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VPS → Best Cloud VPS Providers
Best cloud VPS hosting providers for 2026 and how to choose
When your small or midsize business is yet to carve out its place in a competitive market, using shared hosting is a cost-efficient option. Eventually, your company grows, your website gets more traffic, and your audience expects a higher quality experience.
You’ve heard that upgrading to a cloud VPS (virtual private server) can accommodate the evolving needs of your organization. That’s true if you plan to prevent security breaches, ensure high uptime, and keep your website running quickly and smoothly.
The question then becomes which cloud VPS hosting provider you should choose. That’s why this guide explores the true nature of cloud VPS hosting and what it does best. You’ll receive guidance on picking the best cloud VPS, and then you’ll see the top five options.
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Understanding cloud VPS hosting
On a practical level, cloud VPS hosting makes your website or application available online. It achieves this using virtualization technology to allocate and manage resources — such as CPU, RAM, disk space, and bandwidth — across a network of remote servers that process user requests and deliver files.
Think of virtualization as adding a compartment on top of interconnected physical servers. This compartment is a big space divided with partitions — imagine shelves or cubicles. Each partition functions as an independent virtual instance called a VPS. Each VPS owner has complete control and flexibility over their cubicle, its configurations, and its allocated resources.
You can control several virtual instances at once, which are called clusters. This lets you harness more server resources from the pool. If you no longer need as much, you scale back down. This is why cloud VPS hosting offers unparalleled flexibility when hosting applications and websites.
Why would you need cloud VPS hosting?
As your business grows, your website will require more resources to take it to the next level. Let’s see precisely how to tell when to upgrade from shared hosting to cloud VPS hosting.
Your website is slowing down
When your website takes longer to load than it used to, it could need more server resources. Even if you’re using your provider’s highest shared hosting plan, if other website owners on the server are consuming a significant portion of it, your website could be running on fumes.
That doesn’t happen with cloud VPS hosting. When you have cloud servers at your beck and call, you can always draw more power from a vast pool of dynamic resources. The result? A website that runs quickly and smoothly, regardless of other server users.
Your website suffers frequent downtime
Website downtime can harm your brand’s reputation and lead to financial losses. In fact, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) typically lose from $137 to $427 per minute of downtime.
If your host server doesn’t have enough resources to keep up — which often happens when other server users are also getting high traffic — your website can crash.
Server overload crashes seldom happen with VPS hosting plans. Since the resources provided by cloud virtual servers are practically inexhaustible, your website will be more than capable of handling fluctuations in traffic.
Your website is prone to security breaches
Upgrading to cloud VPS hosting discourages cyberattacks because while multiple users share the cloud infrastructure, each VPS server is isolated. This could save your business since the average cost of a data breach was $4.45 million in 2023.
That said, VPS hosting doesn’t guarantee absolute security. You’ll still need to establish security measures to prevent breaches. For instance, Liquid Web offers advanced DDoS protection solutions to detect and mitigate even sophisticated DDoS attacks.
In the instance your website data gets breached, Liquid Web offers backup measures to help restore lost and corrupted data.
To check if your website has been compromised, perform a health check using the Google Search Console or Google’s Safe Browsing checker.
Your website has outgrown your hosting plan
A stagnant business won’t stay standing for long. That’s why you need a website that supports your company’s growth.
Consider whether your current hosting plan enables your website to:
- Earn more revenue.
- Achieve more meaningful business goals.
- Expand your online presence and operations.
- Deliver a better experience for your audience.
Take advantage of a cloud VPS hosting plan to draw resources from dedicated servers while enjoying the flexibility and scalability of cloud computing.
How to choose the best cloud VPS provider
The essential factors to consider when choosing from top cloud VPS providers are:
- Uptime and availability.
- Performance and scalability.
- Customer support.
- Ease of use.
- Pricing.
Let’s examine each aspect in more detail. After you learn how to judge hosting plans, you’ll get a rundown of the top five options.
Uptime and availability
Virtual cloud servers are known for their reliability. Since they operate in the cloud, even if a server goes down, you can count on another virtual machine to pick up the slack. This ensures minimal downtime for your website.
You can further prioritize uptime by choosing a hosting solution with load-balancing technology. Load balancers distribute traffic across multiple servers. This way, no single server gets overwhelmed with requests.
Performance and scalability
When your business experiences fluctuations in traffic and demand, it’s critical you’re able to scale your resources up and down. Cloud VPS hosting can help since it draws from the cloud, which is an extensive network of interconnected servers.
As a result, you benefit from enhanced performance and scalability. Plus, via on-demand resource allocation, you gain increased reliability and flexibility.
