In this article, we’ll be introducing you to some of the best SaaS hosting providers, their features, and at the end, we’ll give a summary of which provider is best for you.
What is SaaS?
Before we get into the different SaaS hosting providers it would be a good idea to establish some ground-work on what SaaS is and what its significance is.
SaaS is an acronym that stands for: Software as a Service. That means that you are paying to use a company’s software.
Most hosting companies are a SaaS business because you aren’t buying the actual software to build your website from them. Instead what you do is go onto their web page and select one of their plans to purchase.
Once you have paid for that plan and any other services you’re purchasing from them (like a professional email or unique domain name) you can then remotely access their software, or at least the part of their software that you’re paying them for.
If you were to purchase a non-SaaS system you would end up with all the physical equipment, programs, and software at a physical location of your choosing and you would be responsible for all the maintenance and troubleshooting.
A SaaS hosting provider is a company that is either compatible with outside SaaS services or they offer their own.
That is what SaaS is in a nutshell, now let’s look at some of the best SaaS hosting Providers.
1. Wix
Wix is both a well-known and popular SaaS hosting provider for websites.
A lot of people want a personal website, but either don’t have the money to pay for hosting or they just don’t want to spend anything. Those people will find Wix to be very useful since it offers free hosting as well as a free website builder.
Now that probably sounds pretty good, but before you decide to go and host your website with Wix here are a few things to keep in mind…
- The plans that come without preinstalled ads on them are more expensive than the plans offered by Wix’s competitors.
- The free plan doesn’t come with your domain name.
Wix’s website builder tool is one of the best perks that come with signing up for an account with them. It doesn’t matter if you’re signed up for one of their paid plans or if you’re just costing with their free option, you’ll still get a whole set of beginner-friendly tools and templates to get your website off of the ground.
There are three kinds of plans Wix offers: websites, enterprise, and business and e-commerce. Each of those has different plans, but we’ll only be listing the cheapest ones:
- Free
- Combo
- Business Basic
- Enterprise Plans
Now, before we continue we would like to make this point very clear: we do NOT advise you to use Wix’s free plan if you’re trying to set up a website for your business.
The reason you don’t want to use a free web hosting service for your business is that your website’s URL will include the SaaS provider’s name. Even if you pay a small fee to attach your domain name to it your website will still have a lot of ads that you won’t be able to remove.
We highly suggest using one of Wix’s paid plans for a business website so you’ll have full control over your site and what goes on it.
Free Plan: This plan includes 500 MB storage, 500 MB bandwidth, the assigned domain name (example.wixsite.com), Wix ads and favicon, and customer support. Cost is free.
Combo Plan: This plan includes 3 GB storage, one domain name, removal of Wix ads, free SSL, 30 minutes of video hours, and customer service. The cost is $14/month.
Business Basic Plan: This plan includes 20 GB storage, one domain name, removal of Wix ads, free SSL, 5 hours of video hours, secure online payments, customer accounts, and customer service. The cost is $23/month
Enterprise Plans: These plans are completely custom-made by the Wix team. Plans start at $500/month.
2. Cloudflare
Cloudflare is a company that offers web hosting plans along with several services for SaaS developers. One nice thing about Cloudflare is that they offer their users a free web hosting package just like Wix does.
While they are a good SaaS hosting provider there are a few things to keep in mind before you decide to host with them…
- If you don’t want to go with their cheapest paid-for plan or free option you may want to choose a different hosting provider because the rest of their plans can be expensive compared to some of their competitors.
There are a lot of features that Cloudflare offers which makes them very friendly towards developers, but they have options for other people too. If you don’t have a lot of tech knowledge you’ll still be able to put up a good website.
Cloudflare offers four different hosting plans, but there are a lot of SaaS services and add-ons that you can include in your monthly subscription. Each of those services and addons will make your plan more expensive though, so make sure you only choose the ones that you need for your website.
Here are the four plans that you can choose from if you decide to host with Cloudflare:
- Free Plan
- Pro Plan
- Business Plan
- Enterprise Plan
Before you look at the cloud plans that we’ve listed just below this paragraph we need to point something out.
If you look at the two most expensive plans (Business and Enterprise) you’ll notice that they look the same and only have one or two features more than the much cheaper Pro plan. The reason for this is while those plans have the same features, they don’t have the same level of those features.
The business and enterprise plans have much higher feature levels for companies who are concerned about having the best security and functionality possible. Depending on what your needs are you may have everything you need by going with the Pro plan or even their free version.
Free Plan: This plan includes fast and easy-to-use DNS, free automated SSL certificates, global CDN, unmetered mitigation of DDoS attacks, up to 100k workers requests and 30 scripts, and 3 Page Rules. Cost is free.
