sells 4 fully managed VPS hosting bundles: Start, Advanced, Business, and Enterprise.

• The Start plan comes with only 1 CPU core, 2GB of RAM, 50GB of SSD storage space, and unlimited bandwidth. Its price starts from $9.95 per month for the first 36-month subscription. This package automatically renews at $19.95 a month for a 36-month contract, which is the regular price.
• The Advanced plan costs $25.95 per month for new customers (its regular price is $41.95 a month). It includes 2 CPU cores, 4GB of RAM memory, 80GB of SSD disk space, and unmetered bandwidth.
• The Business plan comes with 4 CPU cores, 8GB of RAM, 160GB of SSD storage space, and unlimited bandwidth. Its special introductory price starts from $61.95 per month, whereas its regular price is $77.95 a month.
• Last but not least, the Enterprise plan includes an impressive set of resources: 8 CPU cores, 16GB of RAM memory, 320GB of SSD disk space, and unmetered bandwidth. If you are a new ScalaHosting customer, you can purchase this bundle for $133.95 per month (11% off the regular price).

In case none of these packages works for you, Scala Hosting offers you the chance to customize (upgrade or downgrade) your server at any time or build your own VPS.

Visit ScalaHosting.com … or read my Scala Hosting VPS review

2. Liquid Web

Liquid Web’s fully managed, cloud-based VPS hosting is ideal for you if you’re looking for reliable hosting with powerful root access. This hosting service strikes a balance between dedicated server power and cloud hosting flexibility.

Liquid Web’s cloud-based VPS hosting bundles come with:

• Unlimited sites with InterWorx
• Gigabit bandwidth
• Dedicated IP address
• Cloudflare CDN
• Standard ServerSecure advanced security
• Integrated firewall
• Standard DDoS protection
• Root access

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Fast SSD storage — Liquid Web uses solid-state drives (SSDs) for their cloud-based VPS customers’ data storage needs. SSDs provide numerous benefits over hard drives, but the most important ones are their speed and longevity. SSDs have faster boot times and are quicker at read-and-write operations. They also tend to last longer; their average lifespan is 2 million hours as opposed to 1.5 million hours of hard drives.
• 100% network and power uptime SLAs — As a Liquid Web VPS hosting user, you’ll get network uptime assurance and 100% guaranteed power, thanks to the host’s service level agreements (SLAs).
• Freedom to choose between Plesk and cPanel — Liquid Web’s default control panel is InterWorx, but Plesk Web Pro and cPanel Admin are also available. All three options are WHMCS-compatible.
• Easy scalability — Liquid Web lets its VPS hosting customers upgrade or downgrade their plans with a limited impact on their server uptime. This means you can adjust your hosting resources to follow the evolution of your website(s).

Cons:

• Limited bandwidth in all plans — Unlike its predecessor, Liquid Web doesn’t include limitless bandwidth in its cloud-based VPS packages. This can be devastating to eCommerce businesses as not having enough bandwidth means not being able to support the amount of traffic coming to your website, which can lead to lost visitors and, unfortunately, customers.
• Expensive — Although Liquid Web offers numerous managed cloud-based VPS plans with powerful specs, its prices aren’t exactly wallet-friendly, especially if you’re not ready to commit to a yearly or 2-year package.

Key Features

Liquid Web’s key cloud-based VPS hosting features include:

• Cloudflare CDN service — Cloudflare CDN (content delivery network) consists of thousands of servers located all around the world. By serving your website content to your visitors from servers physically closer to them, you will significantly reduce your page loading times, decrease your bandwidth usage, and improve your SEO. Additionally, Cloudflare CDN features static content caching, an instant full cache purge, DDoS mitigation, and content scraping protection.
• Off-server backups — Liquid Web has partnered with Acronis to provide its cloud VPS hosting customers with a secure off-server backup solution. Acronis Cyber Backups offer real-time, cloud-based, full-server backups and feature a self-service portal that enables you to configure, manage, and restore your backups easily. This backup solution comes with malware and ransomware protection, a backup encryption option, and bare-metal restoration, having a near-zero impact on your server resources. You can store your Acronis Cyber Backups in the Liquid Web Cloud (off-server) or the Acronis Backup Cloud (off-site).
• Proactive monitoring — Liquid Web’s Sonar Monitoring team is in charge of your virtual private server’s health. This means round-the-clock server monitoring and management, immediate incident resolution, and prevention of service interruptions. LW’s Sonar Monitoring experts reduce server downtime by repairing issues proactively before you’re even aware of them.
• 24/7 on-site customer support — As a Liquid Web cloud-based VPS hosting user, you can request assistance via phone, email, and live chat at any time. This web hosting provider has an NPS (net promoter score) of 67, which serves as proof of its exceptional customer loyalty and performance.

