What is the difference between shared hosting, a VPS and serverless cloud in 2026?

Shared hosting (€3 to €15 a month) splits one server between several sites, which suits simple brochure sites with little traffic. A VPS (€10 to €80 a month) gives you a dedicated environment with guaranteed resources, which suits standard business applications. Serverless cloud (Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, AWS Lambda) bills actual usage with no server to manage, which is ideal for applications with variable load. In 2026, serverless has become competitive for most new projects.

OVH, Scaleway, Cloudflare or AWS: which one for a small European business?

For a business with moderate GDPR constraints, Scaleway and OVH are the default choices (European data centres, support in French and English, native compliance). For global performance and operational simplicity, Cloudflare Pages or Cloudflare Workers (with a strict EU option) offer excellent value and a worldwide CDN. AWS and Azure still dominate large platforms but call for more vigilance on data sovereignty. For most small businesses in 2026, I recommend Cloudflare or Scaleway depending on the application profile.

Does the GDPR require hosting in a specific country?

No. The GDPR requires hosting in the European Union or in a country covered by an adequacy decision, not in any particular member state. For sensitive data (health, finance, public sector) or for public contracts, hosting in your own country is often the simplest route administratively. For standard B2B data with nothing sensitive, hosting elsewhere in Europe is compliant and often cheaper.

Should I plan an infrastructure budget for a growing SaaS?

Yes, and it is a line to plan from the design stage. A well-architected SaaS should keep infrastructure below 5% of revenue at steady state. For a SaaS with up to 1,000 active users, plan €50 to €250 a month on Cloudflare or €150 to €500 a month on AWS. For 1,000 to 10,000 active users, €300 to €1,500 a month depending on the stack and optimisation. Beyond that, you are looking at dedicated infrastructure with continuous optimisation.

Does the hosting cost include backups and monitoring?

It depends on the provider. Cloudflare R2 and Pages include basic features. Scaleway and OVH offer backup and monitoring modules as options. For truly professional hosting, plan explicitly for automatic backups with at least 30 days of retention, quarterly restore tests, and proactive monitoring (Uptime Kuma, self-hosted and free, or a paid service such as Better Stack). It is the most profitable investment in the hosting budget.

Will my current host still do after a redesign on a modern stack?

Often not. Low-end shared hosting built for basic WordPress sites does not support modern stacks (Astro, Next.js, Cloudflare Workers, edge functions). After a technical redesign, sites usually move to Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, Netlify or a Scaleway VPS depending on the profile. The monthly cost often goes from €5 to €15 down to €0 to €25, with much better performance and far simpler maintenance.

What bandwidth cost should a small business site expect?

For a standard business site (10,000 to 100,000 visitors a month), bandwidth stays within the free limits of Cloudflare Pages, Vercel or Netlify. Beyond that, outbound bandwidth is billed per GB, at rates that vary widely from one provider to another: compare them before you choose. For a site with heavy images or video, bandwidth can become most of the total cost and justifies an image CDN such as Cloudflare Images, billed by usage.

How can I cut the hosting cost of an existing application?

Three main levers. First, optimising images (WebP, lazy loading, appropriate sizes) typically divides bandwidth by two or three. Second, putting a CDN in front (Cloudflare, free or a few euros a month) greatly reduces server load. Third, auditing unnecessary database queries (caching, indexes) cuts the server resources consumed. Optimisation almost always pays for itself above €100 a month of hosting.

Professional Web Hosting Cost in 2026: A Complete Guide for Small Businesses in Europe

Web hosting is the most badly sized digital line in small businesses. Too often, companies either pay far too much for services they do not use (oversized shared hosting from the historic providers) or not enough (low-cost hosting that ends up costing a lot in lost time and incidents). This article sets out the real 2026 ranges, the classic traps, and an honest decision grid between OVH, Scaleway, Cloudflare, AWS and Azure. The context is the French and European market, in euros.

In 2026, the hosting market has changed on two points: the free tiers of modern platforms now cover most brochure sites, and pricing models are converging on serverless, which bills actual usage. Together, these change the classic trade-offs between shared hosting, a VPS and public cloud.

The four kinds of hosting in 2026

1. Shared hosting (€3 - €15 a month)

Several sites share one server. Suited to simple brochure sites with little traffic and limited needs. At OVH, Infomaniak or o2switch, decent plans cost €3 to €8 a month. Avoid it for any site above 10,000 monthly visitors or running non-standard custom code.

2. VPS and cloud instances (€10 - €80 a month)

A dedicated environment with guaranteed resources (CPU, RAM, storage). Suited to standard business applications, mid-sized online shops and internal tools. At OVH, Scaleway or Hetzner, capable VPS plans cost €10 to €30 a month for standard use. Above €50 a month, you are usually in dedicated infrastructure justified by specific constraints.

3. Serverless cloud (€0 - variable)

Billing by actual usage. Cloudflare Pages and Workers, Vercel, Netlify, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Run. For a modern brochure site built with Astro or Next.js, the free tiers cover needs up to several thousand visitors a day. Beyond that, the cost rises gradually but stays competitive, often below an equivalent VPS. It is the model that best fits new projects in 2026.

4. Dedicated and managed infrastructure (€200 a month and up)

Dedicated physical servers, Kubernetes clusters, managed cloud services (RDS, ElastiCache and the like). Suited to fast-growing SaaS products, critical applications with demanding SLAs, or advanced compliance constraints (health data hosting, PCI-DSS level 1). AWS, Azure and Google Cloud dominate this segment, but Scaleway and OVH offer competitive European alternatives.

