Kinsta alternatives
xCloud vs Kinsta: Three Meters, or None
Kinsta meters visits, disk and CDN bandwidth, and bills you above each cap. xCloud sells a server with unlimited sites on it, from $5.00 a month, and meters none of the three.
- From $5.00/month against Kinsta's $35 for one install
- No visit, disk or CDN bandwidth meter, at any tier
- Unlimited WordPress sites on the server you already pay for
- Root access, and any Ubuntu host: Vultr, DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS, GCP
- WordPress, Laravel, Node.js and Docker on one bill
Last updated
- 14-day money-back guarantee
- No migration fee, ever
- 4.8 · 390+ reviews on TrustpilotRated by the people already running WordPress on xCloud
Quick verdict
Choose xCloud if…
- You want one predictable bill. Kinsta meters visits, disk and CDN bandwidth separately and publishes a price for exceeding each; xCloud meters none of them.
- You run more than one site. A second WordPress install on Kinsta means the $70/month WP 2 plan; on xCloud sites are unlimited on the server you already pay for.
- You want to choose your own plugins. Kinsta blocks installation of banned and incompatible plugins, including caching plugins and some backup and migration tools.
- You want root access and control of NGINX, cron, PHP-FPM and everything else on the machine.
- You want WordPress, Laravel, Node.js and Docker apps on one bill and one dashboard, rather than WordPress on Kinsta and everything else on Sevalla.
- You want a genuinely free tier to start on: one server, ten sites, the full feature set.
14-day money-back guarantee. Cancel any time.
Pick How You Pay. Kinsta Prices Per Install.
Kinsta sells one thing: a managed WordPress install on infrastructure it owns. xCloud sells three: managed, bring-your-own-server, or a white-label reseller program.
1Managed by xCloud
| What the managed plan includes |  xCloud$5.00/moManaged, billed monthly, unlimited sites |  Kinsta$35/moSingle 35k, billed monthly, 1 install |
|---|---|---|
| Managed plan | ||
| What the price covers | Yes. The panel and the server, one bill, unlimited sites on it. | Limited. The platform and the infrastructure, one bill, priced per WordPress install. |
| Sites on the entry plan | Yes. Unlimited, bounded only by the server you pick. | No. One WordPress install. |
| Cost of a second site | Yes. Nothing. Same server, same bill. | No. $70/month, the WP 2 plan. |
| Cost of ten sites | Yes. Nothing extra on a server with the headroom for them. | No. $225/month, the WP 10 plan. |
| Disk on the entry plan | Yes. 25 GB SSD, not billed separately. | Limited. 10 GB, then billed per GB above it. |
| Root access | Yes. Yours, even on a plan we manage. | No. Not offered. There is no server to configure. |
| Free migrations | Yes. Bulk site and server migration, at no extra cost. | Yes. Unlimited, run by Kinsta's own team, on every plan. |
| Money-back guarantee | Yes. 14 days, cancel any time. | Yes. 30 days, longer than ours. First-time customers, overages excluded. |
2Bring your own server
| What the free panel includes | xCloudFree/moPanel only, provider billed separately | KinstaN/A/moNo bring-your-own-server tier exists |
|---|---|---|
| Bring your own server | ||
| What the price covers | Yes. The panel only, free on your first server. You hold the cloud account and pay your provider directly. | No. Not possible. Kinsta always provides the infrastructure; there is no bring-your-own-server tier. |
| Free tier | Yes. One server, ten sites, the full feature set, no trial clock. | Limited. No free tier. The first month is free on Single 35k and WP 2. |
| Supported providers | Yes. DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, GCP, Hetzner, Linode or any Ubuntu host. | No. None. Kinsta runs its own Google Cloud infrastructure only. |
| Root access | Yes. Full root on every server you connect. | No. Not offered at any tier. |