Do you run business initiatives that require rapid deployment of applications and projects? In that case, you need a provider that offers additional CPU cores, RAM, and storage that you can quickly allocate on demand.
Pricing
Cloud VPS hosting prices can vary widely due to many factors — resources allocated, additional features, and levels of management, to name a few.
The thing about add-ons is the cost stacks up, too. To end up with a solid VPS cloud hosting plan for a reasonable rate, make sure to:
- Evaluate your hosting needs and feature preferences.
- Compare pricing between different providers.
- Consider the value proposition of each provider.
As much as possible, choose a provider that offers a flexible pricing model, preferably one with a fixed monthly rate that allows you to add paid extras as needed.
Best cloud VPS hosting
- Liquid Web
- Hostinger
- Kamatera
- Cloudways
- FastComet
1. Liquid Web
Thanks to its partnership with Cloud Studio, Liquid Web’s cloud VPS hosting solution delivers in performance, scalability, and security.
Liquid Web’s cloud VPS hosting plans offer unparalleled flexibility. To cater to a diverse range of workload requirements, Liquid Web offers a variety of plans split into three main categories:
- General Compute, suitable for average workloads
- Memory Optimized, providing large amounts of memory
- CPU Optimized, offering more processing cores
Starting at $5 per month with the General Compute category, Liquid Web’s cloud VPS hosting provides 1 core, 1 GB of memory, 30 GB of disk space, and 1000 GB of bandwidth.
Imagine you want to start with the $5 plan without any add-ons — no problem. Suppose your eCommerce website eventually needs enhanced security in preparation for a Black Friday campaign. You can easily add advanced DDoS protection and any other features that fit your unique hosting needs.
With over 25,000 servers housed in privately owned data centers, Liquid Web will keep your website running smoothly and offers a 100% uptime guarantee.
Choose from a variety of control panels, including cPanel, Plesk, and InterWorx, so managing your hosting environment is easy.
Enjoy 24/7/365 access to expert customer support via phone, chat, and email. Liquid Web’s support team comprises the self-proclaimed “most helpful humans in hosting,” so you can rest easy and quickly get the proper assistance you need.
If you don’t have the time or specialization needed to manage your own server, Liquid Web’s fully managed cloud hosting services have you covered. Their cloud hosting services include backups to ensure the security and integrity of your data.
Key features:
- Powered by a partnership with Cloud Studio
- Three plan types: General Compute, Memory Optimized, and CPU Optimized
- Pick between self-managed and fully managed web hosting services
- 100% uptime guarantee
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Fast AMD EPYC processors
- Hassle-free upgrades
- Cloud backups
- DDoS protection
- Unparalleled support from an expert team
Best cloud VPS host for: Business owners that need a reliable, secure, and scalable hosting solution with exceptional customer support.
Price: Starts at $5 with room for paid extras as needed.
2. Hostinger
Hostinger offers some of the best pricing plans for cloud VPS hosting. The entry-level plan, Cloud Startup, is priced at $9.99 monthly.
At a low price, Cloud Startup gives you a great foundation for scaling your business; enjoy 2 CPU cores, 3 GB of RAM, and 200 GB of NVMe disk space.
One notable drawback of Hostinger’s VPS hosting is the lack of phone support. Despite this shortcoming, Hostinger strives to provide comprehensive assistance through live chat and other channels to ensure you receive the help you need.
Key features:
- Fast and reliable NVMe SSD storage.
- Free weekly backups.
- Real-time snapshots.
- AI assistant.
- Supports popular Linux-based operating systems, such as Ubuntu, Debian, Rocky Linux, CentOS, and AlmaLinux.
- Supports many control panel options, including CyberPanel, cPanel, and Easypanel.
Best cloud VPS host for: Business owners looking for a budget-friendly VPS hosting solution with many operating system and control panel options.
Price: Starts at $7.99 per month.
3. Kamatera
Established in 1995 and headquartered in Israel, Kamatera is a premiere cloud-based VPS hosting provider. With its extensive network of 18 data centers worldwide, Kamatera delivers reliable and high-performance hosting services for a global clientele.
In line with its mission to democratize cloud hosting, Kamatera offers a range of budget-friendly VPS plans coupled with an intuitive server setup process.
Kamatera’s cloud VPS hosting starts at $4 monthly with 1 GB of RAM, 20 GB on an SSD, and 1 TB of bandwidth. You can start with a 30-day free trial of cloud services worth up to $100.
To cater to diverse user preferences and technical proficiency levels, Kamatera offers both unmanaged and managed VPS plans.
