5 of the Best Cloud Hosts for WordPress: An Honest Review

Searching for the best cloud hosting for WordPress sites?

Most WordPress users start with cheap shared hosting. But as your site grows, you’ll hit a point where you need to look for better hosting. In most cases, cloud hosting ticks that box, and at a surprisingly affordable price.

However, “cloud hosting” is a pretty broad term, so it can be tough to find the right option that will let you host a WordPress site (and not overwhelm you with technical complexity).

To help, we’ve collected the five best cloud WordPress hosts that anyone can use. That is, you don’t need to be a developer to use them.

HostInfrastructureStarting PriceKey Features
Cloudways✅ DigitalOcean
✅ AWS
✅ Google Cloud
$11 per month✅ WordPress installer
✅ Server-level caching
✅ Staging sites
✅ Automatic backups
✅ Custom hosting dashboard
RunCloud / GridPane / SpinupWP✅ Vultr
✅ Linode
✅ DigitalOcean
✅ AWS
✅ Google Cloud
✅ Hetzner
✅ UpCloud
✅ …any cloud VPS providers
Varies – can be most affordable option✅ WordPress installer
✅ Server-level caching
✅ Staging sites
✅ Automatic backups
✅ Custom hosting dashboard
SiteGround✅ Google Cloud$100✅ WordPress installer
✅ Server-level caching
✅ Staging sites
✅ Automatic backups
✅ Custom hosting dashboard
Liquid Web✅ Custom cloud$59✅ cPanel, Plesk, or Interworx dashboard
✅ Access WordPress tools via your chosen server panel
✅ Managed and unmanaged options
ScalaHosting✅ Custom cloud- AWS$29.95✅ SPanel or cPanel dashboard
✅ Automatic off-site backups
✅ WordPress toolkit in SPanel
✅ Choose from Apache, Nginx, OpenLiteSpeed, or LiteSpeed Enterprise

Before we get to a more detailed look at each host, though, let’s quickly run over some common questions about cloud hosting for WordPress.

What is cloud hosting for WordPress?

Cloud WordPress hosting is a lot like a virtual private server (VPS). In fact, you’ll often see cloud hosting marketed as a “cloud VPS” because of those similarities. 

With both, you’ll get dedicated resources for your site. For example, you might see a resource list like:

  • 2 CPU cores
  • 4 GB RAM
  • 30 GB storage
  • 1 TB bandwidth

These resources are what you’re billed by—you can host as many sites as you want… have as many visitors as you want… as long as your resources can handle it.

Here’s the key difference:

  • “Regular” VPS: your resources are located on a single physical server.
  • Cloud hosting/cloud VPS: your resources are spread over multiple servers (AKA the “cloud”).
Cloud hosting gives you a set amount of hardware resources (like regular VPS hosting)—spread across multiple different servers (unlike regular VPS hosting).

So, like VPS hosting, cloud hosting gives you a set amount of hardware resources. Unlike VPS, cloud hosting gives you those resources across multiple different servers. That’s the difference, and it’s also why people sometimes use language like “VPS/cloud hosting” that emphasizes the buying of set hardware resources that the two hosting types have in common.

Managed cloud hosting vs unmanaged cloud hosting

In this post, we’re also focused on managed cloud hosting for WordPress. This is different from unmanaged cloud hosting. In other words, we’re looking at cloud hosting providers that also make it easy to use WordPress.

In this article, we’re looking at managed cloud hosting: cloud hosting providers that also make it easy to use WordPress.

With unmanaged cloud hosting, you basically get a blank slate. You’re responsible for setting up and configuring everything. Want to use WordPress? Well, before you can even get to installing the WordPress software, you’ll need to set up basic technologies like PHP, Nginx/Apache for your web server, MySQL/MariaDB for your database, etc.

Then, you’ll also need to keep all of those things updated, secure your server, plus lots of other “fun” responsibilities.

The best unmanaged cloud hosting providers (experts only)

If you know a lot about servers and really are looking for unmanaged cloud hosting for WordPress, some of the best cloud server hosting providers are:

  • DigitalOcean
  • Vultr
  • Google Cloud
  • AWS (Amazon Web Services)
  • Azure (Microsoft)
  • Linode
  • UpCloud

You can just sign up directly with those providers and host WordPress. Some even make it easy to spin up the basic tech you need for WordPress. However, unless you’re a developer, you’ll struggle to manage and maintain your hosting.