Plans and Pricing

Liquid Web offers multiple managed VPS hosting plans using both Linux and Windows. 

In this article, I’m going to focus on the 4 Linux plans as Linux is the operating system of choice for pretty much every hosting provider.

• The 2GB RAM plan comes with 2 vCPU (virtual centralized processing unit) cores, 40GB of SSD storage, 10TB bandwidth, and 100GB Acronis Cyber Backups. You can receive all of these hosting resources for $15 a month if you opt for a 24-month contract. If you don’t want to commit to this package for so long, you can buy a monthly subscription, but it’ll cost you $59.
• The 4GB RAM package includes 4 vCPU cores, 100GB of SSD storage space, 10TB bandwidth, and 100GB Acronis Cyber Backups. It costs $25 per month for a 2-year subscription.
• The 8GB RAM plan entitles you to 8 vCPU cores, 150GB of SSD storage, 10TB bandwidth, and 100GB Acronis Cyber Backups. You can take advantage of the special introductory offer and buy this package for $35 a month ($840 paid upfront for 2 years).
• For $95 per month if you purchase a 24-month contract, the 16GB RAM package will put 8 vCPU cores, 200GB of SSD storage space, 10TB bandwidth, and 100GB Acronis Cyber Backups at your disposal.

Liquid Web also sells 4 Linux value bundles: 2GB Value Bundle, 4GB Value Bundle, 8GB Value Bundle, and 16GB Value Bundle.

They all come with a premium business email service and a web protection package. Plus, a threat stack oversight detection system is included in all value bundles except the lowest-tier one.

Visit Liquid Web now … or read my Liquid Web hosting review

3. InterServer

Since most hosting companies use Linux, I’m going to focus on InterServer’s Linux-based cloud VPS hosting here. It comes with:

• Dedicated server resources
• Impressive site loading speed
• Self-healing hardware
• High-performance SSD storage
• Geographic diversity
• Managed support for 4 slices or more

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Full control over your website(s) — Once you become an InterServer cloud VPS hosting plan owner, you’ll gain full root access to your server, meaning you’ll be able to install the control panel and OS of your choice without having to wait for a green light from the host.
• High-performance SSD storage — InterServer uses solid-state drives (SSDs) which are 20 times faster than standard SATA (serial advanced technology attachment) disks.
• Freedom to choose from 3 control panel options — InterServer offers 3 popular tools for VPS management and monitoring: DirectAdmin (free with IS’s cloud VPS hosting), cPanel ($15 per month for up to 5 accounts), and Plesk ($10 a month).
• Ability to access your data anywhere and anytime — InterServer allows you to access your files, folders, and databases as well as update your hosting service at any time regardless of where you are at the moment.

Cons:

• No free trial or money-back guarantee — Unlike many of its competitors, InterServer doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee. Plus, there’s no free trial period, meaning you can’t really test-drive this host’s service. You can, however, cancel your plan whenever you want.
• Only one billing cycle — InterServer’s billing is month to month, which means you can’t make a longer-term commitment and thus save some money. There’s an option to make a prepay in your ‘My Customer Portal’ and keep a credit on your account, but this won’t entitle you to any discounts on your monthly fee.

Key Features

As an InterServer cloud VPS hosting user, you’ll benefit from the following features:

• Self-healing hardware — InterServer’s cloud VPS hosting comes with self-healing hardware. This means that if the hardware system your website is hosted on malfunctions or glitches, InterServer’s AI-powered system will quickly scan the server, detect the issue, and automatically redirect your site to another node.
• Top-level security — IS implements some of the very best security practices. It uses the KVM, Openvz, Virtuozzo, and Hyper-v virtualization platforms.
• Remote backup service — IS offers managed cloud server backups in collaboration with Acronis which is a leading developer of cloud backup software. This service generates incremental backups once the initial backup is complete. This means that only the data that has changed gets copied over which reduces the resources consumed during the process. In addition to this, IS’s remote backup service includes encryption, i.e. lets you protect your backups with a password. InterServer has pretty straightforward backup pricing and doesn’t charge any transfer fees (incoming and outgoing transfers are free).

Plans and Pricing

Aside from Linux VPS hosting, InterServer also sells storage VPS and Windows VPS hosting.

• When it comes to Linux VPS hosting, InterServer’s pricing starts from $6 a month. This price covers 1 slice or 1 CPU core, 2048MB of memory, 30GB of SSD storage, and 1TB data transfer. If you want to double these resources (buy 2 slices), you’ll need to pay $12 a month. You can select up to 16 CPU cores, 32GB of memory, 480GB of SSD storage, and 16TB data transfer.
• 1 slice of storage-optimized VPS hosting consists of 1 CPU core, 2048MB of memory, 1TB of HDD (hard disk drive) storage, and 1TB data transfer and costs $6 a month. You can purchase up to 16 slices (the richest bundle costs $96 per month).
• Last but not least, InterServer’s Windows VPS hosting lets you launch a new Windows virtual private server powered by the Hyper-v platform. One slice of this hosting costs $10 per month and includes 1 CPU core, 2048MB of memory, 30GB of SSD storage, and 2TB data transfer. Just like with the previous two types of hosting, you can buy up to 16 slices of Windows VPS hosting.

