In short
WordPress cloud hosting runs your site on computing, storage and networking from cloud data centres. You can build it yourself on a public cloud, or use managed cloud hosting, where the host runs the platform. Cloudways lets you choose your cloud provider, Krystal runs its own infrastructure, including the Katapult cloud, and WP Engine uses Google Cloud by default.
See Cloudways' managed hosting plans
Cloudways lists its cloud providers, server sizes and locations, including London, on its own site.
What does cloud hosting mean for WordPress?
"Cloud" describes how hosting is built rather than a single product. Instead of buying or renting one physical server, the host draws on computing, storage and networking from large data centres. Resources are provisioned in software, so a new site, a new server or more capacity can be set up without anyone installing hardware.
For WordPress, cloud hosting comes in roughly three forms:
| Type | What you get | Who runs WordPress and the server |
|---|---|---|
| Public cloud, do it yourself | Raw virtual machines, databases and storage from a cloud platform | You or your developers |
| Managed cloud server | A cloud server on a provider such as AWS or DigitalOcean, with the stack managed for you | The host runs the server software; you choose its size and location |
| Managed WordPress cloud hosting | A WordPress platform running on cloud infrastructure | The host runs the platform; you run your site |
All three can host WordPress well. They differ in how much control you get and how much of the running you do yourself. If you are comparing other hosting types too, see shared vs VPS WordPress hosting.
See Krystal's WordPress hosting plans
Krystal lists its UK hosting plans on its own site.
Running WordPress on a public cloud yourself
Public cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure offer the building blocks to host a WordPress site: virtual servers, managed databases, object storage for media, a CDN, load balancers and DNS. Hosting WordPress on AWS or a similar platform gives you a great deal of control and a wide choice of regions and services, London among them.
Building it yourself also means designing and running it yourself:
- Architecture: choose server sizes, a database service, storage for uploads and how they connect
- Software: install and patch the operating system, web server, PHP and database
- Security: configure network rules, a web application firewall, SSL and access policies
- Speed: set up page caching, object caching and a CDN
- Backups and recovery: schedule snapshots and database backups, and test restores
- Monitoring and billing: watch performance and usage, and manage pay-as-you-go costs
For organisations with cloud engineers, or with WordPress as one part of a larger cloud estate, that can be the right approach. For most businesses that simply want a fast, secure website, it is a lot of infrastructure to own. That is the gap managed WordPress cloud hosting fills: the host builds and runs the cloud set-up, and you keep control of WordPress.
Managed WordPress cloud hosting
Managed WordPress cloud hosting gives you cloud infrastructure without running it. The host designs the platform, keeps the software current, handles caching, security and backups, and gives you a dashboard to manage sites.
There are two broad models among the hosts on this site:
- You choose the cloud, the host manages the server. Cloudways describes its product as "managed cloud hosting for WordPress on the provider you choose": you pick DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud, a location and a server size, and Cloudways sets up and manages the server with staging, backups and caching ready from the start
- The host chooses the cloud and runs a WordPress platform on it. Krystal and WP Engine each run their own platform on infrastructure they select, so you work with the host's dashboard rather than choosing a cloud provider
The first model gives you more say over the infrastructure, including the option to clone a server to another provider later, as Cloudways describes. The second hides the infrastructure behind a WordPress dashboard. Each suits different people; it depends on whether you want to make infrastructure choices or not. Our managed WordPress hosting guide explains what managed hosts take care of.
Not sure which host to choose?
See the three hosts side by side on the features each one lists.
Which clouds each host builds on
This is what each host says about the infrastructure under its WordPress hosting, A to Z:
| Cloudways | Krystal | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud infrastructure | Your choice of DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud; its Autonomous product is built on Kubernetes | Its own infrastructure, including Katapult, a cloud platform built by its in-house team; Krystal says its managed WordPress is backed by its own UK infrastructure | Google Cloud by default for shared plans; AWS and Microsoft Azure for Premium plans |
| How you choose a location | Pick the provider and location when you launch a server | See Krystal's site | Region closest to you at signup; moves by support request |
| UK locations listed | London on all five providers; Manchester on Vultr; London for Autonomous | A data centre in East London, among its four locations | Google Cloud London; AWS and Azure London on Premium plans |
| Company note | Cloudways says it is part of DigitalOcean | Its own UK infrastructure and support team, Krystal says | Data centre list updated August 2026 |
The details are on each host's own pages: Cloudways' pricing page (opens in a new tab) lists its providers and locations, Krystal explains Katapult on its technology page (opens in a new tab), and WP Engine lists every region on its data centre support page (opens in a new tab). For more on Cloudways' model, see our Cloudways WordPress hosting page.
Cloud data centres, including London
One advantage of cloud hosting is choice of location. Hosting near your visitors shortens the time each uncached request takes, and for many UK businesses a UK location also makes data questions simpler to answer.