Managed cloud hosting is much better for non-experts

With managed cloud hosting, however, the hosting provider takes care of all of that for you and also manages the server to keep it maintained. Because of that, managed cloud hosting isn’t that different from shared hosting or managed WordPress hosting in terms of the technical knowledge that’s required to use it.

For that reason, this article will focus strictly on managed cloud hosting from her on out.

Cloud hosting vs. WordPress hosting

There’s nothing inherently different between cloud hosting vs. WordPress hosting—it’s just that “WordPress hosting” is a much broader term than just cloud hosting.

For example, some cloud hosting companies are also WordPress hosting companies (which is the focus of this post). However, not all WordPress hosting companies are cloud hosting companies.

To further muddy the waters, most managed WordPress hosts now use cloud infrastructure from providers like Google Cloud or AWS.

The key difference between managed WordPress hosts and the cloud hosts on this list is that managed WordPress hosts don’t give you dedicated resources.

However, the key difference between these managed WordPress hosts and the cloud hosts on this list is that managed WordPress hosts don’t give you dedicated resources. For example, if you go to the Kinsta pricing page, you won’t see any details on how much RAM a plan has or how many CPU cores. Instead, you’re just billed based on your visitor limits, and Kinsta handles allocating resources to make that happen.

Can you find free cloud hosting for WordPress?

Yes and no. You cannot easily find free managed cloud hosting. However, if you’re willing to go the unmanaged route, many big-name cloud hosting providers offer generous free usage credits:

  • AWS Free Tier – 750 EC2 hours per month (12 months free). 750 Lightsail hours (1 month free).
  • Google Cloud Free – $300 credit + some always free services.
  • Azure Free – $200 credit + 12 months of free popular services + 25 always free services.
  • DigitalOcean – $200 credit that you can use over the first 60 days.

However, you really need to be a developer to reliably use these free credits to host a WordPress site.

About this Hosting Review

We are affiliates for two of the hosts on this list, Cloudways and SiteGround. If you click a link and go on to buy the hosting, we’ll earn a commission. We’re affiliates for these hosts because we’ve collected and analyzed thousands of real, unbiased customer reviews on WordPress hosting, and that data shows that these hosts are the best hosting in their category.

Five Best Cloud Hosting Providers for WordPress Users

All right, now that you’re caught up to speed, let’s get to our WordPress cloud hosting review! Here are the five best options to consider for your sites…

1. Cloudways

Cloudways hosting

By the numbers, Cloudways is the best cloud hosting for WordPress users.

One important thing to understand, though, is that Cloudways doesn’t provide the actual cloud infrastructure.

Instead, Cloudways is a managed hosting service built on top of your choice of cloud hosting from three providers*:

  • DigitalOcean
  • Google Cloud
  • AWS

*Cloudways used to also support Vultr and Linode. However, Cloudways dropped support for these two providers in May 2023 after being acquired by DigitalOcean in 2022. Honestly, this is a bit disappointing, but Cloudways is still an excellent option.

However, you never need to interact with the cloud hosting directly (nor do you get root access). Instead, Cloudways handles everything for you and you’ll be able to manage your servers and apps from a user-friendly dashboard.

You’ll also get convenient features like:

  • WordPress-optimized server-level caching with Varnish 
  • Free/easy SSL certificates
  • Easy staging sites and one-click cloning
  • Automatic backups to secure off-site locations

Cloudways’ pricing depends on the provider and specs you choose. Typically, you’ll pay about double what you’d pay for the unmanaged VPS if you signed up directly with the provider, though this ratio decreases as you get into higher-powered servers.

The cheapest option is $11 per month for a standard DigitalOcean droplet with:

  • 1 GB RAM
  • 1 CPU core
  • 25 GB storage
  • 1 TB bandwidth

Because Cloudways has dropped support for Vultr and Linode, these DigitalOcean plans are the only budget options on offer now.

The AWS hosting plans start at $38.56 per month and the Google Cloud plans start at $37.45 per month.