| Who owns the server | Yes. You do. Stop paying for the panel and the machine and its data stay in your account. | No. Kinsta does. The platform is the product, and it is not portable. |
| Metered dimensions | Yes. None. Your provider bills the server, and that is the whole bill. | Limited. Not applicable. There is no self-managed route to meter. |
3White-Label Reseller Program
| What the reseller program includes | xCloud$25/moStartup tier, 25 servers, billed monthly | Kinsta$340/moAgency, 20 installs, billed monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Reseller program | ||
| What it is | Yes. A dedicated white-label hosting brand. Set your own prices, take payment through your own Stripe account, bill clients under your own name. | Limited. Agency plans, 20 to 60 installs at $340 to $675 a month. A volume tier, not a reseller product. |
| Whose brand the client sees | Yes. Yours. Your name, logo and domain throughout the panel. | Limited. Kinsta's. The plans are not published as white-label. |
| Who bills the client | Yes. You do, through your own Stripe account. The platform takes a fee, not a cut of your invoice. | Limited. Kinsta does, at a fixed monthly rate for the plan. |
| Entry tier | Yes. Startup, $25/month: 25 servers, a platform fee of 25% or $3 per sale, whichever is lower. | Limited. Agency, $340/month for 20 installs. The closest published equivalent. |
| Marginal cost of one more client site | Yes. Server headroom. Sites are unlimited on a server you already pay for. | No. A plan upgrade, once the install count is used up. |
Pricing
xCloud vs Kinsta: What You Actually Pay
Kinsta's published ladder against the one xCloud server the same sites would sit on.
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
| WordPress sites |  xCloud | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $5.00/mo, 25 GB SSD, 1 TB transfer | $35/mo, Single 35k, 1 install, 10 GB, 35k visits |
| 2 | $5.00/mo, same server | $70/mo, WP 2, 20 GB, 250 GB CDN |
| 5 | $5.00/mo, resources permitting | $115/mo, WP 5, 30 GB, 500 GB CDN |
| 10 | $5.00–$12.00/mo | $225/mo, WP 10, 40 GB, 750 GB CDN |
| 20 | $12.00–$24.00/mo | $340/mo, WP 20, 50 GB, 1 TB CDN |
| Going over the visit cap | No visit cap | $0.50 per 1,000 visits |
| Going over the disk cap | No separate disk bill | $2 per GB per month |
| Going over the bandwidth cap | No separate bandwidth bill | $0.05 per GB |
| Money-back guarantee | 14 days | 30 days |
Three Meters You Do Not Control
Kinsta caps visits, disk and CDN bandwidth separately, and publishes a price for exceeding each. Three dials can move the invoice without you shipping anything. xCloud sells a server, so none of them exists.
| What gets metered | xCloud | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Visits, disk and CDN bandwidth | ||
| Visits | Yes. Not counted. There is no visit limit to exceed. | No. 35,000 a month on the entry plan. |
| Overage: visits | Yes. None. | No. $0.50 per 1,000 visits. |
| Disk space | Yes. Sized by the server, from 25 GB to 768 GB. | No. 10 GB on the entry plan. |
| Overage: disk | Yes. None. | No. $2 per GB, per month. |
| CDN bandwidth | Yes. Sized by the server, from 1 TB to 8 TB of transfer. | No. 125 GB on the entry plan. |
| Overage: CDN bandwidth | Yes. None. | No. $0.05 per GB. |
| How a visit is counted | Yes. Not applicable. No visitor count exists to bill against. | Limited. Unique IP addresses seen in 24 hours, from the logs. Edge-cached requests do not count. |
| What a traffic spike does to the bill | Yes. Nothing. A post doing well costs the same as a post doing nothing. | No. It can move all three dials at once: visits, CDN bandwidth, and disk if the traffic grows what you store. |
| Meters, total | Yes. 0 | No. 3 |
If you want to consider alternatives to WP Engine, Kinsta, and all the other managed hosts, I'd recommend trying it. We pay for our servers, everything else is set-up by xCloud, so no performance-tax, no scaling or visitors tax.