Get Your Own Corner of the Internet With InterServer

4. SiteGround

All SiteGround’s managed cloud hosting bundles come with:

• Fully managed service
• Powerful dedicated resources
• Dedicated IP
• Free CDN service
• Free SSL security
• Google Cloud powered servers
• Daily website backups
• Collaboration tools
• Advanced priority customer support

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Fully managed service — As an SG cloud hosting plan owner, you won’t have to worry about configuring, managing, and monitoring your cloud account. SiteGround’s experts will take care of this for you so you can focus on other important day-to-day activities.
• Easy scaling + auto-scale option — Like many other hosting companies, SiteGround allows its cloud hosting users to manually upgrade their plans at any time. Once you select the extra CPU cores, RAM, or storage space, the additional resources will be added to your package right away without a reboot or any downtime. What makes SG stand out from (most of) the crowd is the autoscaling option. You can set up automatic scaling for the CPU and RAM of your cloud to handle unexpected traffic spikes. Don’t worry, you can determine the maximum added amount of each resource.
• Free CDN service — All SiteGround cloud plans come with a free Cloudflare CDN (content delivery network) service. This network has more than 150 locations and its main purpose is to boost your site speed for visitors from different parts of the world. It accomplishes this by caching your web content, auto-minifying images, blocking malicious traffic, and reducing spam.

Cons:

• Limited data transfer in all plans — As you can see, most of the hosting companies mentioned in this article don’t include unlimited bandwidth in their plans, and SiteGround is one of them. SiteGround has the least generous data transfer totals among the 9 web hosts on this list. This can be a major drawback for large online businesses that have huge numbers of website visitors on a monthly basis.

Key Features

SiteGround’s key cloud hosting features are:

• Daily offsite backup service — SiteGround automatically saves and keeps 7 copies of your cloud account to protect it in case of data loss, cyber attacks, or human errors. If this isn’t enough for you, you can increase your website security by asking SG to store your backups in a data center located in a different city, state, or country. Last but not least, SG allows you to create up to 5 free copies of your website directly via your control panel. SG keeps these for 7 days.
• Collaboration tools — This is one of SG’s latest hosting additions. This feature is ideal for web developers and designers because it lets you add contributors to your websites and give them access to the respective Site Tools. This is how they can help build and/or maintain the site without using your login info. With the collaboration tools feature, you can also provide your clients with white-label access to the Site Tools of the website you’re building for them. Finally, once you’re done working on a website, you can transfer it to your client’s SiteGround account.

Plans and Pricing

SiteGround offers 4 fully managed cloud hosting plans: Jump Start, Business, Business Plus, and Super Power.

• The Jump Start package costs $100 per month and includes 4 CPU cores, 8GB of RAM memory, 40GB of SSD storage space, and 5TB data transfer. It’s a great way to begin your cloud hosting journey.
• The Business plan is built to provide an optimal cloud experience. It comes with 8 CPU cores, 12GB of RAM, 80GB of SSD storage, and 5TB data transfer. To get all of this, you need to pay $200 a month.
• For $300 per month, the Business Plus bundle puts 12 CPU cores, 16GB of RAM memory, 120GB of SSD storage space, and 5TB data transfer at your disposal.
• The Super Power plan is SiteGround’s premium cloud hosting package. It includes 16 CPU cores, 20GB of RAM, 160GB of SSD storage, and 5TB data transfer. To get all of these resources, you need to pay $400 a month.

SiteGround allows you to build a custom cloud by choosing from 4 to 33 CPU cores; from 8 to 130GB of RAM memory; and from 40GB to 1TB of SSD storage space.

Visit SiteGround.com now … or read my detailed SiteGround review

5. Kamatera

Kamatera’s cloud hosting includes:

• Server setup in less than a minute
• Guaranteed dedicated resources
• 40 Gbit public and private networking
• SSD storage
• User-friendly cloud management console
• 30-day free trial

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• High availability and performance — Kamatera has 13 purpose-built, high-end data centers across 4 continents to provide its customers with exceptional availability and performance. Some of these are located in Toronto, Santa Clara, New York, Dallas, London, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, and Hong Kong.
• Fast processors — Kamatera uses the extremely fast Intel Xeon Platinum/Cascade Lake processors that offer up to 3 times more power per CPU compared to previous generations.
• 99.95% uptime guarantee — Although some of its competitors offer a 99.99% uptime guarantee, Kamatera is doing great on this front. The 99.95% server uptime guarantee means your site(s) won’t be up and accessible online for approximately 4 and a half hours on a yearly basis. That’s not bad at all.
• Infinite scale up and scale down — Kamatera’s cloud servers can be self-provisioned and self-configured. This means you can increase or decrease your cloud hosting resources as your online projects change. This is how your cloud infrastructure can support your websites’ growth or you can avoid paying for resources your sites cannot consume. You just need to log into your cloud management console, change the server capacity, and have the changes instantly reflected in your invoices.