2. RunCloud / GridPane / SpinupWP

RunCloud lets you use cloud WordPress hosting

RunCloud, GridPane, and SpinupWP are all separate services, but I’m lumping them together in their own section for a reason that will become clear in a second.

All three tools represent an interesting new option that kind of sits in between managed and unmanaged cloud hosting:

A dedicated WordPress server control panel.

With these tools, you’ll sign up directly with a cloud hosting provider such as DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, Google Cloud, AWS, etc. You’ll still get that “blank slate” from those cloud hosting providers.

However, once you have that blank slate, the server control panel will handle setting up all the technologies needed to run WordPress.

It will configure PHP, MariaDB, Nginx, etc. It’ll even set up server-level caching for you.

Most importantly, it will also handle maintaining those packages and keeping everything secure.

In this way, these tools are a lot like Cloudways. However, the key difference, and one that developers will appreciate, is that you still have full root access to your underlying cloud VPS.

Additionally, you can stop paying for the service and your hosting will keep working (though you’ll lose the maintenance features).

These tools are a little more complicated than something like Cloudways. However, they’re still within the realm of non-developers. For example, I’m not a developer and I’ve been successfully hosting sites on RunCloud for several years now.

Here’s what it looks like – not that intimidating, right?

RunCloud dashboard to manage cloud WordPress hosting

There are a lot of tools like this popping up. But for WordPress users, I think the three best options are:

  • RunCloud – not specific to WordPress (works with any PHP application), but has lots of useful WordPress features. Also the most affordable option.
  • GridPane – has an excellent feature set with tons of useful tools (including staging).
  • SpinupWP – has a very accessible interface and a solid feature set.

Most developers seem to prefer GridPane. However, as a non-developer, my preference is RunCloud.

With respect to pricing, you’ll need to pay a monthly fee to your chosen server control panel and you’ll also need to directly pay the cloud provider for your servers. In general:

  • Cloudways is more affordable if you only need a single small server.
  • All these tools are more affordable if you need a high-powered server and/or you plan to use multiple servers.

Overall, if you want the flexibility to use any unmanaged cloud hosting provider without needing to be a developer, these tools are a great place to start.

3. SiteGround

SiteGround cloud WordPress hosting pricing

SiteGround is a popular WordPress host that’s probably best known for its shared hosting plans. However, SiteGround also offers a number of cloud hosting plans, though the pricing is a bit higher than some of the other options on this list.

The cloud hosting plans are still fully managed and include all the major features from SiteGround’s shared plans:

  • Automatic WordPress updates
  • WordPress-optimized caching
  • Staging sites
  • Free/easy SSL certificates
  • Automatic daily backups with offsite storage

In fact, the user experience is generally the same as the shared plans, as you’re using the same custom Site Tools dashboard.

With that being said, there are some bigger differences when it comes to the hardware. For example, you can easily add CPU and RAM at any time or even enable auto-scaling to automatically scale up your server’s resources in high-traffic situations.

You also get priority support when you use the cloud hosting plans, which is an upgrade over the shared plans.

SiteGround’s cloud hosting plans start at $100 per month for the following:

  • 4 CPU cores
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 40 GB SSD storage
  • 5 TB bandwidth

If the four preset plans don’t meet your needs, there’s also an option to fully customize your own cloud setup. You can choose the exact specs for CPU, memory, and SSD space, which is something that you won’t find at most other providers.

SiteGround custom cloud WordPress hosting pricing

4. Liquid Web

Liquid Web cloud hosting

Liquid Web is a popular hosting provider that offers a range of plans, including some WordPress-specific offerings in the form of a managed WordPress plan and a dedicated WooCommerce plan (with some really interesting features).

If you don’t want to go with the managed WordPress hosting approach, Liquid Web also has a range of Linux or Windows cloud VPS hosting plans with three levels of management:

  • Self-managed – you’re responsible for everything.
  • Core-managed – Liquid Web supports the base operating system as well as Apache.
  • Fully-Managed – includes a user-friendly control panel (e.g. cPanel) and full support for all control panel services.

If you’re not a technical person, you’ll definitely want to go with one of the fully-managed options.