Is the Server Really Yours?
Root access decides everything else on this page, including which plugins you may install. Kinsta manages the platform: no root, no bring-your-own-server, and a published list of plugins it blocks.
| Control over the server | xCloud | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Root, configuration and plugins | ||
| Root access | Yes. Full root over SSH, on every server. | No. Not offered. Kinsta manages the platform. |
| Bring your own server | Yes. DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, GCP, Hetzner, Linode or any Ubuntu host. | No. Not possible. Kinsta provisions its own infrastructure. |
| Edit server config and cron | Yes. All three, directly. | No. Not exposed. There is no server layer to reach. |
| Install other software | Yes. Anything you like. It is your machine. | No. Not possible on a managed WordPress plan. |
| Browser SSH terminal | Yes. A shell into the actual server, from the panel. | No. No server shell is offered. |
| SSH lockdown | Yes. Restrict SSH to trusted IPs and a custom port. | No. The server is not exposed, so there is nothing to lock down. |
| PHP-FPM tuning | Yes. Per-site worker counts and a PHP extension manager. | No. Not exposed. |
| Database and OPcache tuning | Yes. Auto-tuning plus manual OPcache control. | No. Not exposed. |
| Supervisor and snapshots | Yes. Long-running processes and per-site snapshots, from the panel. | Limited. Not published. |
| Public API | Yes. Scoped tokens over a documented REST API. | Limited. Not published on the sources this page read. |
| Plugin restrictions | Yes. None. The plugin list is yours. | No. A published banned and incompatible list. Installing one is blocked. |
| Caching plugins allowed | Yes. Any of them, configured how you want. | No. Blocked. Kinsta's own server-level caching replaces them. |
| Backup plugins allowed | Yes. Any of them. | No. Restricted by version, and some are blocked outright. |
Support, and Who Owns the Problem
Both answer around the clock, and Kinsta's support is one of the real reasons people pay its prices. The difference is what happens after: xCloud publishes monitoring and alerting you drive yourself.
| Support and monitoring | xCloud | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Getting hold of someone, and watching what happens next | ||
| Support channels | Yes. Live chat and ticketing on every plan, including the free bring-your-own-server tier, plus documentation. | Yes. 24/7 support, and a reputation for it that is a genuine reason people pay Kinsta's prices. |
| Who is responsible for the server | Limited. You are, on the bring-your-own-server route. We manage the stack; the machine is in your account. | Yes. Kinsta is, entirely. For many buyers that is the whole product. |
| Server and site monitoring | Yes. Built into the panel, across every server and site. | Limited. Kinsta monitors its own platform. Not covered by the sources read for this page. |
| Per-site analytics | Yes. PHP, MySQL and traffic analytics, per site. | Limited. Not published on the sources this page read. |
| Core Web Vitals monitoring | Yes. Scheduled, with history kept. | Limited. Not published. |
| Broken-link monitoring | Yes. One-click 301 redirect from the panel. | No. Not offered. |
| Telegram alerts | Yes. Native integration. | Limited. Not published. |
| Native macOS app | Yes. xCloud Pulse, in the menu bar. | No. Not offered. |
| Business mailboxes | Limited. Add-on, $1 a month. | Limited. Not published. |
I just moved my sites from Cloudways and Kinsta to xCloud, as xCloud offers better value for the cost. The only slight drawback I currently feel about xCloud is the support. Compared to Kinsta, it's not as fast or communicative. I'm aware that Kinsta is in another price class, but in my opinion, support is key.
