IT AI Index
Index › Cloud and infrastructure › September 2026 Edition

Cloud hosting

Asked as “cloud hosting provider”, and as “infrastructure-as-a-service cloud”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 45 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Amazon Web Services
Contested
29% of first choices, contested.
ShowinginAll 67 categories →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessDigitalOcean40%Clear leaderStanding →Mid-marketAmazon Web Services29%ContestedThis pageEnterpriseAmazon Web Services57%Clear leaderStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Amazon Web Services29%17%58accepted challenger
02Microsoft Azure24%3%35accepted challenger
03DigitalOcean13%11%46accepted challenger
04Hetzner9%6%18accepted challenger
05Kamatera4%0%11accepted challenger
06Vultr2%11%27accepted challenger
07Cloudways2%23%13accepted challenger
08OVHcloud2%47%15criticized challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
12Azure0%35%20criticized challenger
11Oracle Cloud Infrastructure0%15%13accepted challenger
09Google Cloud0%11%46accepted challenger
10Akamai Connected Cloud0%9%34accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Amazon Web Services vs Microsoft AzureAmazon Web Services vs DigitalOceanMicrosoft Azure vs DigitalOcean

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01Amazon Web Services29%
02Microsoft Azure24%
03DigitalOcean13%
04Hetzner9%
05Kamatera4%
06Vultr2%
07Cloudways2%
08OVHcloud2%
09Google Cloud0%
10Akamai Connected Cloud0%
11Oracle Cloud Infrastructure0%
12Azure0%

02What they warned about

Five of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Bluehost
100%
7 of 7 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“Oversold shared/cloud servers lead to poor performance/uptime; notorious for slow support, outages” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
HostGator
88%
7 of 8 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“**HostGator** and **Bluehost** are commonly listed by reviewers and community posts as hosts to avoid” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt
Newfold Digital
100%
7 of 7 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“EIG is known for overloading servers, leading to slow performance, major outages, and poor customer support” Mistral Small, negative prompt
OVHcloud
47%
7 of 15 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“criticized for various reasons such as poor customer service, slow performance, major outages, and privacy intrusion” Llama 4 Maverick, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

57 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 698 links across 271 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

techradar.com
21 answers · 22 citations · 10 models
geekflare.com
18 answers · 21 citations · 9 models
forbes.com
17 answers · 17 citations · 9 models
hostingadvice.com
16 answers · 33 citations · 9 models
digitalocean.com
vendor site · DigitalOcean15 answers · 23 citations · 7 models
dev.to
14 answers · 15 citations · 7 models
pcmag.com
13 answers · 13 citations · 7 models
atlantic.net
vendor site · Atlantic.Net9 answers · 9 citations · 7 models
reddit.com
8 answers · 29 citations · 8 models
guideflow.com
vendor site · Guideflow8 answers · 8 citations · 6 models
meridianitinc.com
8 answers · 8 citations · 5 models
kansoftware.com
7 answers · 7 citations · 4 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