Cons:

• None of the plans comes with fully-managed service — If you’re not familiar with server operating systems or simply want to save yourself the bother of managing your server, you’ll have to pay $50 a month to have Kamatera’s experts take care of it all. This is no small amount of money, so if you’re on a budget, I strongly suggest going with ScalaHosting.
• Extended daily backups cost extra — If you want to have extended daily backups of your server’s storage to an additional external storage array and be able to restore older file/directory versions, you’ll have to pay an extra $3 a month.

Key Features

Kamatera’s most significant cloud hosting features are:

• Simple management console and API — Kamatera has developed a user-friendly cloud management console so you can create servers and clone them to the same data center or another location quickly and easily, without having to have special tech skills. This feature also lets you assign roles to admins or users, implement server configuration changes instantly, remove servers without paying a penalty, choose your IP allocation, etc. Kamatera’s API (application programming interface), on the other hand, allows you to set up cloud servers and other resources on the fly without being present.
• 30-day free trial — Kamatera lets you dip your toes before you decide to dive in by creating a free, no-commitment account. With the 30-day free trial account, you can test-drive Kamatera’s cloud infrastructure and see whether it suits your needs. If it doesn’t, you can cancel the service within the first 30 days without losing a dime. A new Kamatera free trial account includes a service credit of up to $100 a month for a small cloud server, 1,000GB storage, and 1,000GB traffic.
• Premium 24/7 human support — If you ever experience technical difficulties while using your cloud server, you can reach out to Kamatera’s global technical support team which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When you opt for the managed cloud service, you’ll be entitled to round-the-clock assistance related to cloud server status issues, basic cloud service problems (FTP failures and SMTP to name a couple), and OS issues (if you’ve bought the Advanced or Enterprise managed services plan). When you select the Enterprise managed services package, you’ll also receive expert advice on email client setup, database connection strings, etc.

Plans and Pricing

Kamatera offers 3 customizable cloud hosting plans. 

• The basic one costs $4 a month and includes 1 vCPU core (Type A, 2667MHz), 1024MB RAM memory, 20GB SSD storage, and 5TB internet traffic.
• The mid-tier package comes with 1 vCPU core (Type A, 2667MHz), 2048MB RAM memory, 20GB SSD storage, and 5TB internet traffic. All of these resources cost $6 per month.
• Finally, the highest-tier plan costs $12 a month and includes 2 vCPU cores (Type A, 5333MHz), 2048MB RAM memory, 30GB SSD storage, and 5TB internet traffic.
• It’s important to keep in mind that these prices apply for a specific operating system: the Ubuntu Server 20.04 (LTS) 64-bit. If you select a different OS, the price might change.

As you can see, these bundles are rather limited. Luckily, you can create your own cloud server from scratch. The process is quite simple. You need to:

• Choose a server type (you have 4 options: Type A – Availability, Type B – General Purpose, Type T – Burstable, and Type D – Dedicated);
• Select the number of vCPUs you’d like to have installed on your server (you can choose up to 104 vCPUs per server);
• Select the amount of RAM you’d like to work with (you can choose up to 512GB RAM memory);
• Select your server’s SSD disk storage size (you can opt for up to 4000GB of SSD storage); and
• Choose an OS (you have multiple options, including RockyLinux, AlmaLinux, CentOS, CloudLinux, Debian, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, and Windows Server).

Kamatera charges $0.01 per GB of additional traffic and $0.05 per GB of additional storage per month. The hosting platform offers 2 billing options: monthly and hourly.

