Best Managed Magento Hosting Platforms

Choosing the right Magento hosting solution is crucial for the success of your online store. It directly impacts the speed, performance, security, and scalability of the website. Whether you opt for a Magento cloud hosting, shared hosting, dedicated hosting (VDS), or Virtual Private Server (VPS), the final goal is to achieve a smooth setup and continuous operation of your e-commerce.

Best Managed Magento Hosting Platforms

With a diversity of hosting providers available, it can be challenging for merchants to find the optimal solution. This guide will give you all the needed information about cost-effective and reliable Magento platforms, including the answers to the questions:

  • What are the top Magento hosting providers?
  • Where to find a team for managing your ecommerce?
  • How to save money on your Magento server?
  • How to choose the right Magento cloud hosting?

Keep reading to stay informed about the best Magento hosting solutions for your specific needs in 2024.

What is Magento Hosting?

Magento is a widely embraced CMS with pre-built functionalities for e-commerce sites. It plays a fundamental role in ensuring a website can handle increased traffic and maintain optimal performance.

Magento offers flexibility and scalability for businesses of all sizes. Its open-source nature allows for customization to meet specific needs. Thus, its default features cater to both small and large enterprises.

Magento Hosting Provider Requirements

The choice of hosting type often depends on the specific needs and scale of your Magento store. Shared hosting is suitable for smaller stores with lower traffic. Dedicated or Magento 2 cloud hosting is more appropriate for e-commerce operations with higher performance. Managed hosting can be beneficial for those who prefer the hosting provider to handle technical aspects. At the same time, unmanaged hosting provides more control but requires greater technical expertise from the user.

Out of many options, you can choose the one that best fits your Magento 2 Cloud requirements and preferences. And, as long as the hosting environment supports Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, it can effectively host your Magento.

Features of Magento Hosting

Magento’s reputation for high speed and flexibility makes it a popular choice for scaling businesses. The platform’s robust framework and developer-friendly nature allow for flexible customization.

Magento offers the following basic features:

  • product and category management;
  • website inventory management;
  • customer support extensive tools;
  • flexible order management system;
  • diverse payment methods;
  • user-friendly search technology;
  • multilingual customer support;
  • promotional and marketing tools;
  • integration with the Google Analytics services and reports.

In addition to these services, there are other exceptional Magento hosting features, which include:

  • compliance and security certifications;
  • hourly full backups;
  • full cache management;
  • advanced database management;
  • server-side security updates and patches;
  • firewall and data encryption, etc.

Magento Managed Services

A fully managed Magento hosting provider offers a comprehensive range of services, from the initial site migration to its day-to-day management. The key features of effective managed hosting services for Magento include:

  • Narrow Specialization.

    Managed hosting providers focus specifically on Magento. This ensures in-depth knowledge and expertise tailored to the platform's requirements.
  • Complete Set of Services.

    Managed hosting covers various aspects. These include migration, deployment, security optimization, scalability, performance enhancement, and ongoing management.
  • Scalability.

    Managed services often include elastic scaling. Scalability allows the infrastructure to dynamically adapt to sudden changes in website traffic. This provides optimal performance during peak periods.
  • Constant Monitoring.

    Managed hosting involves continuous monitoring of servers and critical applications. This enables for proactive identification and resolution of potential issues.
  • Maintenance.

    A managed hosting service performs tasks like software updates and security patches. As a result, your system remains up-to-date and secure.
  • Security.

    Managed services prioritize the security of the Magento store. They implement measures to protect your eCommerce against known and unknown vulnerabilities.

Overall, Magento managed services provide a hassle-free solution for online store owners. They allow them to focus on their business while relying on specialized experts to handle the complexities of hosting.

Cloud Hosting vs. Data Center

Prior to selecting a Magento provider, consider whether it will be the cloud hosting or an on-premises data center. Their primary distinction lies in the location of data storage. An on-premises data center involves acquiring and maintaining servers on-site. Some view this as a drawback due to the need to invest in server and networking hardware, and it can age and require periodic replacement. However, it's not necessarily that every data storage faces issues. We had cases when there was no need to manipulate the server, as after we installed it first, we then forgot about its existence.

Another thing is that you have a full level of control over your data and equipment. It simplifies customizations without requiring vendor approval. Moreover, you can establish an environment tailored to accommodate different solutions. This affords you flexibility in migrating to newer systems on your own timeline and terms.