geekflare.com/hosting/best-cloud-hosting-platforms
18 answers · 9 models
techradar.com/news/best-cloud-hosting-providers
17 answers · 10 models
forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-cloud-hosting
13 answers · 9 models
pcmag.com/picks/the-best-cloud-web-hosting-services
13 answers · 7 models
dev.to/dkechag/cloud-provider-comparison-2024-vm-performance-price-3h4l
11 answers · 6 models
digitalocean.com/resources/articles/comparing-aws-azure-gcp
8 answers · 4 models
meridianitinc.com/blog/best-cloud-server-hosting-providers
8 answers · 5 models
hostingadvice.com/how-to/cloud-hosting-costs
7 answers · 7 models
kansoftware.com/insights/blog/aws-vs-azure-vs-gcp-enterprise-cloud
7 answers · 4 models
theweather.agency/blog/hosts-from-hell-the-worlds-worst-web-hosting-compani…
7 answers · 7 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best cloud hosting provider for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which infrastructure-as-a-service cloud would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top cloud hosting providers and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best cloud hosting provider for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a cloud hosting provider. What should we look at?”Negative“Which cloud hosting providers should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure
One alternativeDigitalOcean
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft AzureHeld
One alternativeGoogle Cloud
no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: A2 Hosting, GoDaddy, HostGator, IONOS, Newfold Digital
GPT-5.4 miniAmazon Web Services
Three alternativesGoogle Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Amazon Web ServicesHeld
Two alternativesGoogle Cloud, Microsoft Azure
against: Akamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, VultrAmazon Web Services
Six alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, IBM, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
DigitalOcean, Hetzner
One alternativeAWS Lightsail
against: Amazon Web Services, Azure, Google Cloudno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashAmazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure
Four alternativesAtlantic.Net, Cloudways, Google Cloud, Liquid Web / Nexcess
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft AzureHeld
One alternativeGoogle Cloud
against: Akamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOceanAmazon Web Services
Six alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Vultr
Hetzner
Five alternativesCloudways, DigitalOcean, Hostinger, Railway, Render
against: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructureno first choice
Three alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, Vultr
against: Amazon Web Services, Azure, GCPagainst: Amazon Web Services, Azure, Bluehost, GoDaddy, Google Cloud, Heroku, HostGator, HostMonster, Newfold Digital, Render, Vercel, iPage
Perplexity SonarCloudways
Three alternativesAmazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web ServicesChanged
Three alternativesAzure, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud
Amazon Web Services
Six alternativesCloudways, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Hostinger, Microsoft Azure, Vultr
Hostinger
Four alternativesDigitalOcean, IONOS, Kamatera, OVHcloud
no first choiceagainst: Bluehost, Cloudways, Contabo, GoDaddy, HostGator, Newfold Digital, OVHcloud, Rackspace
Grok 4.1 FastAmazon Web Services
Two alternativesGoogle Cloud, Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web ServicesHeld
Four alternativesDigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Amazon Web Services
Five alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Vultr
Hetzner
Four alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, Kamatera, Vultr
against: Amazon Web Services, Azure, GCPno first choiceagainst: A Small Orange, Amazon Web Services, Azure, Bluehost, Cloudflare, Contabo, DigitalOcean, Domain.com, Google Cloud, HostGator, OVHcloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Vercel, iPage
Mistral SmallAmazon Web Services
Four alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, Microsoft Azure, Vultr
DigitalOceanChanged
Three alternativesHetzner, OVHcloud, Vultr
Amazon Web Services
Four alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure
IONOS, Kamatera
Three alternativesDigitalOcean, DreamHost, Hetzner
no first choiceagainst: 2slick, Alibaba Cloud, Bluehost, EdgeVirt, FatCow, HostMonster, IBM, Just Host, Newfold Digital, OVHcloud, Tencent Cloud, iPage
DeepSeek V4 FlashMicrosoft Azure
Three alternativesAmazon Web Services, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud
Amazon Web ServicesChanged
Two alternativesGoogle Cloud, Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services
Seven alternativesAlibaba Cloud, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Hetzner, IBM, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Hetzner, Hostinger
Four alternativesAmazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IONOS, Vultr
no first choiceagainst: Alibaba Cloud, CloudServer.net, Contabo, E2E Networks, GoDaddy, IBM, Newfold Digital, OVHcloud
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceDigitalOceanChanged
Three alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Azure
no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceagainst: Bluehost, EdgeVirt, GoDaddy, HostGator, Inmotion Hosting, Newfold Digital, OVHcloud, Rackspace
Qwen 3.7 FlashAmazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace Technology
One alternativeGoogle Cloud
against: Akamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, VultrMicrosoft AzureChanged
One alternativeAmazon Web Services
against: Google Cloudno first choiceDigitalOcean, Vultr
Three alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, Cloudways, Hostinger
against: Amazon Web Services, GCPno first choiceagainst: Amazon Web Services, Azureagainst: Bluehost, Contabo, FatCow, Greencloud, HostGator, Netcup, Network Solutions, OVHcloud
Kimi K2Microsoft Azure
Five alternatives11:11 Systems, Amazon Web Services, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, RapidScale
Microsoft AzureHeld
Two alternativesAmazon Web Services, Google Cloud
against: DigitalOcean, VultrAmazon Web Services
Five alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Vultr
Hostinger, OVHcloud
Four alternativesCloudways, Google Cloud, Kamatera, Microsoft Azure
against: Amazon Web Servicesno first choice
Two alternativesAzure, GCP
against: AWS/GCP/Azure, CloudAtCost, CloudCone, Cloudways, HostLiger, Hostinger, NexusVM, SurferCloud
