Feature by feature
8 dimensions compared, August 2026
5
Hostwares
3
Upsun
| Feature | HHostwares | U Upsun |
|---|---|---|
| Base cost before any compute | $0 - you buy a pack | EUR 9/project + EUR 10/user monthly |
| Per-user fee | None | EUR 10/user/month |
| Compute billing | Flat pack price | Hourly - EUR 0.033/CPU-hr, EUR 0.013/GB-hr |
| Disk | Included in the pack | EUR 0.49/GB/month |
| Preview environments | No | On-demand, included |
| Continuous profiling | No | 15 minutes/month included |
| Drupal / Symfony specialisation | General purpose | Deep, purpose-built |
| AI DevOps agent | Yes | No |
Sources: upsun.com pricing page & docs, August 2026. Vendors change pricing - confirm on their site.
Upsun pricing vs Hostwares pricing
Upsun has no bundled plans. The base is EUR 9 per project per month plus EUR 10 per user per month, and resources are billed hourly on top: shared CPU EUR 0.033/hour, guaranteed CPU EUR 0.100/hour, memory EUR 0.013/GB/hour, services memory EUR 0.020/GB/hour, disk EUR 0.49/GB/month and backups EUR 0.10/GB/month. The project fee includes preview environments, 30 days of metrics, 15 minutes of continuous profiling, 10 GB of egress and 500,000 ingress requests. Minimum is EUR 9/month for a single project with nothing provisioned. Hostwares packs are $3, $7 and $18 flat with no project or user fees.
$ scenario: One project, three teammates, modest compute
HHostwares
- flat. same price in your biggest month.
The honest verdict
Choose Hostwares if…
- You do not want to pay per project and per user before provisioning anything
- Your team is small and per-seat pricing is the largest line on the bill
- You want a flat monthly figure rather than hourly resource metering
- You want cPanel, domains and one-click services on the same account
Choose Upsun if…
- You need on-demand preview environments per branch as a first-class feature
- You run Drupal or Symfony at scale and want a platform built around them
- You want continuous profiling and 30 days of infrastructure metrics included
- You are an agency needing strict per-project isolation and billing separation
Why teams switch from Upsun
Per-user pricing dominates small teams
Three teammates is EUR 30/month before a single CPU-hour. That is the structural difference, and it does not shrink with a smaller app.
Hourly metering is hard to forecast
CPU, memory, disk and backups each meter separately. A flat pack is one number that does not move.
But preview environments are a real feature
On-demand environments per branch are genuinely useful for agency work, and we do not have an equivalent.
And Drupal/Symfony depth is real
If you run those stacks at scale, Upsun is purpose-built for them in a way a general-purpose platform is not.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Upsun cost?
EUR 9 per project per month plus EUR 10 per user per month, with resources billed hourly on top - shared CPU EUR 0.033/hour, memory EUR 0.013/GB/hour, disk EUR 0.49/GB/month. The minimum is EUR 9/month for one project with nothing provisioned.
Is Upsun the same as Platform.sh?
Upsun is Platform.sh's current-generation product with a modular, pay-for-what-you-provision model. Platform.sh's original product still exists separately.
Is Hostwares cheaper than Upsun?
For a small team, usually by a wide margin, because there is no per-project or per-user fee. For a single solo project with minimal resources the gap narrows. The per-user line is what drives it.
What do I lose moving from Upsun?
On-demand preview environments, continuous profiling, 30 days of infrastructure metrics, and a platform tuned specifically for Drupal and Symfony.
Can Hostwares run Drupal or Symfony?
Yes - both are standard PHP applications and deploy from Git, and cPanel hosting is available for more traditional setups. What we do not offer is Upsun's specialised tooling around them.
How much does Hostwares cost?
Resource packs are $2/mo for Micro (0.25 vCPU, 256 MB, 5 GB), $3 for Starter (0.5 vCPU, 512 MB, 10 GB), $7 for Standard (1 vCPU, 2 GB, 25 GB), $18 for Performance (2 vCPU, 4 GB, 50 GB) and $35 for Business (4 vCPU, 8 GB, 100 GB). One pack runs one deployment - a site, a database or a service.
Is there a free tier?
No. Entry is $2/mo for a Micro pack. New accounts receive free AI credits on signup as a one-time bonus, but there is no free hosting tier - if a competitor's free tier covers your project, use it.
Do you charge for bandwidth?
No. Packs are a flat monthly price and traffic is not metered, so a busy month costs the same as a quiet one.
Are there per-seat fees?
