The decision is about who operates it
Hosting choices are usually presented as a cost comparison. The more useful axis is operational: who patches it, who monitors it, who gets up at 3am, and who is responsible when it is down.
A cheaper option that requires expertise you do not have is not cheaper. It is a deferred cost with an unpredictable due date.
The options, honestly
| Option | Typical cost | Who operates it | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared hosting | £5–£30/month | The host | Small brochure sites |
| Managed WordPress | £20–£150/month | The host | Content sites that matter |
| VPS | £10–£100/month | You | Teams with a sysadmin |
| Managed platform (PaaS) | £30–£400/month | The platform | Most business applications |
| Cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) | Highly variable | You | Scale, or specific services needed |
Managed platforms are the right default for applications
For most business applications, a managed platform gives you deployment, scaling, backups, certificates and monitoring without an infrastructure engineer. The premium over raw cloud is real and usually smaller than the salary it replaces.
The question to ask is not “what is cheapest per month?” but “what happens when the certificate expires on a Sunday?” If the answer is “nobody knows”, buy the managed option.
When cloud infrastructure earns its complexity
Genuine scale, specific managed services you need, strict residency requirements, or an existing operations capability. All legitimate reasons.
Choosing it because it is what serious companies use is not a reason, and it reliably produces a bill nobody can explain and a system only one contractor understands.
Watch the costs that surprise people
- Data egress — moving data out is frequently charged and frequently forgotten
- Backups and snapshots, which accumulate quietly
- Idle resources nobody switched off after a test
- Managed database instances, often the largest single line
- Support plans, which cost extra and matter when something breaks
Set a budget alert on day one. Cloud bills grow through inattention rather than through decisions.
What to insist on regardless of choice
- Automated backups, with a restore actually tested
- Monitoring that alerts a human when the site is down
- TLS certificates renewed automatically
- A staging environment that resembles production
- Deployment that is repeatable rather than someone copying files
These five matter more than the platform. A well-run VPS beats a badly-run cloud account every time.