Hosting, VPS or app platform: how to choose where your project should live.
"Which plan do I need?" is the most common question we hear from new customers, and the honest answer starts with a different question: what are you running, and who will look after it? A company website, an online shop, a custom web application and a self-hosted tool each fit a different kind of hosting. Picking the wrong one either costs money every month or costs hours of work.
This guide compares the three options Rivervo offers — website hosting, cloud servers (VPS) and the app platform — and gives a simple way to decide.
The three options in one table
| Website hosting | Cloud server (VPS) | App platform | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | Space for websites on a managed server | Your own virtual server with root access | Your code built and run from Git |
| Who manages the server | We do | You do | We do |
| Typical project | WordPress, company site, shop, PHP sites | Any software, custom stack, self-hosted tools | Next.js, Laravel, Django, Express, APIs |
| Price model | Fixed plan, monthly or yearly | Fixed plan, monthly | Resources you choose, monthly |
| Skills needed | None to basic | Linux administration | Git and your framework |
Website hosting: the default for most websites
Website hosting means your sites live on a server that we run, update and secure. You work through the Rivervo panel: install WordPress in one click, manage files, databases, mailboxes, SSL, DNS and backups, and never touch the operating system.
It suits you if you run a company website, a blog, a WordPress or WooCommerce shop or several small PHP sites, and you would rather not administer a server.
What is included on every plan:
- NVMe storage, free SSL certificates with automatic renewal and a page cache;
- daily backups kept 7 days and monthly copies kept 12 months, with databases backed up every hour;
- mailboxes on your domain (10 on Stream, 100 on Current, no limit on Rapids and Delta);
- SSH, SFTP, a terminal in the browser and cron jobs, plus Node.js and Python applications.
The plans differ in how many sites they hold and how much processor and memory they get — from Stream for a first site to Delta for many sites at once. Prices start from $3.33 a month paid yearly or $4 month to month, and renew at the price you signed up at. Monthly plans start with a 45-day free trial: you add a card, and nothing is charged until day 46.
Limits to know: you share a server with other customers, so you cannot install system software or run long background services the plan does not offer. When a project outgrows that, it is time for a VPS or the app platform.
See the hosting plans, the WordPress hosting page or Node.js hosting.
Cloud server (VPS): full control
A VPS is a virtual server that belongs to you alone. You get root access, choose the operating system and install whatever you need. We provide the machine, the network and the panel to start, stop, rebuild and resize it; everything inside is yours to run.
It suits you if you need software that shared hosting cannot run (a custom stack, a game server, a VPN, a database cluster), a fixed amount of processor and memory that nobody else uses, or full control over the configuration.
What you get:
- plans from 2 vCPU and 4 GB of memory, NVMe disks and 20 TB of traffic a month on the shared-vCPU plans, billed monthly; regular-performance and dedicated-CPU plans too, on x86 or ARM;
- locations in Germany (Falkenstein, Nuremberg), Finland (Helsinki), the USA (Ashburn, Hillsboro) and Singapore;
- ready-made apps installed on the first start — n8n, Nextcloud, WordPress, WireGuard, Uptime Kuma and more;
- optional daily backups of the whole server.
What you take on: updates, security, firewall rules and backups inside the server are your job. If nobody on the team is comfortable with Linux administration, a VPS will cost you more in time than it saves in money.
See the VPS plans and locations.
App platform: deploy from Git, we run the servers
The app platform sits between the two. You connect a repository from GitHub (GitLab and Bitbucket can be connected too); every push is built and goes live without downtime. You never log in to a server, but you are not limited to what a shared hosting plan offers.
It suits you if you build a web application or an API with a modern framework — Next.js, Nuxt, Laravel, Django, FastAPI, Express, Go and others are detected automatically — and want deploys, previews and databases without running servers.
What is included:
- a build and deploy on every push, with the previous version kept running if the new one does not start, and rollback to any of the last 5 successful versions;
- previews: other branches get their own address to check changes (up to 3 at a time);
- managed PostgreSQL, MySQL and Valkey, with restore to any minute of the last 7 days;
- workers and scheduled jobs, up to 10 instances of a web service or automatic scaling;
- HTTPS on every address, your own domains, logs for 7 days and alerts by email and Telegram;
- 500 GB of traffic a month included, and 3 days free for your first application.
You choose memory, processor and disk with sliders and see the monthly price before you pay.
See Applications.
And if you just need a website, fast
If you don't have a website yet and don't want to build one, there is a fourth option: AI Website. You describe your business in your own words, the AI writes the pages, the texts and the design in a few minutes, and you change anything by simply asking. Hosting is included, so there is nothing to choose or set up.
How to decide in four questions
- Is it a website built with WordPress, another CMS or plain PHP? → Website hosting.
- Is it your own code in a modern framework, deployed from Git? → App platform.
- Does it need system software, a custom stack or root access? → VPS.
- Does anyone on the team administer Linux servers? If not, avoid the VPS unless the software has no other home — or use a ready-made app on it and keep it simple.
Two more hints:
- Email is separate from all three. If email matters more than the website, use business email — it keeps working whatever happens to the hosting. Our guide to business email on your domain explains the setup.
- Don't buy for the future you might have. Start where the project fits today. Hosting plans can be changed in the panel any time, a VPS can be resized, and app resources are sliders.
Moving between them
- Hosting to a bigger hosting plan — change the plan in the panel; billing is prorated.
- Hosting to the app platform — when a PHP site becomes a Laravel or Node.js application, deploy it from Git and point the domain at the new address.
- Another host to Rivervo — free migration: our engineer moves the site, its databases and email within 24 hours of your request and copies the DNS records, and the old site stays live until you switch.
Billing at a glance
- Hosting — a fixed monthly or yearly price (a year costs 10 months); 45-day trial on monthly plans; 30-day money back for first-time accounts.
- VPS — a fixed monthly price per server; not refundable.
- App platform — the resources you choose, billed monthly; usage above what's included (for example traffic beyond 500 GB) is paid from your balance.
Current prices for everything are on one page: Pricing.
Common questions
Can I run WordPress on a VPS instead of hosting? Yes — WordPress is one of the ready-made VPS apps. But you then look after the server yourself. For most WordPress sites, hosting is simpler and includes backups, caching and SSL without any work.
Can hosting run Node.js or Python? Yes, hosting plans run Node.js and Python applications. For larger applications with workers, databases and previews, the app platform is the better fit.
What if I'm not sure? Ask Rivervo AI on the plans pages or write to us — we'll recommend a plan based on what you run. Hosting's 45-day trial lets you try before paying.
Do I need a VPS for a busy shop? Usually not. Start with a larger hosting plan; it gives more processor, memory and simultaneous requests. Move to a VPS when you need software or control that hosting does not offer.
Is the app platform a VPS? No. Your application runs in containers on servers we manage; you never get root access and never maintain the operating system.