Best Deal for Cloud Web Hosting in 2022

For greater control over your website, and better performance, cloud hosting may be an excellent option to run it. In cloud hosting, your website's data is spread across multiple servers, and a set number of CPUs and RAM in the servers are assigned to run your site. This helps ensure optimal performance for your site. Among the major hosting companies in the U.S. that sell cloud hosting designed for small to medium-sized business use, Hostinger offers the most features for the prices you pay.

Best Deal Overall: Hostinger

Why you can trust Windows Central Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Hostinger

Power for good prices

Reasons to buy

+
Unlimited bandwidth
+
Unlimited email
+
Domain registration
+
SSL certificate
+
Daily backups
+
Dedicated IP

Reasons to avoid

-
Only three server configurations offered

Hostinger sells three cloud hosting plans named Startup, Professional, and Enterprise. Startup comes with two CPUs, 3GB RAM, and 40GB storage on SSD. Professional has four CPUs, 6GB RAM, and 80GB SSD. Enterprise has six CPUs, 12GB RAM, and 160GB SSD. All three include unlimited bandwidth.

Features and other tools that come with these plans: daily backups, dedicated IP, domain registration, emails (unlimited number of accounts), and SSL certificate.

Price Specifics: Startup is $10 per month. Professional is $19 per month. Enterprise is $36 per month. These plans come with a money-back guarantee within 30 days.

Best with Extras: 1&1 IONOS

1&1 IONOS

Most features & tools

Reasons to buy

+
Unlimited bandwidth
+
Email
+
Databases
+
Domain registration
+
SSL certificate
+
SSH & SFTP

Reasons to avoid

-
4 CPUs is maximum confirmation option

1&1 IONOS sells four plans that go by letter designations: M, L, XL, and XXL. The M server configuration comes with one CPU, 1GB RAM, and 50GB storage on SSD. These specs scale up over the next three plans with XXL topping out with four CPUs, 8GB RAM, and 160GB SSD. All four plans include unlimited bandwidth.

Features and other tools that come with these plans: databases (MySQL and PostgreSQL), domain registration, email (up to 10,000 accounts with 2GB storage for each), SSH and SFTP, SSL certificate, and WordPress support.

Price Specifics: The M configuration plan is $15 per month. L is $25 per month. XL is $35 per month. XXL is $65 per month. These plans come with a money-back guarantee within 30 days.

Best with Most Server Configurations: HostWinds

Hostwinds

Lots of cloud configurations

Reasons to buy

+
Ten server configuration offered
+
Templates to customize, deploy servers
+
Create or import SSH keys easily
+
Firewall
+
Flexible billing

Reasons to avoid

-
No extra features

HostWinds sells ten server configuration plans. The first comes with one CPU, 1GB RAM, 30GB storage on SSD, and 1TB bandwidth per month. These specs scale up over the next nine plans with the tenth configured with 16 CPUs, 96GB RAM, 120GB SSD, and 9TB bandwidth per month.

HostWinds includes templates to help you quickly customize and deploy your cloud server. And a control interface that lets you easily create or import SSH keys on your server. An enterprise-level firewall is also provided that you can set up to protect your cloud server.

Price Specifics: HostWinds charges by the hour. The first plan costs $0.006931 per hour with a maximum charge of $5.00 per month. The tenth configuration plan costs $0.456931 per hour with a maximum of $329 per month. HostWinds lets you customize your billing ranging from hourly to prepaid for three years. Plans come with a money-back guarantee within 30 days, if your billing is set to a one-, two- or three-year cycle. Otherwise, it's within two days.

Best User-Customizable Cloud: SiteGround

SiteGround

Customize your cloud

Reasons to buy

+
Customizable server configuration
+
SSL certificate
+
Daily backups
+
Dedicated IP
+
SSH & SFTP
+
WordPress & WooCommerce

Reasons to avoid

-
Expensive

SiteGround sells four plans: Entry, Business, Business Plus, and Super Power. Entry comes with two CPUs, 4GB RAM, and 40GB storage on SSD. These specs scale up over the next three plans with Super Power topping out with eight CPUs, 10GB RAM, and 120GB SSD. Or you can design your own server configuration, maxing it out to 32 CPUs, 128GB RAM, and 1TB SSD. (As you're filling out your order on the Siteground site, you can customize any one of these four plans by scaling up its CPU number, RAM and storage. The order form will instantly calculate the pricing.) All four plans include 5TB bandwidth per month.

Features and other tools that come with SiteGround's cloud hosting: CDN service (through Cloudflare), daily backups, dedicated IP, private DNS, SSH and SFTP, and SSL certificate. They're also pre-configured to support WordPress sites and WooCommerce.

Price Specifics: Entry is $80 per month. Business is $120 per month. Business Plus is $160 per month. Super Power is $240 per month. These plans come with a money-back guarantee within 14 days.

Best with Unlimited Bandwidth & Storage: HostGator

HostGator

No-limit bandwidth & storage

Reasons to buy

+
Unlimited storage
+
Unlimited bandwidth
+
SSL certificate
+
Site performance manager
+
Dedicated IP (on Business Cloud plan)

Reasons to avoid

-
Only three configuration options
-
Only one domain permitted on Hatchling Cloud plan

HostGator sells three plans named Hatchling Cloud, Baby Cloud, and Business Cloud. Hatchling comes with two CPUs and 2GB RAM. Baby has four CPUs and 4GB RAM. Business has six CPUs and 6GB RAM. All three plans include unlimited web storage and bandwidth.

SSL certificate is provided for these plans and a dashboard interface that helps you manage and track your website's performance. The Business plan also includes a dedicated IP.

Price Specifics: Hatchling Cloud is $4.95 per month. Baby Cloud is $6.57 per month. Business Cloud is $9.95 per month. They come with a money-back guarantee within 45 days.

Best Value: DreamHost

DreamHost

Lowest-price cloud hosting

Reasons to buy

+
Six server configurations offered
+
Unlimited bandwidth
+
Windows OS allowed
+
Low-priced starter plan
+
97-day money-back guarantee

Reasons to avoid

-
All plans have 100GB storage

DreamHost sells six configurations that start with one CPU and 512MB RAM. The most potent cloud server the company offers has eight CPUs and 16GB RAM. All plans include 100GB storage on SSD and unlimited bandwidth. As of this writing, this unlimited bandwidth is a special offer, and DreamHost states it hasn't decided when to end this free perk.

DreamHost's cloud servers come pre-loaded with major Linux distributions, or you can install your preferred one. Alternately, you can run Windows on your cloud server.

Price Specifics: DreamHost charges by the hour up to a maximum of 600 hours in a month. The first cloud server configuration costs $0.0075 per hour with a maximum charge of $4.50 per month. The sixth and most potent configuration plan costs $0.16 per hour with a maximum of $96 per month. Plans come with a money-back guarantee within 97 days.

Bottom line

Most web hosting is shared hosting; in this setup, your site shares resources (such as storage space and bandwidth) on a web server with other sites owned by other user accounts. Cloud hosting optimizes your website's performance by spreading its data across multiple servers.

Several of the major hosting companies sell cloud hosting plans designed for small to medium-sized businesses. If you're new to using cloud hosting for your website, consider Hostinger. The company offers affordable plans with lots of features.

Hostinger sells only three cloud hosting plans. But its prices are very good for the the number of assigned CPUs and RAM you get, unlimited bandwidth, and additional things that come with them: daily backups, dedicated IP, domain registration, and SSL certificate. (Most of these items are sold separately by other companies offering cloud hosting.) With all of these things, Hostinger's plans can help you get started without spending a lot.

Howard Wen