The Stack Underneath, and Where It Runs
Kinsta runs on Google Cloud's premium tier and publishes its own benchmarks. xCloud publishes none against them, so nothing below claims either is faster. What follows is what each side lets you choose.
| Stack and infrastructure | xCloud | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| What you can pick, and what is picked for you | ||
| Web server | Yes. Either, chosen per server. | Limited. Not a choice you make. The stack is Kinsta's. |
| Where the servers run | Yes. Every region your provider offers. You pick the datacentre and the machine. | Limited. The Google Cloud regions Kinsta exposes, on its premium tier. |
| How you scale up | Yes. Resize the server at your provider, in their sizes. | Limited. Move up the plan ladder, which also moves the three caps. |
| CDN included | Limited. Cloudflare add-on at $5 a domain, or point any CDN at the server for free. | Limited. Included, then billed per GB above the plan's cap. |
| Edge full-page cache | Yes. Available. | Limited. Not published as a first-party edge cache. |
| Cloudflare Enterprise | Limited. Add-on, $5 a domain. | Limited. Not published. |
| HTTP/3 and Brotli | Yes. One click, per site. | Limited. Not published. |
| Auto-healing services | Yes. Restarts MySQL, NGINX, Redis or PHP automatically if one stops. | Limited. Handled by Kinsta, and not something you configure. |
Moving Off Kinsta Is Free on Both Sides
Migration is usually where a comparison page goes quiet. Not here, and not in our favour either: Kinsta includes unlimited migrations run by its own team. The difference is who starts the clock.
Who runs the migration
xCloud- Yes. You do, from the panel, whenever you want to start
- Yes. Bulk site and server migration, included on every plan
- Yes. A documented cPanel path for sites hosted elsewhere
- Yes. Full server clone and server-to-server moves as well as single sites
Kinsta- Yes. Kinsta's own team does it for you, which many people prefer
- Yes. Unlimited migrations, included on every plan
- Limited. Scheduled with their team rather than started on your own clock
What it costs
xCloud- Yes. Nothing. No migration fee on either route
- Yes. No per-site charge and no cap on how many move
- Yes. No onboarding tier to buy first
Kinsta- Yes. Nothing, and genuinely unlimited. This is a real Kinsta win
- Limited. The destination plan still has to hold the sites: ten installs means the $225 tier
What moves
xCloud- Yes. Files and database together, in one pass
- Yes. In bulk, across many sites at once
- Yes. Migrate Guru, a free plugin documented as compatible with xCloud
- Yes. Non-WordPress apps too, onto the same server
Kinsta- Yes. WordPress files and database, moved by their team
- Limited. Anything that is not WordPress goes to Sevalla, a separate product
- Limited. Plugins on the banned list will not survive the move
Before you start
xCloud- Limited. Disable 2FA on the source site first
- Limited. Disable Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode on the source site first
- Yes. Then migrate, test while DNS still points at the old host, and cut over
Kinsta- Limited. Submit a migration request and give their team access to the source site
- Limited. Check your plugin list against the banned and incompatible list first
Backups, and What You Can Actually Restore
Both take daily backups and both ship free SSL. They diverge on where the copies live and how long you keep them: one is retained on the vendor's platform to a schedule they set, the other in storage you own.
| Security and backups | xCloud | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Protection and recovery | ||
| Free SSL | Yes. Automatic, on every site. | Yes. Automatic, on every site. |
| Automated daily backups | Yes. Daily, plus full and incremental site backups. | Yes. Daily, on every plan. |
| Backup retention | Yes. Your storage, your policy. Keep as long as you want to pay to store. | Limited. 14 to 30 days, set by the plan. |
| Backups to your own storage | Yes. S3, R2, Backblaze, Wasabi, Google Drive or pCloud, under your account. | Limited. Not published. Backups live on Kinsta's platform. |
| Full server clone | Yes. Clone a whole server, or move it to another provider. | Limited. Not applicable. You do not hold the server. |
| Virtual patching | Limited. Add-on, $2 a site. | Limited. Not published. |
| Core integrity monitor | Yes. Verifies WordPress core files against checksums. | Limited. Not published. |
| Custom security headers | Yes. HSTS and CSP, set from the panel. | Limited. Not published. |
| HTTP auth and IP allow/deny | Yes. Per-site, from the panel. | Limited. Not published. |
| AI bot blocker | Yes. Block AI crawlers and scrapers at the server. | Limited. Not published. |
WordPress Tooling, Apps and Agency Features
Both ship free one-click staging and WP-CLI. The gap opens around them: 374 one-click apps, managed AI agent hosting, an MCP server, one-click Git deployment, and a reseller programme, none of which is a WordPress feature.