Prices vary depending on your preferred resources, configuration, and service level. The cheapest fully-managed option costs $59 per month with regular pricing for the following resources:

  • 2 GB RAM
  • 2 vCPU
  • 40 GB storage
  • 10 TB bandwidth
  • 100 GB backup storage (you can upgrade this for a fee)

You can also often get deeper first-term discounts with our special offers. For example, at the time of updating this post, you can lock in two years for just $15 per month if you pay it all upfront ($360) when you use our link.

There’s also a separate cloud server option that comes with multiple nodes and load balancing. These plans start at $199 per month.

5. ScalaHosting

ScalaHosting cloud WordPress hosting

ScalaHosting is another great option that offers both managed and unmanaged cloud hosting plans.

If you want to use cloud infrastructure from AWS instead of ScalaHosting’s custom cloud, ScalaHosting also offers managed AWS cloud hosting plans. These plans let you benefit from AWS without requiring any special technical knowledge.

All of the plans can work well for WordPress sites – so you’re free to pick the approach that works best for your needs.

In terms of hosting management panels, you have two options:

  1. You can use ScalaHosting’s custom SPanel tool for free, which offers easy software installer and other helpful tools. It also includes an SWordPress Manager feature that offers WordPress-specific staging sites, security protections, manual backups, and more.
  2. You can use cPanel, but you’ll be responsible for paying the cPanel fees (which start at $15.99 per month).

ScalaHosting’s managed cloud plans start at $49.95 per month with monthly billing or $29.95 per month with a three-year commitment. Here are the resources of the entry-level plan:

  • 2 CPU cores
  • 4 GB RAM
  • 50 GB NVMe SSD
  • Unmetered bandwidth

The unmanaged cloud plans come in a bit cheaper, with prices starting at $20 per month.

If you’d rather use cloud infrastructure from AWS, ScalaHosting’s managed AWS cloud hosting plans start at $61.95 per month for the following resources:

  • 2 CPU cores
  • 4 GB RAM
  • 80 GB SSD storage
  • 4 TB bandwidth

What’s the best cloud hosting for WordPress?

To finish things out, let’s go over some recommendations for choosing the best cloud hosting.

The Overall Best Option

Overall, the best cloud hosting for most WordPress users is still Cloudways, though it’s disappointing that Cloudways no longer supports Vultr and Linode.

Cloudways still lets you harness some of the best cloud hosting providers in DigitalOcean, AWS, and Google Cloud. But at the same time, it’s quite user-friendly and definitely doesn’t require any special technical knowledge.

While it’s a tiny bit more complex than standard managed WordPress hosting, even non-technical users should be able to quickly launch or migrate a WordPress site. You’ll also get convenient features like staging sites and automatic backups.

Basically, if you’re not sure where to start, this is the place. 

If you’re on a budget, I recommend the cheapest $11 per month standard DigitalOcean box. Or, if you’re willing to spend a few dollars more per month, consider the premium DigitalOcean servers, which offer better CPU performance starting at $14 per month.

A Great Option for More Advanced Users

If you’re a more advanced user, then I think options like RunCloud, SpinupWP, and GridPane are really intriguing for letting you use plans from any provider.

While these tools do require some technical aptitude, you definitely don’t need to be a developer and they’re much simpler than unmanaged cloud hosting.

If you need to host a lot of websites and/or you need a high-powered server, I don’t think you’ll find a more affordable way to do it.

Personally, I think that RunCloud is the best option for non-developers, while developers might prefer GridPane.

As for the cloud hosting itself, my personal favorite is the Vultr high-frequency plans, but you’re free to use pretty much any cloud VPS provider.

Other Thoughts

Of course, cloud hosting isn’t the only way to host a WordPress site. If all this talk has you feeling a little overwhelmed, you might be better off with managed WordPress hosting – you can check out the best managed WordPress hosting providers here. Many of these managed hosts actually use cloud infrastructure from Google Cloud or AWS, just in a slightly different way.

Or, if you’re on a really tight budget, you might be a better candidate for shared hosting. While you’ll make sacrifices when it comes to performance, you can save a lot of money. Check out the best shared WordPress hosting.

Finally, if you’re still confused about how to choose WordPress hosting in the first place, check out our WordPress hosting recommendations guide. And if you want to see the overall best options for hosting a WordPress site, check out our collection of the best WordPress hosts.

That’s it! If you still have any questions, let us know in the comments or join our Facebook community.


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