Shared

Simple brochure site, low traffic

€3 - €15 / month

VPS / Cloud

Standard business application

€10 - €80 / month

Serverless

Modern sites, early SaaS

€0 - variable

Dedicated

Established SaaS, compliance

€200 / month +

The six main providers compared

Cloudflare (Pages, Workers, R2)

My default choice for most new small-business projects in 2026. A generous free tier (more than enough for a brochure site or a small SaaS), a worldwide CDN included, excellent performance, and a strict EU option for GDPR compliance. Predictable pricing as you grow. Limits: the Workers ecosystem is less standard than AWS, with fewer managed services.

Scaleway (French, sovereign)

The French public cloud champion. Data centres in Paris and Amsterdam, support in French, offers certified for health data hosting. Capable VPS plans from €5 to €10 a month, and competitive managed services (PostgreSQL, Redis, Kubernetes). An excellent choice for businesses with moderate to high sovereignty constraints.

OVH (the historic French provider)

The historic player of the French market. A very wide range, from low-end shared hosting to public cloud. Strengths: French and European data centres, aggressive pricing on VPS and dedicated servers, 24/7 support. Known weaknesses: uneven support quality, a management interface less modern than newer providers', and a few notable incidents in its history. It remains a solid choice, particularly for VPS and dedicated servers.

Vercel and Netlify

Serverless platforms specialised in the modern frontend (Next.js, Astro, Remix, SvelteKit). Excellent integration with the modern JavaScript stack. Generous free plans, and a quick step up to €20 to €200 a month depending on traffic. Limit: bandwidth billing beyond the free tier can be opaque, and watch out for automatically renewing Pro plans.

AWS and Azure

The dominant hyperscalers. The widest service catalogue on the market, a mature ecosystem, complete certifications. Costs are hard to anticipate without expertise. Relevant for ambitious, fast-growing projects or specific needs (advanced data integrations, enterprise-grade compliance). For a standard small business, the complexity-to-value ratio often tips towards simpler alternatives such as Cloudflare or Scaleway.

Close-up of a patch panel with ports numbered 072 to 091, with grey and blue network cables plugged in, in shallow focus — A patch panel in a network rack: behind every hosting plan sits hardware like this, which you pay for by the month or by usage

GDPR and sovereignty: what you need to know

GDPR compliance requires hosting in the European Union or in a country covered by an adequacy decision. For standard B2B data with nothing sensitive, hosting elsewhere in Europe (Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland) is compliant and often cheaper than hosting strictly in your own country. The French data protection authority (CNIL) publishes a guide on transfers outside the EU that clarifies what you can and cannot do.

For sensitive data (health, wealth data, public sector), the reflex should be hosting in France or the EU with strengthened contractual guarantees (Scaleway, OVH, or Cloudflare's strict EU option). Health data hosting certification (HDS) and, for sensitive sectors, the French SecNumCloud qualification are becoming reference standards in 2026.

Five classic hosting traps for small businesses

1. Oversizing to be safe. The classic reflex: taking a VPS when shared hosting is enough, or a dedicated server when a VPS is enough. It is rarely relevant. Honest monitoring of the real load is enough to size precisely. Typical saving: 30 to 60% of the hosting budget.

2. Undersizing in the cloud. The opposite trap on AWS or Azure: picking the cheapest plan to save money, then having to migrate in a hurry when traffic rises. An instance that is too small slows down, loses conversions, and ends up costing more in practice.

3. Leaving bandwidth out of the calculation. In the cloud, outbound bandwidth is billed separately from compute. For a site with many images or videos, it can become most of the total cost. Always estimate it up front with the providers' calculators (AWS Pricing Calculator, Cloudflare's pricing pages).

4. Neglecting backups. A host generally does not back up for you beyond the basic infrastructure level. Setting up your own application backups with at least 30 days of retention and quarterly restore tests is non-negotiable, and it adds a monthly line that depends on your volumes.

5. Not planning the exit. The worst time to change host is during a production incident. Document from the start how to export your data, code and configuration. Prefer standards (Docker, Postgres, S3-compatible storage) over proprietary services that are hard to migrate.

2026 recommendations by business profile

Standard brochure site: Cloudflare Pages (free) or Vercel Hobby (free) for a site built with Astro or Next.js. OVH shared hosting (€3 to €8 a month) if you want hosting explicitly in France. Maximum total: €0 to €10 a month.

Online shop or business web application: a Scaleway VPS (€10 to €30 a month) for a controlled environment, or Cloudflare Workers with R2 for a serverless deployment. Total: €15 to €50 a month depending on traffic.

SaaS at launch (0 to 100 customers): Cloudflare Workers, D1 and R2 for operational simplicity and near-zero cost up to a significant volume. Total: €25 to €100 a month.

Growing SaaS (100 to 1,000 customers): Scaleway managed services (Postgres, Redis, Kubernetes) for fine control and European sovereignty, or an extended Cloudflare stack. Total: €100 to €500 a month.

Established SaaS (1,000+ customers): AWS or Azure with continuous optimisation, or a multi-cloud architecture combining Cloudflare (front and CDN) with compute on Scaleway or OVH. Total: €500 to €5,000 a month depending on growth.