"Cloud hosting" means very different things depending on who you ask. In this guide we compare both ends of the spectrum: hyperscalers (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) you configure yourself, and managed cloud platforms (Cloudways, Kinsta, WP Engine) that abstract the infrastructure away.
The hyperscalers
Amazon Web Services
AWS remains the default choice for enterprises: the deepest service catalogue, mature regions across the US and EU, and the free tier (12 months of EC2 t3.micro) for experiments. The learning curve and billing complexity are the trade-offs — a forgotten NAT gateway costs $32/mo.
Google Cloud Platform
GCP shines for data, AI and Kubernetes (GKE is the best-managed K8s in the industry). Their e2-micro instance is free forever within US regions up to certain limits, making GCP the best genuinely free cloud tier in 2026.
Microsoft Azure
Azure is the logical pick for organisations living in the Microsoft ecosystem — hybrid Active Directory, SQL Server licensing, and strong EU datacentre coverage for GDPR workloads.
Oracle Cloud (OCI)
The industry's best-kept secret: OCI's Always Free tier includes 4 Arm cores and 24 GB RAM — enough to run production workloads for $0. Capacity in popular regions can be hard to grab, but for budget cloud it's unmatched.
Managed cloud platforms
Managed platforms rent hyperscaler infrastructure and add server management, caching, security and support:
- Cloudways — from $14/mo on DigitalOcean; best balance of control vs convenience.
- Kinsta — Google Cloud C2 only; premium WordPress hosting with an Enterprise CDN.
- GridPane / SpinupWP — roll-your-own management on raw VPS, for sysadmins.
Real monthly pricing for a typical site
| Platform | 2 vCPU / 4 GB equivalent | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|
| AWS (t3.medium, on-demand) | ~$31 + transfer | Paid per GB |
| GCP (e2-standard-2) | ~$49 + transfer | Paid per GB |
| Azure (B2s) | ~$38 + transfer | Paid per GB |
| Oracle (VM.Standard.E2.1) | $0 (free tier) | 10 TB free |
| Cloudways (DO 2 GB) | $14 flat | 1 TB included |
| Hetzner (CX32) | ~€15 flat | 20 TB included |
Our recommendation
For a business website: Cloudways or Kinsta — you get cloud performance without hiring a DevOps engineer. For learning and side projects: GCP free tier or Oracle. For enterprise architecture: AWS or Azure, ideally with a billing alert on day one.