| Panel and tooling | xCloud | Kinsta |
|---|---|---|
| Day-to-day work, and everything past WordPress | ||
| WordPress | Yes. First class, and not the only thing on the server. | Yes. First class. It is the whole platform. |
| WooCommerce | Yes. Supported. | Yes. Supported. |
| One-click staging | Yes. Free, on every plan, on the same server or another. | Yes. Free, on every plan. |
| Staging push and pull | Yes. Promote a tested change instead of redoing it by hand. | Limited. Not published as push/pull. |
| Bulk updates across sites | Yes. Core, themes and plugins, across every site at once. | Limited. Not published as a cross-site tool. |
| Multisite | Yes. Sub-domain and sub-folder, supported. | Limited. Not published as supported. |
| WP-CLI | Yes. On every server. | Yes. Available. |
| One-click Git deployment | Yes. Push a repository and xCloud detects the stack and deploys it. | Limited. Not published. |
| Laravel, custom PHP, Node.js | Yes. Same server, same dashboard, same bill as WordPress. | Limited. Sevalla, a separate Kinsta product with its own plans. |
| Docker Compose apps | Yes. Arbitrary containers, not only WordPress. | Limited. Sevalla, a separate Kinsta product. |
| One-click app library | Yes. 374 open-source apps, deployed in one click. | No. Not offered. The plans host WordPress. |
| Managed AI agent hosting | Yes. One-click hosting for OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, Paperclip and Buzz, each with backups and monitoring. | No. Not offered on a WordPress plan. Anything non-WordPress is Sevalla's side of the house. |
| MCP server (AI agent control) | Yes. Drive servers and sites from Claude, Cursor or any MCP-capable agent. | No. No MCP endpoint published. |
| Installable agent skills | Yes. Servers, sites, WordPress, SSL and account, as installable skills. | No. Not published. |
| One bill, one dashboard | Yes. WordPress, Laravel, Node.js and Docker apps together. | No. WordPress on Kinsta, everything else on Sevalla. Two products, two bills. |
| White-label reseller programme | Yes. Your plans, your prices, billed through your own Stripe account. | Limited. Not published. Agency plans are billed as Kinsta. |
| Branded client reports | Yes. PDF maintenance reports under your own brand. | Limited. Not published. |
Refunds, Free Months and the Bill You Did Not Expect
Kinsta gives you longer to change your mind and a free first month on two plans. xCloud's trade is different: nothing is metered, so nothing on the bill moves unless you move it.
Refunds and trial terms
xCloud- Yes. 14-day money-back guarantee
- Yes. A free self-managed tier with no clock on it: one server, ten sites, every feature
- Yes. Cancel any time, no contract
Kinsta- Yes. 30-day money-back guarantee, twice ours and their win to claim
- Yes. First month free on the Single 35k and WP 2 plans
- Limited. First-time customers only, with overages and one-time fees excluded
- Limited. No free tier to sit on afterwards
What costs extra
xCloud- Yes. Migration, staging, team roles and white-labelling: all included
- Yes. Visits, disk and bandwidth: never metered, so never a surprise line
- Limited. Cloudflare CDN at $5 a domain, virtual patching at $2 a site, mailboxes at $1 a month, all optional
- Limited. Your cloud provider's own bill, on the bring-your-own-server route. That line is not ours
Kinsta- No. Visits above the cap: $0.50 per 1,000
- No. Disk above the cap: $2 per GB, per month
- No. CDN bandwidth above the cap: $0.05 per GB
- Limited. A second install: the next plan up, starting at $70 a month
The full table
Every xCloud and Kinsta Feature, Side by Side
Every published feature, side by side. 64 of 71 differ.