No. You pay for resources, not for people. Adding teammates does not change the bill.
What is your refund policy?
Resource packs carry a 7-day money-back guarantee on first purchase. cPanel hosting is a pro-rated refund within the first 7 days if the account has not been used. Servers are a full refund within 48 hours if not provisioned, pro-rated within 7 days. Domains are non-refundable per ICANN policy. Full terms are on the refund policy page.
How do I pay?
PayPal, Stripe (card) and bKash, invoice-based. AI credits are a separate balance and are only used for the AI agent, never for hosting.
Does the price change at renewal?
No. The price you buy at is the price you renew at. There is no introductory rate that steps up later.
How do I deploy an application?
Connect a GitHub repository and Hostwares detects the framework and builds it. Next.js, React, Vue, Svelte, Node, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP and static sites are detected without configuration. You can also deploy any Docker image or upload a ZIP.
Can I deploy from a private repository?
Yes. Connect your GitHub account and private repositories become selectable in the deploy panel.
Do you support Docker?
Yes. Deploy any public or private Docker image with a tag and a port, or let a Dockerfile in your repository drive the build.
What databases can I run?
Managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Redis and MongoDB from $3/mo, with automated backups and a connection string. Each database occupies its own pack.
Do I get shell access?
You get a shell into your own container. You do not get root on the host - if you need kernel modules or arbitrary system packages, an unmanaged VPS is the right tool rather than a managed platform.
Can I run background workers and cron jobs?
Yes. A worker or scheduled job is a separate deployment from the same repository with a different start command, so it needs its own pack.
How long does a deployment take?
Most applications build and go live in about 60 seconds. Larger stacks - Supabase runs 14 containers - take a few minutes.
Are custom domains and SSL included?
Yes. Custom domains are included on every pack and SSL certificates are issued and renewed automatically once DNS resolves to us. There is no per-domain charge.
Can I register domains through Hostwares?
Yes, from $9.58/yr for a .com, with DNS management included for domains in your account.
Do you offer email hosting?
Email mailboxes come with cPanel hosting, which is a separate product from container packs and starts around $1.25/mo equivalent. Container packs do not include mailboxes.
How do I migrate an existing application?
Push the project to GitHub, connect the repository, move your environment variables across, and dump and restore any databases. For most standard applications this is under an hour. Detailed guides exist for Heroku, Vercel and Railway.
Will you help me migrate?
Ask through a support ticket. The AI DevOps agent can also perform much of the work directly - connecting the repository, setting environment variables, provisioning a database and diagnosing failed builds.
What is the AI DevOps agent?
An AI that operates your infrastructure through conversation - deploying from GitHub, reading build logs, diagnosing failures, setting environment variables, configuring domains and provisioning databases. It is available in the dashboard, from a CLI, and as an MCP server for editors such as Cursor and Claude Desktop.
Does the AI agent cost extra?
It uses AI credits, which are a separate balance from hosting. Chat starts at $0.10 and task execution at $0.50. New accounts get free credits on signup, and billing or support questions are free regardless of balance.
What support do you offer?
Support tickets from the dashboard, with the AI agent available for technical troubleshooting at any hour. We are a small team - if you need a contractual enterprise SLA with named contacts, we do not offer that today.
Are backups included?
Managed databases have automated backups. Verify a restore before you rely on it - that advice applies to any provider, ours included.
Where are your servers located?
Deployments run in a single region per container rather than across a global edge network. If your application needs multi-region placement or edge delivery close to users on several continents, a platform built for that is the better choice.
Do you have a status page?
Yes, at /status, showing real-time platform and infrastructure status.
Are you SOC 2 certified?
No. We have not completed a SOC 2 audit. If your procurement process requires one, that is a genuine reason to choose a larger provider.
How long has Hostwares been running?
Hostwares LLC was incorporated in Wyoming in 2026, so we are a new platform. If a long uptime track record is your main criterion, an established provider is the honest answer.
Can I export my data and leave?
Yes. Deployments are standard containers built from your own repository, and databases can be dumped with the usual tools. There is no proprietary format holding your application in place.
What happens if I do not pay an invoice?
Invoices are raised ahead of the due date so you can pay early. After the due date a grace period runs before services are suspended, and suspended services are terminated after 30 days of non-payment. You are emailed at each stage.
More platform comparisons
Deploy in 60 seconds.
From $2/mo, flat.
Connect GitHub, pick a pack, and let the AI DevOps agent handle the rest - deploys, debugging, and fixes included.
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