Go Online With Kamatera

6. Hostinger

Hostinger’s cloud VPS hosting includes:

• SSD storage
• 100MB/s network
• Dedicated IP address
• Full root access
• Easy OS installer
• IPv6 support
• Top-level data backups
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Dedicated live chat customer care team

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Extremely easy to use — Hostinger’s cloud VPS hosting service is really easy to manage. Thanks to the VPS control panel, you can easily reboot your virtual private server, turn it on or off, install a brand new operating system and web scripts, trace your server stats, and change your hosting resources in real time.
• 5 great operating systems to choose from — As a Hostinger cloud VPS plan owner, you have the freedom to select one of the following 5 OSs: CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and Suse. CentOS is an excellent choice if you’re looking for a fast, stable, and secure tool. Ubuntu provides a high level of security, too, but what makes it stand out from the crowd is its open-source nature, which makes it perfect for anyone who wants a flexible environment.
• Dedicated in-house live chat customer support — Hostinger provides its cloud VPS hosting users with round-the-clock assistance via live chat. Hostinger’s award-winning customer success team consists of cloud tech infrastructure and server experts who will lend you a helping hand at any time regardless of the fact that you’re paying for unmanaged VPS hosting services.
• 30-day money-back guarantee — Hostinger is confident in the quality of its cloud-based VPS hosting services, but you can still take advantage of its 30-day money-back guarantee. If you realize you’d be better off with another web host within the first 30 days of the subscription period, you can cancel the service and receive a full refund hassle-free.

Cons:

• All cloud VPS plans are self-managed — Hostinger doesn’t offer managed cloud-based VPS hosting. While this provides you with full control over your project(s), it also requires you to have solid technical knowledge because you’ll be the one who will have to configure the server. The good news is that Hostinger’s in-house customer support team will help you with billing and general questions. Plus, you’ll have access to the company’s knowledge base and easy-to-follow VPS hosting tutorials.
• No Windows VPS hosting — Right now, Hostinger provides only Linux-based VPS hosting services.

Key Features

Hostinger’s key cloud-based VPS hosting features are:

• Full root user access — As a Hostinger cloud-based VPS customer, you’ll have full root access to your server, meaning you’ll be able to control it over SSH (Secure Shell) — a network protocol that provides you with a secure way to access your server over an unsecured network. Thanks to this feature, you’ll be able to install third-party apps without having to ask Hostinger for permission.
• Easy web script & OS installer — All Hostinger cloud VPS plans feature a developer-friendly automatic installer, popular web scripts, and widely used operating system templates. Hostinger’s premium collection of optimized VPS installation containers lets you install practically any Linux OS, build VPN (virtual private network) servers, or incorporate all-in-one LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) with a single click.
• Top-level data backups — Hostinger uses cloud technology and double RAID protection to ensure your data safety. As a Hostinger cloud-based VPS user, you can easily create VPS backup snapshots as well as restore all your folders, files, and databases in mere seconds. All you need to do for the latter is access your control panel and backup storage.

Plans and Pricing

Hostinger offers 8 cloud VPS hosting bundles: VPS 1, VPS 2, VPS 3, VPS 4, VPS 5, VPS 6, VPS 7, and VPS 8.

• The VPS 1 plan costs $3.95 per month and includes 1 vCPU core, 1GB of RAM memory, 20GB of SSD storage, and 1TB bandwidth.
• For $8.95 a month, the VPS 2 package puts 2 vCPU cores, 2GB of RAM memory, 40GB of SSD disk space, and 2TB bandwidth at your disposal. It’s Hostinger’s most popular cloud-based VPS bundle.
• The VPS 3 bundle comes with 3GB of RAM memory, 60GB of SSD storage, 3TB bandwidth, and 3 vCPU cores. To get all of these resources, you need to pay $12.95 per month.
• For $15.95 a month, the VPS 4 plan includes 4 vCPU cores, 4GB of RAM memory, 80GB of SSD disk space, and 4TB bandwidth.
• The VPS 5 package costs $23.95 per month. It entitles you to 6 vCPU cores, 6GB of RAM memory, 120GB of SSD storage, and 6TB bandwidth.
• To work with 8 vCPU cores, 8GB of RAM memory, 160GB of SSD disk space, and 8TB bandwidth, you need to buy the VPS 6 bundle. It costs $38.99 a month.
• For $57.99 per month, the VPS 7 plan comes with 12GB of RAM memory, 200GB of SSD storage space, 10TB bandwidth, and 8 vCPU cores.
• Finally, the VPS 8 package costs $77.99 a month and includes 8 vCPU cores, 16GB of RAM memory, 250GB of SSD disk space, and 12TB bandwidth.

Visit Hostinger.com right now … or read my detailed Hostinger review

7. KnownHost

KnownHost’s managed cloud KVM (kernel virtualized machine) VPS hosting includes:

• Complete control over your cloud environment
• 99.99% uptime guarantee
• Free migrations and backups
• Free DDoS protection
• Instant provisioning
• 24/7 customer support

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Freedom to choose your operating system — KnownHost lets you pick the OS you want to work with at no additional cost. You have 6 options: CentOS 7 64Bit, CentOS 8 64Bit, AlmaLinux 8 64Bit, Ubuntu 18 LTS, Ubuntu 20 LTS, and Debian 10.
• Freedom to choose between 2 control panel options — As a KnownHost cloud plan owner, you can opt for Direct Admin, which is free, or cPanel, which requires you to buy a license. The cheapest cPanel license costs $10 per month and covers 5 accounts.
• 100% satisfaction guarantee — KnownHost has a 30-day, 100% satisfaction guarantee in place. It applies to new customers and entitles them to a full refund if they’re not happy with the service.