All three hosts list London or UK infrastructure:
- Cloudways lists London for each of its five cloud providers, Manchester as a second UK option on Vultr, and London among the locations for its Autonomous plans
- Krystal says it operates from a hall in a data centre in East London, among four locations that also include Amsterdam and New Jersey, and describes "our own UK infrastructure". Its pages do not say which location a given managed WordPress site runs in
- WP Engine lists Google Cloud London (europe-west2) among the regions for its plans, with AWS London and Azure London for Premium plans
A business with an overseas audience can host a separate site closer to those visitors, and a CDN (below) covers the rest. Our guide to UK-based WordPress hosting covers the London options and data location questions in more detail.
CDN and edge caching
A London data centre serves UK visitors quickly. For everyone else, and for repeat visits from the UK, caching does the heavy lifting. A CDN (content delivery network) stores copies of images, scripts and stylesheets, and sometimes whole pages, at locations around the world.
- Cloudways offers a Cloudflare Enterprise add-on with edge page caching, smart routing, a WAF and tiered caching, and includes Cloudflare Enterprise on its Autonomous plans. Memcached, Varnish and Redis are built into its servers
- Krystal includes a CDN with 40+ points of presence on its Business managed plans and above, managed through the pre-installed LiteSpeed Cache plugin, with Redis on premium plans
- WP Engine lists a global CDN powered by Cloudflare on every plan, with its EverCache page caching, and Edge Full Page Caching through its advanced network and Global Edge Security options
Because cached pages are served from the CDN, a traffic spike to cached pages puts less load on your site's own server. Shop baskets, checkouts and logged-in pages cannot be cached in the same way, which is where server resources and object caching such as Redis matter. Cloudflare is named here only to describe the technology each host says it uses. Our fast WordPress hosting guide explains how these layers work together.
Scalable WordPress hosting: resources, add-ons and growth
Cloud hosting is often described as "scalable", which can mean several different things: adding resources automatically, resizing a server by hand, moving to a bigger plan, or simply not switching a site off during a spike. Here is how each host describes it:
| Host | How the host describes growth |
|---|---|
| Cloudways | On Flexible, resize a server's RAM, CPU and storage with a slider, and size back down later. Autonomous adds capacity automatically when traffic climbs, with baseline Kubernetes pods and more added as demand rises; you can set an autoscaling budget threshold |
| Krystal | On its managed platform, resources can be increased automatically within your monthly unique visitor limit, and Krystal says it will not switch your site off or charge extra for an unexpected traffic spike |
| WP Engine | A site is not shut down or throttled for a sudden traffic spike, WP Engine says; if traffic consistently exceeds the plan, you upgrade. Enterprise plans list always-on options for peak traffic |
Before you choose, check what happens when you exceed a limit: whether the site stays online, how you are told, and whether extra usage is charged. Each host sets this out on its own pricing page. A performance monitoring tool that shows which plugins and database queries slow your pages is often the quickest way to get more from the resources you already have. Our enterprise WordPress hosting and dedicated WordPress hosting guides cover the larger options.
Next step: compare cloud-based hosts
If cloud hosting is the right fit, the choice comes down to how much of the infrastructure you want to choose and run:
- Want to pick the cloud provider and server size yourself? See Cloudways WordPress hosting
- Want a WordPress platform with the cloud hidden behind a dashboard? See Krystal and WP Engine
- Want everything side by side? Our WordPress hosting comparison covers data centres, caching, security, backups and support
- Moving an existing site? Our guide to moving a WordPress site to a new host covers migration help, DNS and email
Plans, locations and prices are on each host's own site, and plans are bought directly from each host on its own terms.
Frequently asked questions
What is WordPress cloud hosting?
WordPress cloud hosting runs your site on computing, storage and networking from cloud data centres rather than on one fixed server. You can build it yourself on a public cloud platform, use a managed cloud server where you choose the provider and the host manages the stack, or use managed WordPress cloud hosting, where the host runs the whole platform.
Which clouds do managed WordPress hosts run on?
It varies. Cloudways lets you choose DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud. Krystal runs its own infrastructure, including Katapult, a cloud platform built by its own team, and says its managed WordPress hosting is backed by its own UK infrastructure. WP Engine places shared plans on Google Cloud by default, with AWS and Microsoft Azure for Premium plans.
Can I choose my cloud provider?
With some hosts. Cloudways lets you pick the provider, location and server size for each server, and clone a server to another provider later. WP Engine offers AWS and Azure regions on Premium plans. Krystal chooses the infrastructure itself and runs its managed WordPress platform on its own UK infrastructure.
Should I run AWS WordPress hosting myself?
It depends on your in-house skills. Hosting WordPress on AWS or another public cloud gives you full control, but you design and run the servers, database, security, caching, backups and monitoring yourself. If you have cloud engineers, that can work well. If you want a business website without the infrastructure work, managed cloud hosting does that for you; Cloudways, for example, offers AWS as one of its providers.
Can cloud WordPress hosting scale automatically?
Some can. Cloudways says its Autonomous plans add capacity automatically when traffic climbs, and Krystal says its managed platform can increase resources within your visitor limit. WP Engine says a site is not shut down or throttled for a sudden spike, and that you upgrade if traffic consistently exceeds your plan. On Cloudways Flexible, you resize the server yourself with a slider.
See WP Engine's managed WordPress plans
WP Engine lists its plans and data centre options on its own UK site.