Created in 2012, UpCloud is a European cloud service provider that offers an ultra-fast and reliable cloud platform, backed by an incredible 100% uptime SLA. The company is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland and manages and maintains a network of twelve data centers around the world. This network includes Amsterdam (Netherlands), Frankfurt (Germany), London (United Kingdom), Madrid (Spain), San José (United States), New York (United States), Chicago (United States), Warsaw (Poland) and (naturally) Helsinki. According to them, UpCloud strives to provide suitable and scalable cloud hosting solutions for mission-critical websites at competitive prices. Its target audience is entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses working in managed hosting, IT services, e-commerce, SaaS, and PaaS. They have been recognized twice (so far) as the number one provider in terms of performance by Cloud Spectator (a consulting firm specializing in the cloud computing industry), and have listed them in the top 10 hosting providers in the ranking. cloud in Europe. UpCloud's main site takes advantage of a clean layout, a familiar layout, and a simple color scheme with a dominant color on each page, making navigation even easier. It is currently only available in English. Their official blog matches the site in terms of images and overall layout, and (most importantly) is regularly updated. The same goes for his presence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, Instagram, and LinkedIn, but excluding YouTube, as he only has a couple of videos uploaded a year ago.
UpCloud offers a simple and flexible pricing structure when it comes to their hosting plans (Image credit: UpCloud)
Packages and prices
If there is an idea that cloud hosting can be a bit expensive, UpCloud is here to challenge you with its cheap and cheerful cloud-based products. With UpCloud, one can deploy a server for as little as €5.00 per month and the plan will include 1GB of memory, 1 CPU, 25GB of storage space and 1TB of data transfer, making them less expensive than many shared hosting packages. offered. by other providers. With UpCloud, you can choose between two pricing structures: a simple one, which includes ten packages of different sizes, including the €5,00 one; and a flexible, with which you can choose a plan and select the exact resources you want to include. There is also the option to purchase an easy-to-use private cloud or combine it with a public cloud to create a hybrid cloud solution and get the best of both worlds. If you're not sure what to opt for, UpCloud offers a 3-day free trial for its new users, which you can extend upon request. This trial will give you free access to a simple €5.00 Linux-based cloud server that we mentioned above. For this reason (and as expected) UpCloud does not offer refunds. All packages can be purchased with credit cards (Visa and MasterCard), PayPal and bank transfer (only in Finland).
Ease of use
To get started with UpCloud, you'll need to sign up and start your free trial. To do this, you will need to provide account and billing information by providing your full name, username, email address, phone number, postal address, city, country, postal code, etc. You'll also need to convince them that you're not a robot (even if you are), and preferably abide by the terms of service and privacy policy. Once your account is activated, you will be able to access the server section of UpCloud and deploy your first server. Here you'll need to select a server location and there should be twelve available (mainly in the US and Europe), so choose the one closest to you. You will then be able to choose the type of plan you want to purchase (simple or flexible), the operating system you want to use on that server, whether to include Pv6 support or run scripts, change a hostname, or add a short description of your server. After clicking "deploy", you will see a small yellow dot indicating that the process is still in progress. When it turns green, you're done and a password will be emailed to you within seconds.
This is UpCloud's custom control panel user interface (Image Credit: UpCloud) While UpCloud provides a custom control panel, it's too simplistic and will only help you manage your server and control billing. When you get into the console, if you're a beginner, this is where you can start to run into trouble, as there are no one-click installs and little frills. For example, if you want to install WordPress, you'll need to use this command line interface (or console) to do so. Therefore, it is fortunate that UpCloud provides a large number of guides and support staff who are available at all times and more than willing to help you. Although UpCloud doesn't provide any of the industry standard control panels, if you want to use cPanel (of course it does), ClusterCS, CyberPanel, ServerPilot or whatever, you can install it yourself. When it comes to backups, UpCloud provides regular backups and allows you to take a full snapshot and restore everything on your servers immediately.
We use GTmetrix to measure uptime and response time of the main UpCloud site (Image credit: GTmetrix)
Speed and experience
UpCloud claims its scalable MaxIOPS block storage offers twice the performance and twice the reliability of standard SSD cloud servers. However, after putting UpCloud's messaging website speed performance under a magnifying glass (owned by GTmetrix), we were faced with some rather disappointing results. The time it took for the site to fully load was 6,8 seconds and despite being better than the average of 8,1, the desirable result should be below 3,5. Similarly, most of the vital web metrics were around average, resulting in an average score of C (71%). When it comes to uptime, UpCloud claims to have eliminated all risk by building UpCloud with an N+1 philosophy across its entire infrastructure. They also provide a 100% uptime SLA and 50x ROI for any downtime over 5 minutes, which looks pretty promising. After monitoring the uptime of the main UpCloud site (via UptimeRobot) over a period of one month, we recorded two cases of downtime and none of them lasted more than an hour, giving a total uptime of 99,92%. In other words, we were entitled to a sweet reward for all the downtime our poor website had suffered.
UpCloud provides detailed tutorials as well as detailed FAQs on its website (Image credit: UpCloud)
Support
Anyone who wants to stay as independent as possible will feel right at home with UpCloud, as it offers a wealth of self-help options. These include in-depth tutorials covering a variety of topics, a resources and API (Application Programming Interface) documentation section where you can read all about their services, and a comprehensive FAQ section. Contributing to the UpCloud online community can be literally rewarding as one could be rewarded with account credits which is a good idea. On top of that, if you want to get in touch with the UpCloud support team, you can do it via live chat, email, or phone. Everyone must be available 24 hours a day, and the average response time for live chat must be less than two minutes. However, in our own experience it tends to be even less than that and the professional we came in contact with was very respectful, resourceful and answered all of our questions immediately.
Competition
Like the Finnish company UpCloud, the American company Vultr offers high-performance SSD cloud servers that cover a global network of data centers. These hosts are quite similar in terms of features and price, however Vultr offers dedicated cloud and bare metal server solutions just in case, which might be deal breakers for some users. DigitalOcean is another similar (and powerful) competitor to UpCloud and one that shows its US-made references. None of them are particularly suitable for beginners, however, as UpCloud provides top-notch customer support, if you consider a newbie, give them a higher priority. That said, if this was your first business website, you'd be doing yourself a favor by considering simpler hosting types for small businesses, such as shared hosting, or managed or unmanaged WordPress hosting. Similar options will be offered with hosts like HostGator, DreamHost, or Bluehost, along with a wide range of features for beginners (affordable rates, free domain, monthly billing, money-back guarantee, 24/7 support, 1-click installer, etc.). in). On top of that, all three provide access to easy-to-use website builders, which means you can create your own professional website without any web design or other expertise.
Final verdict
Like many of its fellow cloud hosting providers, UpCloud doesn't try too hard to build the trust of less-skilled users by providing them with all the conveniences they could ask for. Rather, for the most part, they are on their own and learn the ropes through trial and error. However, its powerful performance, strong security, fast customer service, and excellent value for money make it worth it for most users. If you're looking for a host with an emphasis on friendliness for the first time or one who can offer a greater variety of hosting options overall, look to HostGator and Bluehost before you decide.