Cons:

• Limited bandwidth in all plans — None of KnownHost’s cloud hosting bundles comes with unlimited bandwidth, which can be a deal-breaker for eCommerce websites that receive large amounts of traffic on a regular basis. Having a hosting plan with unlimited bandwidth in place means no amount of visitors will considerably slow your website down. This, of course, leads to an excellent on-site user experience.

Key Features

The most useful cloud KVM VPS hosting features that KnownHost provides are:

• KVM (kernel virtualized machine) — KnownHost uses KVM (kernel virtualized machine) for its cloud VPS hosting, which is a method of virtualization where the VPS operates its own server on the host node. This feature gives you full kernel control and splits your data between multiple parallel SSDs that are working together, thus providing you with the redundancy of the cloud with the speed of a massive parallel architecture.
• Robust backup system — KnownHost includes backups in all its standard offers. Its free backup system makes for a solid disaster recovery option as it takes snapshots of your hosting environment and lets you go back to a version that contains all the data that was damaged or lost when things went south.
• White label — KnownHost’s cloud KVM VPS is white-labeled. This means you have the chance to brand your server and remove the KnownHost name from everywhere. This feature can come in handy if you intend to offer hosting as a service yourself or share your login info with a collaborator but don’t want them to come across your web host’s name.

Plans and Pricing

KnownHost has 4 managed cloud hosting packages: Basic, Standard, Professional, and Premium.

• The Basic cloud hosting plan costs $50 per month. It includes 2 vCPU (virtual centralized processing unit) cores, 4GB of guaranteed RAM memory, 60GB of cloud storage, and 2TB bandwidth.
• For $70 per month, the Standard cloud bundle entitles you to 4 vCPU cores, 6GB of guaranteed RAM, 120GB of cloud storage, and 3TB bandwidth.
• The Professional cloud hosting package comes with 6 vCPU cores, 8GB of guaranteed RAM memory, 200GB of cloud storage, and 4TB bandwidth. You can get all of this for $90 a month.
• For $120 a month, the Premium cloud plan includes 8 vCPU cores, 12GB of guaranteed RAM, 260GB of cloud storage, and 5TB bandwidth.

You can ease your financial burden in the long run by purchasing a quarterly, semi-annual, or yearly subscription.

Build & Grow Your Web Presence With KnownHost

8. InMotion Hosting

All InMotion Hosting cloud VPS packages come with:

• Dedicated IP address
• Top-tier 1 network
• Resource monitoring dashboard
• Live-state and scheduled server snapshots
• Complete control with root access
• Corero DDoS protection
• Built-in redundancy

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Freedom to choose your operating system — You have 3 options: CentOS 8, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and Debian 10 Stable. These are all Linux operating systems.
• Ability to deploy apps fast — IMH provides its cloud VPS customers with the opportunity to configure their virtual server to their needs by installing and setting up the necessary software and tools in just a few minutes.
• Easy scalability — IMH makes it really easy to upgrade your hosting package if you need more storage space, RAM, or bandwidth. You can purchase additional hosting resources at any time directly through your AMP control panel with just a couple of clicks.
• Built-in redundancy — The benefits of redundancy in web hosting are numerous. IMH’s built-in redundancy provides assurance in any situation, i.e. offers continuous availability when the main hardware shuts down or the primary server’s performance decreases. Switching to a redundant location when facing a bad scenario is a great way to ensure your website’s uptime and avoid suffering huge losses.

Cons:

• Managed hosting costs extra — If you don’t know how to configure a server through SSH access and/or don’t want to be in charge of OS updates, website backups, and server administration, you’ll have to pay for managed hosting. InMotion Hosting charges $40 for 60 minutes of server management, $70 for 2 hours of managed hosting, and $100 for 3 hours of server management.

Key Features

InMotion Hosting includes a number of powerful features in its cloud VPS packages, but the crucial ones are:

• SSH key management — InMotion Hosting lets you set up SSH (Secure Shell) keys for encrypted, remote access to your server. SSH keys are a type of cryptographic challenge-response verification the main purpose of which is to ensure integrity with SSH connections.
• Resource monitoring dashboard — InMotion Hosting has created a resource monitoring dashboard that helps you keep track of your server’s RAM, disk space, and bandwidth usage. This visual breakdown of your hosting resources comes in handy when you’re not 100% certain you’ve bought the right bundle for your website(s) and are considering upgrading to a larger plan.
• Server snapshots — InMotion Hosting allows its cloud VPS hosting users to create a single backup of the state of their container and restore it back to that point whenever they want. You can store the server snapshot for up to 7 days from the moment you create it at no extra cost. Once this period ends, IMH will automatically delete it from the system. During these 7 days, you can move the snapshot to an available long-term storage slot.