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
| xCloud | Kinsta | |
|---|---|---|
| What gets metered | ||
| Monthly visits counted against a limit | No, traffic is not metered | 35,000 on the entry plan |
| Charge for exceeding the visit limit | None | $0.50 per 1,000 visits |
| Disk space metered separately | No, sized by the server | 10 GB on the entry plan |
| Charge for exceeding disk | None | $2 per GB per month |
| CDN bandwidth metered separately | No, sized by the server | 125 GB on the entry plan |
| Charge for exceeding CDN bandwidth | None | $0.05 per GB |
| Number of separately billed meters | 0 | 3 |
| Plans and what they cost | ||
| Entry price | $5.00/mo managed · $0 self-managed | $35/mo ($30 annual) |
| Sites on the entry plan | Unlimited | 1 WordPress install |
| Cost of a second site | $0 | $70/mo, the WP 2 plan |
| Cost of ten sites | $0 extra, same server | $225/mo, the WP 10 plan |
| Disk on the entry plan | 25 GB SSD | 10 GB |
| Free tier | 1 server, 10 sites, all features | — |
| First month free | — | On Single 35k and WP 2 |
| Money-back guarantee | 14 days | 30 days, first-time customers, overages excluded |
| Whole price ladder published | Yes | Yes |
| Control over the server | ||
| Full root access | Yes | No |
| Bring your own server or cloud account | DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, GCP, Hetzner, Linode or any Ubuntu host | No |
| Choose NGINX or OpenLiteSpeed | Yes | — |
| Edit server config, cron and PHP-FPM workers | Yes | No |
| Install other software on the same machine | Yes | No |
| Plugin restrictions | None; it is your server | Banned and incompatible list; installation is blocked |
| Caching plugins allowed | Yes | No |
| Backup plugins allowed | Yes | Restricted by version |
| What you can run | ||
| WordPress | Yes | Yes |
| WooCommerce | Yes | Yes |
| Laravel, custom PHP and Node.js apps | Yes | Sevalla, a separate Kinsta product |
| Docker Compose applications | Yes | Sevalla, a separate Kinsta product |
| One-click open-source app library | Yes | No |
| Everything on one bill and one dashboard | Yes | No |
| WordPress platform features | ||
| Free one-click staging | Yes | Yes |
| Staging with push/pull | Yes | — |
| Automated daily backups | Yes | Yes |
| Backup retention | Your own S3 storage, your own policy | 14 to 30 days by plan |
| Free migrations | Yes | Unlimited |
| CDN included | Cloudflare add-on, $5/domain | Included, then metered |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes |
| WP-CLI | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk WordPress updates across sites | Yes | — |
| Multisite | Yes | — |
| AI and agent control | ||
| MCP server — drive servers and sites from Claude, Cursor or any AI agent | Yes | No |
| Installable AI agent skills (servers, sites, WordPress, SSL, account) | Yes | No |
| AI bot blocker — block AI crawlers and scrapers at the server | Yes | — |
| Public REST API with scoped tokens | Yes | — |
| Security and WordPress integrity | ||
| Virtual patching for known vulnerabilities (Site Security PRO) | Add-on, $2/site | — |
| WordPress integrity monitor — verifies core files against checksums | Yes | — |
| Custom security headers (HSTS, CSP) from the panel | Yes | — |
| HTTP basic auth and per-site IP allow/deny | Yes | — |
| SSH lockdown — restrict SSH to trusted IPs, custom port | Yes | No |
| Performance and caching | ||
| Edge full-page cache on a global PoP network | Yes | — |
| Cloudflare Enterprise (330+ PoPs, Enterprise WAF) | Add-on, $5/domain | — |
| HTTP/3 (QUIC) and Brotli compression, one click | Yes | — |
| Per-site PHP-FPM worker tuning and PHP extension manager | Yes | No |