Pro Plan: This plan includes fast and easy-to-use DNS, free automated SSL certificates, global CDN, unmetered mitigation of DDoS attacks, up to 100k workers requests and 30 scripts, 20 Page Rules, high security with Web Application Firewall, bot report & basic mitigation, DDoS alerts, lossless image optimization, accelerated mobile page load speed, privacy-first analytics. The cost is $20/month
Business Plan: This plan includes fast and easy-to-use DNS, free automated SSL certificates, global CDN, unmetered mitigation of DDoS attacks, up to 100k workers requests and 30 scripts, 50 Page Rules, high security with Web Application Firewall, bot report & basic mitigation, DDoS alerts, lossless image optimization, accelerated mobile page load speed, privacy-first analytics, high priority customer support, and advanced security features. Cost is $200/month
Enterprise Plan: This plan includes fast and easy-to-use DNS, free automated SSL certificates, global CDN, unmetered mitigation of DDoS attacks, up to 100k workers requests and 30 scripts, 50 Page Rules, high security with Web Application Firewall, bot report & basic mitigation, DDoS alerts, lossless image optimization, accelerated mobile page load speed, privacy-first analytics, high priority customer support, and advanced security features. To determine the price for your plan you’ll have to contact Cloudflare directly.
3. Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services or AWS is both a hosting provider and a SaaS service provider, so naturally, their services are compatible with each other. If you decide to host your website with ASW you’ll be able to integrate other services they offer should you ever find yourself in need of them.
With that being said, there are a few things you need to consider before deciding that AWS has everything you want in a SaaS hosting Provider…
- Because of the way their pricing works, paying for your services from AWS can get confusing if you aren’t already familiar with their system.
- The number of resources that will be available to you will be determined by your location which could be a problem depending on what area of the world you’re in,
Because of all the services that AWS offers you can host both websites and apps with them. This makes things easy if you want to keep everything in one location so you only have to deal with one company.
The downside of being so diverse is that taking advantage of that diversity means you have to look through all their services, measure how much of each website or app will need, and then do the calculations to see how much you’ll have to pay each month.
If however, you don’t want all that hassle and just want to focus on building your app or website you can go with one of their easy-to-navigate Lightsail plans:
- Amazon Lightsail Plans
Amazon Lightsail has everything you need in one place. You just choose the Lightsail features you want and you’ll have a much clearer view of what you’ll be charged monthly.
Amazon Lightsail: All of the Lightsail plans include 1 static IP address, intuitive management console, DNS management, 1-click SSH terminal access (Linux/Unix), 1-click RDP access (Windows), powerful API, SSD storage, and server monitoring. The cost starts at $3.50.
4. Google Cloud
Google cloud is one of the most widely used SaaS services and they also provide web hosting.
However, before you decide that Google Cloud is the right hosting provider for you here are a few things to take into account before making the final decision…
- Google Cloud charges based on features so the more you want added in, the more expensive it will be.
- Navigating their pricing system and getting your plan just the way you want will take some time to figure out if you aren’t already familiar with their system.
Google Cloud doesn’t have exact plans for web hosting. Instead, they allow you to select from their wide variety of services and features and create your plan. This means that the price for hosting with them will depend on you.
Because of that, we can’t provide you with exact plan prices. We can however list the types of solutions and products they offer on their web hosting services page.
- WordPress on Compute Engine
- LAMP stack on Compute Engine
- Firebase hosting
- Cloud Run
- Compute Engine
- App engine
Depending on which of these you choose and how elaborate you want to get you’ll be charged. Of course, Google Cloud is part of the Google empire, so their services are completely compatible with Google Apps.
Our Verdict
We can’t guess what your specific hosting needs are so we can’t tell you which company has everything you need. What we can do though, is give our verdict on who we think will have the best experience with the various SaaS hosting providers we’ve looked at.
Best in Show for Beginner Friendly: Wix
Outshining every other SaaS hosting provider on our list, Wix’s reputation of being easy to use is well earned. The free templates they offer are a great option for someone who doesn’t know how to code or build applications from scratch. Wix’s free plan is also great for people who just want a non-professional space on the web that’s all their own.
Best in Show for Divers Services: Amazon Web Services
If you want as many options as you can get we suggest choosing AWS. While it will take you some time to sort through their products and prices, you’ll have everything you need and more.
Best in Show for Conserving Your Resources: Cloudflare
If you want to choose a smaller, cheaper plan but are worried about using up your plan resources too fast, Cloudflare has you covered. They take steps to make sure your site uses up lower amounts of included features like bandwidth.
Best in Show for Compatibility with Google products: Google Cloud
If you prefer using Google products and solutions to manage your apps, websites, or other business aspects then Google Cloud is the SaaS hosting provider you should go with. You’ll be able to work with the products and options you love at a decent price.