What’s more, you can schedule weekly server snapshots directly via your account management panel. It’s important to bear in mind that snapshots aren’t the same as conventional backups. You can’t restore individual files from a snapshot or restore the entire snapshot elsewhere to test its integrity. The smartest and safest option is to use this feature as a supplement to your server backup schedule.

Plans and Pricing

InMotion Hosting offers 8 unmanaged cloud VPS plans: cVPS-1, cVPS-2, cVPS-3, cVPS-4, cVPS-6, cVPS-8, cVPS-16, and cVPS-32.

The number in a plan’s name indicates the amount of RAM included in it. For example, the entry-level cloud VPS bundle (cVPS-1) comes with 1GB of RAM memory, while the cVPS-16 package includes 16GB of RAM.

When it comes to CPU, the first 3 plans come with 1 core. The cVPS-4 includes 2 cores, the cVPS-6 features 3 cores, the cVPS-8 includes 4 CPU cores, the cVPS-16 comes with 6 cores, and the cVPS-32 includes 8 CPU cores.

Storage-wise, InMotion Hosting is quite generous. Its most basic cloud VPS bundle comes with 25GB of SSD storage, while the highest-tier plan puts 640GB of SSD storage space at your disposal.

InMotion Hosting’s cloud VPS pricing is competitive, but you must keep in mind that its plans are self-managed, which leaves you with a lot of time-consuming installation and maintenance tasks. Here are the 8 plans and their prices:

1. cVPS-1: $5/month
2. cVPS-2: $10/month
3. cVPS-3: $15/month
4. cVPS-4: $20/month
5. cVPS-6: $30/month
6. cVPS-8: $50/month
7. cVPS-16: $80/month
8. cVPS-32: $160/month

Visit InMotionHosting.com now … or read my detailed In Motion Hosting review

9. IDrive Compute

IDrive is best known for providing cloud backup solutions and is a newcomer to the cloud computing space.

IDrive Compute’s Linux cloud VPS solutions include:

• Expandable NVMe storage
• Firewall-based access
• Scalable infrastructure
• Centralized management
• Instance cloning option
• Instant provisioning
• Virtual machine backups

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Top-grade hardware — IDrive Compute uses robust servers, enterprise-level processors, and NVMes (non-volatile memory express) for high-speed storage media access.
• Customizable CPU — As an IDrive Compute customer, you’re entitled to a flexible edge computing experience. In other words, you have the freedom to configure the CPU and adjust it to your expected output.
• Scalable plans — IDrive Compute allows you to resize your hosting resources as your processing and storage requirements change. Thanks to the scalability on demand feature, you can build instances (virtual machines or VMs hosted on hardware resources managed by IDrive Compute) with the necessary resources. There’s no default resource provisioning.
• Pay as you use — IDrive Compute charges you only for the hours of resource usage. This can save you a significant amount of money in the long run.

Cons:

• Phone support is not available 24/7 — IDrive Compute has a live chat that’s available 24/7, but that’s not the case with its phone lines for technical support, sales, and billing. You can reach out to IDrive Compute’s customer care agents at specific periods of the day on business days, which obviously isn’t ideal as problems can occur during weekends as well.

Key Features

IDrive Compute’s most significant cloud VPS features are:

• Advanced user management — You can invite users to your IDrive Compute account and give them access to the hosting resources. You can also grant complete control of an instance (virtual machine) during the creation process.
• Backups and snapshots — As an IDrive Compute customer, you can enable backups for your compute instances to create disk images which you can use later to create new instances or revert to an older state. IDrive Compute allows you to schedule daily or weekly backups. It’s important to keep in mind that the scheduled daily/weekly backup may put your instance into a short paused state so its data integrity stays intact. Don’t worry, it will continue working automatically once the backup operation is finished.
• Industry-grade security measures — IDrive Compute keeps your virtual edge computing environment secure by letting you implement firewalls and SSH keys as a safe sign-in practice. There’s also detailed security history or activity logs that give you the chance to monitor your resource creation and changes, user sign-ins, and password updates.

Plans and Pricing

IDrive Compute has multiple direct pricing packages for its VPS infrastructure. There are also monthly caps and hourly billing.

IDrive Compute sells 3 different types of VPS infrastructure bundles: shared CPU, dedicated CPU, and bare metal.