| Auto-healing — restarts MySQL, NGINX, Redis or PHP if it stops | Yes | — |
| MySQL/MariaDB auto-tuning and OPcache control | Yes | No |
| Monitoring and observability | ||
| Broken link monitoring with one-click 301 redirect | Yes | No |
| Site Insights — PHP, MySQL and traffic analytics per site | Yes | — |
| Scheduled PageSpeed / Core Web Vitals monitoring with history | Yes | — |
| Telegram alerts for site, server and team events | Yes | — |
| Native macOS menu-bar app (xCloud Pulse) | Yes | No |
| Developer and deployment | ||
| Browser SSH terminal and command runner | Yes | No |
| One-click deploy from Git with stack auto-detection | Yes | — |
| Docker and Docker Compose application hosting | Yes | Via Sevalla |
| Node.js, Laravel and Next.js hosting with queue workers | Yes | Via Sevalla |
| One-click app library | 374 apps | No |
| Supervisor process management and site snapshots | Yes | — |
| Backups, migration and agency tooling | ||
| Off-site backups to your own S3, R2, Backblaze, Wasabi, Google Drive or pCloud | Yes | — |
| Full server clone and server-to-server migration | Yes | — |
| Branded client maintenance reports (PDF) | Yes | — |
| White-label reseller programme with Stripe billing and your own plans | Yes | — |
| Business mailboxes on your own domain | Add-on, $1/mo | — |
People who wanted managed hosting without the meter
In their own words, unedited.
xCloud gave me what no other hosting platform could: the flexibility of a VPS with the convenience of managed WordPress. As a solo founder running an entire business on one server, that combination is an important unfair advantage.
Jorge de los Reyes MartínezxCloud is like having an expert server team on call — without the big agency costs. It's given me back my time and given my clients peace of mind. Highly recommended for freelancers and small teams who want reliable performance and security.
Dumitru ButucelDear xCloud Team, I have been using xCloud for some time now and am genuinely impressed with its capabilities and the flexibility it offers by allowing users to bring their own VPS for management. It's a fantastic service, and my experience so far has been very positive. Successful migrated 5 sites on a single server. Xcloud migration tool worked great. There were few hiccups with security plugin like MalCare but disabling the plugin prior to migration worked just fine.
Rahil MaknojiaKeep comparing
Still Weighing Up Other Options?
Every comparison runs the same format: the topic tables, the full feature matrix, the published prices.
Managed hosting
Someone else owns the servers and rents them to you with the stack on top.
See the comparisonxCloud vs Cloudways
Managed cloud hosting on DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS and Google Cloud.
See the comparisonxCloud vs WP Engine
Fully managed WordPress hosting, sold by monthly visitor count.
See the comparisonxCloud vs Rocket.net
Managed WordPress hosting with Cloudflare Enterprise on every plan.
Ready to leave Kinsta?
Ready To Try xCloud Instead?
Start free, bring your own server or ours, and move when you are ready. No contract, no migration fee, and nothing metered on any plan.
- From $5.00/month against $35
- Unlimited sites on the server you already pay for
- No visit, disk or CDN bandwidth overage, ever
- Root access on a server you own
- Bulk migration included on every plan
- WordPress, Laravel, Node.js and Docker, one bill
xCloud vs Kinsta: Frequently Asked Questions
Direct answers to what people ask before choosing between xCloud and Kinsta, including the ones with an uncomfortable answer.
Is xCloud cheaper than Kinsta?