As for the cloud-based solution, it involves storing your data on external hardware and infrastructure. While cloud hosting is considered a more popular option, it has many disadvantages, in addition to its usually high price.

Despite the data being stored by the vendor, the ultimate responsibility for its protection rests with the client. In the event of a data breach, the client bears the consequences. Additionally, the accessibility of data is contingent on internet connectivity, and an outage can hinder access to remote data stores.

WordPress or any other simple CMS is easy to install on any hosting. Magento, on the other hand, is reliant on speed, hardware, and fine adjustments you make when switching from one structure to another. Thus, if the server allows you to build the fastest possible system, then everything is fine with conversions.

Top Magento Hosting Providers

Having a robust and dependable Magento hosting solution is essential for your online store growth. Magento 2 provides the necessary infrastructure and resources to support the demands of your e-commerce. To help you find the appropriate option, we collected eight most reliable and effective Magento hosting solutions.

1.  DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean is mostly used by small merchants but is also suitable for medium-sized businesses. It has an extensive list of services and allows you to manage the hosting environment yourself. DigitalOcean helps with solving some issues with the server, but if you need support with minor things, they will not assist you with that. Only you are responsible for everything related to your online store and its settings.

DigitalOcean

At the early stages of your website development, you may not need DevOps or SysOps. Yet, once you have to fix something and solve a problem with your e-commerce, you would need to hire an engineer to help you. DigitalOcean hosting is cheap, but a good DevOps Engineer can cost you $25-50/hour and higher, depending on the complexity of the project. Besides, the server is not very fast.

At some point, your business can start requiring something better than DigitalOcean’s services. This is when you should consider options like Cloudways or Hetzner.

2.  Cloudways Magento Hosting

Cloudways stands out as a more exclusive option for a Magento hosting provider. Released a few years ago by DigitalOcean, Cloudways is particularly the same hosting but with more advanced features. They provide their own DevOps team and cater to a range of users.

Cloudways

Cloudways free trial allows hosting on DigitalOcean, GCP, and AWS. Their clients are medium-sized businesses or higher, including merchants, startups, and agencies. The service itself is better and provides 24/7 support, yet it is also more expensive.

Be aware that Cloudways hosting for Magento provides limited features. There are many additional settings, but they are locked along with a standard set. Considering there is no free access to the settings, your hands are tied when it comes to configuring something. Your website can work stable with Cloudways, but you won’t be able to achieve greater results with this service. Also, when turning to technical support, get ready to hear: “I’m sorry, but our regulations do not provide this, there is only this and that…”

In most cases, this is suitable for 90% of medium-sized businesses. However, you should also consider their technical support works on a ticketing system. After you leave a request, they can look at it within an hour or more, even if it is critical. Moreover, you cannot be sure their developers will quickly resolve this issue. Yet, the price is affordable, as for the service sharpened by Magento.

Overall, Cloudways is a good alternative for a cheaper hosting and well-suited for migration from DigitalOcean Basic Droplets.

3.  Hetzner

When your store grows and its productivity decreases, you can switch to a bare-metal server. Various companies offer real servers to rent in their data centers, and Hetzner is one of them. Unlike other cheap Magento hosting providers, Hetzner displays reliable services for great prices. You can choose a separate server that will be allocated specifically for you.

Hetzner

Hetzner offers you to buy a server three times cheaper than their competitors from the Netherlands or Germany. Moreover, you can get a desired machine at an auction or rent a used server for a super low price. It may be a year old, but it will be a great solution for certain businesses as the generation of the processor is always quite fresh. Some clients even buy two servers because it is still cheaper than renting a cloud, and it saves you from downtime.

There is only one critical disadvantage of Hetzner – no technical support. Of course, they provide support for your hardware, but your ecommerce is your concern. Hetzner supplies a responsive service, yet you need a DevOps or SysOps team to configure everything from scratch down to tuning the server. For some, this is a benefit, as many clients come with their own developers and engineers. Yet, if you don’t have such a person in your team, you should spend some time hiring a specialist or two.

We have transferred many clients from cheap hosting providers to Hetzner. Some of them had a DevOps or tech specialist in the team, but we recommended using our integrated set of services suitable for any Hetzner configuration. Thus, they didn’t have to look for anyone because they had our Magento 2 development and support. There is also 24/7 support available, but it comes with an SLA, and an additional contract for technical support. An SLA has four levels of response, depending on the severity of the situation. The higher its level, the quicker our response will be.