The shared CPU plans cost from $6 a year (the entry-level package) to $384 a year (the highest-tier bundle). These are discounted prices and are valid for the first year only. The basic plan comes with 1 CPU core, 1GB of RAM memory, 40GB of NVMe disk space, and 1TB bandwidth. The highest-tier package, on the other hand, includes 32 CPU cores, 64GB of RAM memory, 1280GB of NVMe storage space, and 12TB bandwidth.

As the name suggests, the dedicated CPU packages come with a 100% dedicated CPU, which makes them ideal for complex computing projects that require superior speed. There are 2 types of dedicated CPU plans: CPU-optimized and memory-optimized.

The CPU-optimized plans cost from $48 to $192 for the first year. The entry-level plan includes 2 CPU cores, 4GB of RAM memory, 80GB of NVMe disk space, and 120TB bandwidth. The highest-tier package comes with 8 CPU cores, 16GB of RAM memory, 200GB of NVMe storage space, and 480TB data transfer.

The memory-optimized bundles are built with RAM-intensive applications in mind. They cost from $72 to $288 for the first year. Depending on the memory-optimized plan of your choice, you can work with 2-8 CPU cores, 8-32 GB of RAM memory, 120-480GB of NVMe disk space, and 120-480TB bandwidth.

Last but not least, the bare-metal servers feature single tenancy, non-virtualized hardware, and centralized management. They are perfect for heavy workload management with low latency. For $222 for the first year, you’ll get 1TB NVMe storage space, 32GB of memory, and 6 Intel Xeon E-2356G processor cores.

Go and check out IDrive Compute now

What Is Cloud VPS Hosting?

Cloud VPS hosting is a type of hosting that takes the best out of two well-established technologies — virtual private servers (VPS) and cloud computing. 

I believe that cloud VPS hosting is the most cost-effective solution on the market right now. 

That’s so because it provides both a dedicated set of system resources in a caged environment and much more freedom for customizations and improvements compared to shared hosting.

Hosting a VPS server on the cloud basically means limitless resource scalability, which is essential for high-traffic websites, large online shops, and enterprise projects.

In addition to this, the vast network of interconnected servers allows you to serve content to each visitor from the data center physically closest to their location, thus maximizing your site’s speed.

Performance and control are undoubtedly two key aspects that most hosting service users are actively seeking, regardless of their project. That’s exactly what cloud VPS hosting is all about.

In my eyes, cloud VPS is the hosting solution with the best feature-to-cost ratio at the moment, which makes it ideal for countless fast-growing online businesses and projects.

What Is the Difference Between “Traditional” VPS and Cloud VPS?

The main distinction between “traditional” and cloud VPS hosting boils down to the underlying technology.

In a classic setup, you have one physical server that is split into several virtual partitions. While these partitions (accounts) are inherently independent and with a dedicated set of resources, they still utilize the same physical machine. Here is where the cloud makes a big difference.

Instead of putting the load on a single machine, cloud VPS hosting relies on an entire network of servers around the world, all working as one. You are no longer bound to the limitations of the physical server and can increase your CPU, RAM, and disk space totals practically indefinitely. Your website benefits from optimal speed and uninterrupted uptime as even if one machine fails, you have many more that can take over the load.

In terms of security, both types of hosting are beneficial in different cases. The cloud network is perfect for fending off DDoS attacks, but protecting a single server is still easier than guarding a whole network that is practically out of your full control.

FAQ

Our Verdict

Cloud-based VPS hosting is the type of web hosting you should choose if shared hosting no longer supports your online growth and traditional VPS hosting isn’t flexible enough for you.

ScalaHosting is my number one pick for cloud VPS server hosting because it offers the whole package: enterprise-grade SSDs, unmetered bandwidth, powerful security features, fully managed service, and competitive prices.

The only thing that stains the otherwise fantastic image of Scala is the one free daily backup. But, hey, even some of the best VPS cloud hosting companies don’t offer any free website copies, so this shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.

References

• https://www.scalahosting.com/blog/what-is-cloud-hosting/
• https://www.scalahosting.com/cloud-servers.html
• https://www.liquidweb.com/products/vps/
• https://www.liquidweb.com/products/add-ons/performance/#cloudflare
• https://www.liquidweb.com/products/add-ons/storage-backups/acronis-cyber-backups/
• https://www.kamatera.com/express/compute/
• https://www.kamatera.com/Products/271/Overview
• https://www.kamatera.com/Technical_Support
• https://www.interserver.net/vps/
• https://www.interserver.net/backups/
• https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting
• https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/what-is-vps-hosting
• https://www.knownhost.com/managed-cloud-kvm-vps.html
• https://www.inmotionhosting.com/cloud-vps
• https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/product-guides/vps-hosting/snapshots/
• https://www.siteground.com/cloud-hosting.htm
• https://www.idrivecompute.com/features.htm
• https://www.idrivecompute.com/support.htm