2. 1&1

Offers a wide range of plans catering for all users

1&1 Cloud Server Hosting is a powerful range of products which combine dedicated server resources with the performance, flexibility and scalability of the best cloud hosting technologies.

Seven standard root access (self-managed) configurations aim to cover everyone from the individual user (£9.99 or $12.80 a month for a single CPU core, 1GB RAM and 50GB storage) to big businesses (16 cores, 48GB RAM and 500GB storage for a monster £349 or $448 a month).

All plans have decent specifications, giving you unlimited traffic and email accounts, a bundled SSL certificate, DDoS protection and a choice of US and European data centers.

A wide range of options includes Windows hosting, or managed hosting with your choice of stack: Apache + MySQL + PHP 7.2, Nginx + MariaDB + PHP 7.2, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress and more.

The highlight of the range is probably 1&1's Cloud Hosting Flex package. Not only does this allow for adjusting cores, RAM and storage on demand, and adding up to 99 servers to the same contract, but billing is by the minute and you're only charged for what you use.

Prices start at £20.84 ($27.50) a month including the management fee. There's no long-term contract and the first 30 days is free, giving you the chance to try before you buy.

3. Cloudways

A neat compromise between power and ease-of-use

At first glance, cloud hosting products seem to be divided into two clear groups: user-friendly but basic products from hosts like 1&1, and enterprise-level technology from Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and more, which is so complex that even experts might struggle to set it up.

Cloudways represents an interesting middle path. The company offers managed cloud hosting which is powered by your choice of the top providers – Amazon, Google, DigitalOcean, Kyup, Linode or Vultr are supported – and comes packed with features, yet is configured from a simple web console which is just as easy to use as the more basic competition.

It's an impressive platform. Cloudways' ThunderStack covers all your core performance needs: Nginx, Apache, Memcached, MySQL/MariaDB, Varnish Cache, PHP 7, PHP-FM and Redis. There's one-click cloning, backup and restore, integrated Git and team collaboration tools for developers, and no less than 60 data centers strategically placed around the world.

Despite all this high-end functionality, Cloudways products are generally simple to operate, and prices start at a beginner-friendly $10 (£7.15) a month for one core, 1GB RAM, 25GB storage and 1TB of bandwidth. It's all supremely configurable, and a free trial allows you to check out the product, with no credit card details required.

...[ Continue to next page ]

Share This Post