At list price, substantially, and the gap widens with every site. Kinsta's entry plan is $35 a month ($30 on annual billing) for one WordPress install with 35,000 visits, 10 GB of disk and 125 GB of CDN bandwidth; two installs is $70 and ten is $225. An xCloud managed server is $5.00 a month with unlimited sites, and the self-managed tier is free. What Kinsta gives for the difference is a premium managed platform, unlimited free migrations and a 30-day guarantee, which this page does not pretend is worth nothing.
Does Kinsta charge overage fees?
Yes, on three separate things, all published in their own billing docs: $0.50 per 1,000 visits above your plan's cap, $2 per GB per month for disk space above your allowance, and $0.05 per GB for CDN bandwidth above it. Kinsta keeps sites online and bills the difference, with notifications at 80% and 100% of the allowance. xCloud meters none of the three: a server costs what the server costs.
How does Kinsta count a visit?
Their docs define it as the sum of unique IP addresses seen within a 24-hour period in the logs, and requests served from the edge cache do not count. It is a reasonable definition, but it still means that traffic you did not plan for arrives as an invoice line. On xCloud there is no visitor count at all, so the number does not exist to be billed.
How much does a second WordPress site cost on each?
On xCloud, nothing: sites are unlimited on the server you are already paying for, including on the free self-managed tier. On Kinsta, a second install means moving from a Single plan to WP 2 at $70 a month, since Single plans hold one install each.
Does Kinsta block any WordPress plugins?
Yes. Kinsta publishes a banned and incompatible plugins list and blocks installation of anything on it, with a warning message. It covers caching plugins (their server-level caching replaces them), some backup plugins by version, server-based video conversion, certain security plugins and some migration tools. xCloud has no such list, because the server is yours, including the caching and backup plugins Kinsta blocks.
Can I run Laravel or Node.js apps on Kinsta?
Not under the Kinsta brand any more. Kinsta's application and database hosting is now Sevalla: kinsta.com/application-hosting/ redirects there, and Sevalla's own site states it is a Kinsta product. So a WordPress site and a Node.js app mean two products and two bills. xCloud runs WordPress, Laravel, Node.js, custom PHP, static sites and Docker Compose apps on the same server, one dashboard and one bill.
Do I get root access on Kinsta?
No. Kinsta manages the platform, so there is no server to configure, which is exactly what many people are paying for. xCloud gives full root over SSH plus a browser terminal, along with NGINX, cron, PHP-FPM and the rest of the machine, because the server belongs to your account.
Is Kinsta faster than xCloud?
This page does not claim either way, and you should be sceptical of any comparison published by one of the two products that does. Kinsta runs on Google Cloud's premium tier and publishes its own performance work; xCloud has published no head-to-head benchmark against them. Test both with your own site, your own plugins and your own traffic.
Which has the better guarantee?
Kinsta. They publish a 30-day money-back guarantee against xCloud's 14 days, plus the first month free on the Single 35k and WP 2 plans. Two caveats from their own docs: it is first-time customers only, and overages and one-time fees are excluded from the refund.
Which is better for agencies?
It depends on how you bill. Kinsta publishes Agency plans from 20 to 60 installs at $340 to $675 a month with the platform managed for you. xCloud puts unlimited client sites on one flat-priced server and adds white-labelling, a reseller programme with your own plans and billing, and branded client maintenance reports, so the marginal cost of a client site is server headroom rather than a plan upgrade.
Can I migrate from Kinsta to xCloud?
Yes. Both run standard WordPress on Linux, so a move transfers files, database and configuration rather than rebuilding anything. xCloud includes bulk site and server migration plus a documented cPanel path at no extra cost. Worth knowing in the other direction too: Kinsta includes unlimited free migrations, so trialling both costs you time rather than money.
What happens to my bill if a post goes viral?
On xCloud, nothing: visits are not counted, so the bill is the same the month a post does well as the month it does not. On Kinsta, a spike can move all three meters at once: $0.50 per 1,000 visits above the cap, $0.05 per GB of extra CDN bandwidth, and $2 per GB per month if the traffic also grows what you store.