GLM 4.7 FlashXno first choice
Eight alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, Amazon Web Services, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, RapidScale, Vultr
Microsoft AzureChanged
Two alternativesAmazon Web Services, Google Cloud
no first choiceDigitalOcean, Kamatera
Four alternativesAmazon Web Services, DreamHost, Google Cloud, IONOS
no first choiceagainst: A Small Orange, Arubacloud, Bluehost, Cloudways, FatCow, Hetzner, HostGator, HostMonster, Just Host, Newfold Digital, OVHcloud, Site5, iPage
MiniMax M2.5Rackspace Technology
Five alternativesAmazon Web Services, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Liquid Web, Microsoft Azure
Amazon Web Services, Microsoft AzureChanged
One alternativeGoogle Cloud
Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft AzureDigitalOcean
Four alternativesAkamai Connected Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Vultr
no first choiceagainst: Amazon Web Services, Azure, Contabo, CreeperCastle, E2E Networks, Play2Go Cloud
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:00no06 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:36yes25 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:58yes624 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:19yes185 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:29yes3417 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:08yes109 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:43yes1516 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:57yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 09:13yes1574 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:08yes1428 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:21yes23104 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:37yes1036 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:53no05 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:07no04 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:33yes1321 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:11yes204 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:58yes3315 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:50yes55 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:58yes1816 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 09:07yes55 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:56no034 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:08yes1019 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:05no09 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:03yes556 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:41yes1811 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:57yes57 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:59yes2322 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:18yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:43yes159 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 08:46yes56 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:54yes1820 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:58yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:56yes529 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:51yes1031 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:26yes1529 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:04yes575 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:02no04 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:01no05 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:26yes1020 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:06yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:46yes179 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:10yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:19yes812 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 09:11yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:40yes1346 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:06yes1052 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:40yes2549 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:56no012 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:23no09 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:48no05 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 08:19no014 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:02yes2010 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:46yes1410 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:00no07 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:38yes1015 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:24yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:44no038 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:18yes1566 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 08:46no062 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 08:59yes549 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 08:53yes188 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 08:57no05 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 09:02yes1526 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 08:16yes206 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 08:59yes4116 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:11yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 08:24yes2015 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 08:53yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 08:38yes1059 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 08:59yes1432 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:07yes1586 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:07yes1524 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
AWS read as Amazon Web Services
AWS (Amazon Web Services) read as Amazon Web Services
Akamai Cloud (formerly Linode) read as Akamai Connected Cloud
Akamai/Linode read as Akamai Connected Cloud
Linode read as Akamai Connected Cloud
Linode (Akamai) read as Akamai Connected Cloud
Linode (now Akamai) read as Akamai Connected Cloud
Linode / Akamai Cloud read as Akamai Connected Cloud
Linode/Akamai read as Akamai Connected Cloud
Oracle read as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Oracle Cloud read as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Unresolved, counted raw
11:11 Systems
2slick
AccuWebHosting
Arubacloud
Brightbox
Cloud4U
CloudAtCost
CloudCone
CloudServer.net
CloudWave
CreeperCastle
Dokku
Greencloud
HostLiger
Inmotion Hosting
Liquid Web / Nexcess
Netcup
Network Solutions
NexusVM
Play2Go Cloud
SurferCloud
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in cloud and infrastructure

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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