Compare
veldhost vs the alternatives, without the sales gloss.
We are premium managed hosting, not cheap shared hosting: we run it for you, in the EU, with published commitments and a clean exit. That is the right choice for some sites and the wrong one for others. This page says which.
Side by side
Four ways to host a site, on the questions that matter later.
The columns are categories, not companies: budget hosts such as Hostinger, the traditional host in your town, and a cloud provider or rented VPS you run yourself. The veldhost column quotes what we publish and operate to; the others describe what is typical for the category, so check the specific provider you have in mind.
| veldhost | Budget shared hosting | Local traditional host | Hyperscaler or DIY VPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who operates it | We do. Servers we rent from Hetzner in Falkenstein and Nuremberg (Germany) and run ourselves — no reseller, no white-label platform. | The provider, at scale. Your account is one of many on a shared server; the people fixing it rarely know your site. | A small team, sometimes reselling somebody else’s platform. Ask who actually runs the servers. | You do. The provider runs the hardware; patching, the web server, PHP, the database and backups are your job. |
| EU-only data path | Yes. No US hyperscaler or CDN in the serving path; DNS on our own EU nameservers; fonts self-hosted. | Varies. Datacenters and CDNs are frequently outside the EU or US-owned — check the sub-processor list, if there is one. | Usually in-country. Check whether email, DNS or a CDN are outsourced elsewhere. | Your choice of region. The full data path is yours to design and to audit. |
| Backups and restore | Weekly on every plan, nightly with the daily add-on; every backup replicated nightly to a second region; one-click restore. A full production-site restore was live-validated in under a minute on 12 July 2026. | Often weekly or a paid extra; restores through a support ticket. | Anything from nightly to none. Ask when a restore was last tested, not just taken. | Snapshots if you configure and pay for them. Restore is your runbook, tested by you. |
| Security posture | Passkey-first accounts, hardware-key-only admin access, one container per site, DNSSEC on our own EU nameservers, TLS everywhere. | Password plus optional 2FA; many sites sharing one PHP runtime is common. | Varies widely. Ask about isolation between customers and 2FA for the panel. | As strong as you make it. Everything is available, nothing is on by default. |
| SLA and credits | Starter best effort; Pro 99.5% target; Business 99.9% with service credits. Public status page with 90 days of measured uptime. | Typically an uptime figure in the terms, with no credits. | Sometimes in writing; often informal. | A hardware or network SLA only. Your application’s uptime is your responsibility. |
| Support model | Email in English, Dutch and Latvian from the team that runs the platform; first reply within one business day (P1 on Business: two business hours). Free migration in. | Chat and tickets, often outsourced and scripted. | Phone and in person, usually during business hours. | Community forums or a paid support plan for the platform — not for your app. |
| Price band | From €5 to €15 a month per site, plus domains and add-ons; Business from €79 a month on a dedicated server. Prices exclude VAT for EU businesses (reverse-charged). | Typically €1–5 a month on introductory terms. | Typically €10–50 a month, often bundled with design or maintenance work. | Typically €5–50 a month for the machine, plus the hours of whoever runs it. |
| Exit and portability | Export files, databases, DNS zones and mail at any time. Domains transfer away at no charge within five business days. Standard stacks — nothing proprietary — run anywhere. | Exports usually possible; transfer-out sometimes gated or charged. | Depends on the contract. Ask before signing. | Complete — it is your server. |
| When to choose it | You want one accountable operator in the EU, commitments in writing and a clean exit — and accept a price that reflects that. | A hobby site, or the lowest possible price is the only requirement. | You want a face in your town and someone to phone. | You have an ops person, or you are one, and want full control. |
Sources for the veldhost column: the SLA, the DPA and sub-processor register, the security overview, the backups guide, the status page and the Terms.
When not to choose veldhost
We would rather lose the order than the trust.
If one of these describes you, another category on this page fits better. Tell us anyway if you are unsure — we answer in writing within one business day.
Budget shared hosting starts at a few euros a month. We start at €5 and the price pays for an operator, isolation, backups in two regions and commitments in writing. If price is the only requirement, we lose on price.
Production is in Falkenstein and Nuremberg, Germany, and that is deliberate. Visitors on other continents are served from Germany; we do not put a US CDN in the path. If you need a datacenter in the Americas or Asia, use a hyperscaler.
Every site runs in its own Linux container. We do not run Windows Server, IIS or .NET Framework, and we have no plans to.
Support is by email in English, Dutch and Latvian, within one business day (two business hours for P1 on Business). There is no phone line.
What the premium buys
Managed means we are on the hook, in writing.
Hosting, DNS, certificates, updates, backups and monitoring are ours. Your part is the site. Moving from another host is done for you, free, on a written plan.
Platform →Servers in Germany we operate ourselves, DNS on our own EU nameservers, email on your domain, no US hyperscaler or CDN in the serving path. Published Art. 28 DPA with a versioned sub-processor register.
Digital sovereignty →A public status page with 90 days of history, an SLA with credits on Business, a restore drill with a timestamp, and a trust centre that lists what we do not have as plainly as what we do.
Trust centre →Exports of files, databases, DNS zones and mail at any time; domains transfer away free within five business days; standard WordPress, PHP, Laravel, MariaDB and IMAP — nothing proprietary to unpick.
Terms →Still comparing? Send us the other quote.
We will tell you in writing where we are better, where we are not, and whether your site should move at all. Which apps run here is on the apps page.