4.  Amazon Web Services

Magento AWS hosting is a world-renowned provider that allows you to build the fastest possible system. It is a really stable product with a range of services provided.

Amazon Web Services

AWS follows trends in Magento and always comes up with advanced services. Amazon provides an excellent infrastructure that allows clients to scale in architecture from a small project to a cosmic giant in a matter of seconds. Scalability is its huge benefit, but, at the same time, it is the most expensive provider. They can charge you $3000 per month for the average project.

Additionally, Amazon web hosting should be managed by DevOps, specializing specifically in Magento. Amazon services consist of separate products united into a single ecosystem, but each has its own nuances. For this reason, your developers should have many years of experience working with AWS.

If you are migrating your Magento marketplace to AWS, you won’t be able to cover its significant functionality immediately. Therefore, the entry threshold for DevOps in Amazon is much higher than in any other service. AWS DevOps engineers have their own certification, so it can be challenging to find the right specialists.

There was a case when the client couldn't afford to pay for Amazon anymore, and we dragged him to a dedicated server. He overpaid a huge amount to AWS, but we provided him with exactly the same set of services but ten times cheaper. The client had no need to use Amazon for his business, so we found a much cheaper solution from Hetzner so that he would not overpay for hosting.

5.  Akoova

Akoova is a company that is ready to provide support for Amazon customers at an adequate price. Akoova’s developers specialize in Magento 2 AWS architecture and know the specifics of Magento. If you need to fix some issue in your store, they immediately solve it online.

Akoova

Akoova has responsive chat support where you can report your problem. Yet, most likely, your problem will be fixed by the time you report it, as their specialists know about all issues even before you find out about them. Once they see a problem, they contact your team and do the job together. When you start working with Akoova, they get to know each of your specialists and their responsibilities, so they always know who to address. It's like a team within a team.

While the rest Magento providers work on a ticketing system, Akoova’s process of solving problems is reduced to a minimum, as they are working 24/7. Also they’re offering zero downtime deployment based on AWS Services.

Our client, Gardening Express, uses AWS with the support of Akoova and our team. We resolve all issues in a joint chat with our developers and their tech support. Meantime, their manager focuses on interaction with the clients and increase of sales.

6.  Nexcess Magento Hosting

Nexcess is widely regarded as a leading choice for managed Magento Cloud hosting. The platform has a range of beneficial features and a dedicated team of Magento experts. Besides, Nexcess Magento hosting differs in low pricing. Yet, it is not suitable for large businesses with high performance.

Nexcess

Our Australian client was experiencing a critical issue with their Nexcess server, resulting in an unacceptable 600 ms delay. Despite our detailed communication with Nexcess support suggesting specific server configuration changes, their response was unhelpful. This necessitated a hosting provider switch. We migrated the client's server to Hetzner in the USA, specifically to a western data center. Although the ping to the server was initially longer, this move significantly improved performance, halving the time to first byte, demonstrating a marked improvement over the previous setup.

7.  GoDaddy Magento Hosting

GoDaddy has established itself as one of the prominent Magento hosting providers in the USA. Yet, it can’t compete with other mentioned providers due to it being outdated. For quite an expensive price, you get a low-quality Dedicated Server or VPS.

GoDaddy

If you are looking for good performance and maximum conversions, then this is not your option. It is suitable for a small blog, microsite, or online store with minimal traffic. GoDaddy Magento hosting will not allow you to stand out among competitors and gain more clients.

Additionally, there are also VPS/VDS hosting solutions you may consider. Magento VPS hosting is a service provided by DigitalOcean, GoDaddy, Nexus, and many other popular providers, but not all. With a VPS, you share one machine with someone else. Therefore, if there are some issues with your neighbor's traffic, the overall load on the server will increase. Better take a physical server or a cloud solution that will be clearly virtualized for you.

As for Magento VDS hosting, it provides you with a clear amount of resources you can use. A dedicated virtual machine is isolated from others, and loading on a neighboring server does not affect yours.

Summing up, all the above providers are not competitors, as they are suitable for companies with different needs and budgets. The final choice depends on the financials of each specific client and whether he can afford to rent services or hire a team.

