BEYOND THE BIG TWO

Google Cloud

Google got into the cloud game later than most but nonetheless has built a strong customer base. Google Cloud dedicates a lot of resources to security, with AI systems to detect and counter cyber threats. Its platform is famous for its high performance – Google has a lot of hardware and software expertise that it leveraged to design servers and server management software that work as fast as possible. The main complaint you’ll hear about Google Cloud is that it’s expensive, which is true. It costs more to use than rival platforms, but many people think the trade-off for high performance is worth it.

DigitalOcean

One of the most popular low-cost cloud providers, DigitalOcean doesn’t offer as many sophisticated features as you’d find on rival platforms, but it focuses more on offering simple cloud computing features for an affordable price, and it does its job well. With just 15 data centres worldwide, it is much smaller than the networks of the likes of AWS and Azure. Its reliability and performance are good but not as good as what you can get on these rival platforms. The real attraction of DigitalOcean is those lower costs, which you get in exchange for fewer features and reduced performance.

OVHCloud

A French cloud computing provider focused on European customers, OVHCloud is the largest cloud-hosting provider in Europe and the third-largest globally based on physical servers. Choose the type you want and the region you want it to be in from VPS or dedicated servers. It’s affordable compared to most rival platforms. You can rent dedicated servers for as low as $11 (around £8.50) per month or shared virtual private servers for as low as $4 a month. Support isn’t as good – you need to pay a significant sum for dedicated human support, which puts it at a disadvantage.