Hostwinds vs UpCloud
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Hostwinds and UpCloud.
Quick Verdict
3.4/5
Hostwinds
0 reviews
4.2/5
UpCloud
0 reviews
UpCloud is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.4). Seattle-based hosting provider with VPS (Linux and Windows), dedicated servers, and shared hosting. Nightly backups included, 24/7/365 live chat support, and 99.9999% uptime SLA. Affordable starting price. Finnish cloud provider with fast MaxIOPS storage and 15 data centers. Starter cloud servers from EUR 3/month, with free outbound traffic.
Hostwinds US VPS with nightly snapshots and 24/7 support | UpCloud MaxIOPS storage tops disk benchmarks consistently | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.4 (0 reviews) | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $3.29/mo | From $3/mo✓ |
| Best for | US small businesses and developers who want responsive 24/7 live support and predictable renewal pricing more than raw speed | Database-heavy European production workloads where disk I/O and a five-nines SLA matter more than raw compute price |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | 10 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 1 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | 100%✓ | 99.999% |
| Data-center count | 2 | 15✓ |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €3.00 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €3.00 |
| Performance | ||
| CPU score (sysbench) | — | 4,600 |
| Disk read (fio) | — | 2,800 MB/s |
| Disk IOPS (4K random) | — | 62,000 |
| Network out | — | 1 Gbps |
| Latency (TTFB) | — | 22 ms |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Tags | ||
| Tags | hourly billingipv6ddos protectionbackups includedwindows availableus datacenterapi access | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedsnapshotseu datacenterus datacenterapac datacentergdpr compliantapi accessprivate networking |
| Visit Hostwinds → | Visit UpCloud → | |
Hostwinds
Pros
- + 24/7/365 live chat backed by staff with direct access to owned hardware
- + Flat, non-promotional pricing: shared from $3.29/mo, managed VPS from $7.14/mo
- + 99.9999% uptime SLA with 2N-redundant facility design and multi-carrier fibre
- + Owns and operates its own data centres, hardware and network gear
- + Windows and Linux VPS both available; dedicated servers built to order
Cons
- - US-only data centres (Seattle and Dallas) — poor shape for European and Asian audiences
- - Nightly backups are a paid add-on per company docs despite 'included' marketing language
- - No free domain; performance evidence is thin and partly self-published
- - Hourly billing and API access are tagged but unverified on the pages we read
UpCloud
Pros
- + Best disk performance in our benchmark set: 62,000 IOPS / 2,800 MB/s on a Helsinki Simple 2-2GB (2026-04-01)
- + 99.999% uptime SLA with 50x credit payback on Premium and managed products
- + Legible pricing: hourly billing capped at 28 days, zero-cost transfer, identical prices in all 15 DCs
- + Broad platform: managed databases, Kubernetes, S3-compatible object storage, GPU and Private Cloud options
- + European-first footprint (2x Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Frankfurt and more) with 24/7 in-house support
Cons
- - CPU value lags the budget clouds — our test showed 4,600 CPU score against Hetzner's 9,400 at lower cost
- - Backups are a paid add-on (10-40% of server price) and extra MaxIOPS disk costs €0.22/GB/mo
- - Plan-line reorganization (Simple to Starter/Premium/Cloud Native) plus announced price changes create continuity risk
- - Starter tier caps (5 deployments, 250 Mbit/s port, previous-gen CPUs) despite carrying an SLA
- - APAC coverage is Singapore and Sydney only; GPU and Private Cloud lines are too new for long-run track records
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