Here, you may check the approximate pricing for the best managed Magento hosting providers’ services:

Provider Solution Min Completion Max Completion
$/month Cores
/vCPU
RAM SSD $/month Cores
/vCPU
RAM SSD
DigitalOcean DigitalOcean $4 1 vCPU 512 MB 10 GB $2096 32 vCPUs 256 GB 4690 GB
Cloudways $14 1 Core 1 GB 25 GB $487 16 Core 64 GB 1280 GB
Hetzner Shared €4.59 2 vCPU 4 GB 40 GB €29.63 16 vCPUs 32 GB 320 GB
Dedicated €15.11 2 vCPU 8 GB 80 GB €349.07 48 vCPU 192 GB 960 GB
AWS Hosting only $38.56 2 Core 2 GB 20 GB $3569.9 96 Core 384 GB 20 GB
with Akoova support Contact Akoova team to get a quote
Nexcess $21 Shared
vCPU
Shared
RAM
30 GB $542 32 vCPU 32 GB 800 GB
GoDaddy VPS $15.95 1 vCPU 2 GB 40 GB $269.95 16 vCPU 64 GB 800 GB
VDS $249.95 4 vCPU 32 GB 2x500 GB $740.25 16 vCPU 256 GB 2 x 1 TB

How to Choose a Suitable Magento Cloud Hosting

There is no one-size-fits-all solution in the realm of hosting. The best choice can vary significantly based on the unique characteristics and stage of your eCommerce business. Carefully evaluate your options based on the next key factors:

Compliance with the System Requirements

First, ensure the hosting environment aligns with the system requirements of your Magento version. Check its compatibility with the right versions of PHP, MySQL, and other necessary extensions. This will help you optimize your store performance, boosting sales and fostering customer loyalty.

Scalability

It is crucial to handle sudden spikes in traffic that can occur during sales or promotional events. An ideal hosting provider should offer scalability options, such as cloud hosting. This enables you to adjust resources without causing any downtime for your website.

High Uptime Guarantee

Frequent downtimes can result in lost sales and harm your store's reputation. Therefore, it's essential to opt for a service that guarantees at least 99.9% uptime. Prioritize hosting services that provide a high uptime guarantee.

Sufficient Server Resources

Ensure a hosting provider has ample RAM and CPUs/Cores power to handle your store's load during peak traffic periods. For small to medium-sized stores, we recommend 2-4 Cores, 8-16 GB of RAM and SSD. For larger stores, opt for 8-32 Cores, 32-64 GB of RAM and NVMe SSD or more to achieve smooth and optimal performance.

Advanced Security Measures

A reliable hosting service should encompass robust security features. Check the availability of firewalls, SSL certificates, routine malware scans, and secure FTP and SSH access. This is essential for safeguarding your site from potential threats and cyber-attacks.

Server Regionality

Regionality of servers is also important. It is not necessary to have a server in the country of your business location. Nevertheless, it is better to check if there is a law that prohibits placing a store or customer data in another country, as it is in the UK. Yet, everything depends on how correctly you configure the server. A professional DevOps can bypass such regulations and save you money. For example, you can find a cheaper server in another country and solve the issue of delay time to first bite with the help of Content Delivery Network (CDN).

Efficient Functioning of the Developers Team

A good Magento hosting provides the tools necessary to ensure the work of developers and improve Magento 2 interaction with the CRM system. For this reason, it is vital to discuss the details with your team to streamline the work within your e-commerce project.

Consistent Backup Services

Regular backups are indispensable for an e-commerce business. Your hosting provider must have straightforward recovery options for the ongoing protection of your valuable data.

Access to Developer-Friendly Tools

Developer-friendly features enhance the flexibility and ease of customization for your Magento store. With tools like Git, staging environments, and Command Line Interface (CLI), you can deploy changes on your site safely.

Conclusion

All these providers are companies of different levels varied in a set of services and prices. While some choose to start with cheap solutions like DigitalOcean and Nexcess, cheap is not necessarily robust. If the project is complex, the team should always be in touch. For this reason, it is better to opt for a combination of powerful Amazon web services and Akoova support.

We have a DevOps team that understands all providers and their specifics. Our company provides a flexible hourly rate, adapting to the needs and capabilities of every client. Perspective can offer high-quality, responsive service at the partnership level.

Considering our vast experience with each Magento provider from this list, we can assure you end up with the best hosting for your business. We can suggest the most appropriate solution to meet the current needs of your business with prospects for future development.

Remember that the hosting infrastructure plays a critical role in the performance, reliability, and security of your site. Thus, investing in quality hosting is an investment in the foundational success of your e-commerce venture.

2024-02-15 10:16:47