It’s worth noting that Kamatera doesn’t offer SSL certificates. If you prioritize website security (as you should), get an SSL certificate from a different provider.
Despite this drawback, Kamatera remains a trusted choice for website owners. With its global infrastructure and flexible hosting options, Kamatera provides the tools and computing power you need to support your business’s growth in any part of the world.
Key features:
- Global data centers spanning the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
- Free site migrations.
- 24/7 customer service via live chat, phone, and email.
- Managed and unmanaged VPS hosting plans.
- Extensive selection of operating systems and control panels.
Best cloud VPS host for: Businesses experiencing or expecting international growth.
Price: Starts at $4 monthly, featuring a 30-day free trial.
4. Cloudways
Cloudways is a Malta-based hosting service provider founded in 2011. Thanks to its partnerships with Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean, Cloudways has established itself as a versatile cloud hosting platform.
Once you have a Cloudways account, you can choose your cloud infrastructure among its partners. What’s more, adding or switching servers is effortless and takes only a few minutes.
Cloudways offers 65 data centers worldwide, some owned by the aforementioned infrastructure partners. No matter where your audience is located, you can bet your website is delivered speedily.
Cloudways offers a range of plans, starting at the affordable price of $14 per month for the DO1GB plan — 1 core, 1 GB of RAM, and 25 GB of storage. The higher plans go up to thousands of dollars per month.
Based on user reviews, Cloudways’ customer support is a mixed bag. Cloudways doesn’t offer phone support but has a solid reputation for delivering reliable 24/7 live chat support.
Cloudways doesn’t offer domain name registration. Likewise, if you want email hosting, you’ll have to get it from another provider.
Key features:
- Better performance via SSD storage, Varnish, Memcached, and Redis.
- 24/7 real-time server monitoring.
- Free SSL certificates.
- Full root access.
- Automated backups.
- Advanced caching technologies.
- Dedicated firewalls.
Best cloud VPS host for: Business owners looking for a fully managed solution with rapid provisioning.
Price: Starts at $14 per month.
5. FastComet
FastComet offers robust cloud VPS solutions in fully managed server hosting environments.
With 11 data centers across the globe — including locations like Mumbai, Tokyo, and Sydney — FastComet guarantees rapid provisioning, enabling businesses to deploy projects and apps within minutes.
Powered by cPanel and WP Tools, FastComet lets clients manage and configure their websites efficiently and intuitively.
The cheapest plan (Cloud 1) starts at $46.16 per month and offers a single CPU virtual core, 2 GB of RAM, 50 GB of SSD space, and 2 TB of bandwidth. You can access increased resources as you move up, including more CPU cores, RAM, SSD storage, and bandwidth.
All four plans include advanced features, which makes FastComet’s price points high. For example, the Cloud 1 plan comes with NVMe storage and the Imunify360 security suite. Paying for these features is efficient if your business handles large amounts of data.
Key features:
- Fully managed hosting environment.
- Rapid provisioning with deployment in minutes.
- Wide range of resources available across plans.
- Advanced security features, including DDoS protection and the Imunify360 security suite.
- 11 data centers across the globe.
Best cloud VPS host for: Small and midsize businesses prioritizing security.
Price: Starts at $46.16 per month.
Getting started with the top cloud VPS hosts for your website
To facilitate your business’s next growth phase, choose a cloud VPS hosting provider that aligns with your needs. That’s easier said than done: You need to assess your requirements, plan ahead, and determine how to scale at the right time.
Whichever VPS option you opt for, choose a host that provides reliable support.
When you’re ready to upgrade your hosting to a high-quality VPS, Liquid Web can help. We’ve been leading the industry for decades, because our VPS servers are fast, cloud-based for easy scalability, and unbeatably reliable. Choose your favorite OS and the management tier that works best for you.
Click below to learn more or start a chat to talk to one of our VPS hosting experts right now.
Additional resources
VPS: A Beginner’s Guide →
A complete beginner’s guide to virtual private servers
Plesk VPS benefits →
9 key benefits that a Plesk control panel can bring to your VPS server
What is managed VPS hosting? →
Benefits, use cases, and how to decide if it’s right for you
Maddy Osman is a WordPress expert, WordCamp US speaker, bestselling author, and the Founder and SEO Content Strategist at The Blogsmith. She has a B.A. in Marketing from the University of Iowa and is a WordCamp Denver organizer while also operating The Blogsmith, an SEO content agency for B2B tech companies that works with clients like HubSpot, Automattic, and Sprout Social. Learn more about The Blogsmith’s process and get in touch to talk content strategy: www.TheBlogsmith.com