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Hosting plans compared

Five ways to host a website or a record archive. Start with the workload and the amount of server administration you are willing to own — the price follows from there.

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Plan comparison at a glance.
PlanBest forResourcesAdmin effort
Shared HostingFirst websites, brochure sites, small blogsShared with neighboursVery low
WordPress HostingAny serious WordPress siteShared or container, WordPress-tunedLow
Cloud HostingGrowth, spiky traffic, uptime-sensitive sitesPooled across a clusterLow to medium
VPS HostingCustom stacks, apps, agenciesReserved vCPU and RAMMedium to high
Dedicated ServersLarge archives, regulated and heavy workloadsA whole physical machineHigh

How to read this table

The column that decides most purchases is not price — it is admin effort. A dedicated server is only cheap if you already employ someone who can patch it. Shared hosting is only expensive if you outgrow it and have to migrate in a hurry. Work out how much server administration you are genuinely willing to own, then pick the cheapest plan in that band that meets your compliance requirements.

If you hold regulated records

Skip straight to choosing secure hosting for records. The architecture matters less than the contract, the encryption model and the retention controls.

What every plan on this page should include

  • Free TLS certificates, issued and renewed automatically
  • Daily automated backups stored away from the live server, with self-service restore
  • A current PHP release (8.2+) you can change yourself
  • Multi-factor authentication on the hosting control panel
  • A published uptime SLA and a real status page with incident history
  • Migration help included rather than charged as an add-on
  • Support reachable 24/7 by a channel you will actually use

Upgrade paths that do not hurt

The kindest thing a host can do is let you move up a tier without changing IP addresses, rebuilding your email, or re-issuing certificates. Before you buy the cheapest plan, ask the sales team one question: “What exactly happens when I outgrow this?” A good answer is a same-day in-place upgrade. A bad answer is a manual migration you have to schedule and test yourself.

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Hosting your records

We will point you at the plan that fits — and say so if you do not need to spend as much as you thought.