2025’s Latest Cloud Hosting Statistics 

I first heard of the cloud when Google Drive was launched in 2012. I was a teen and didn’t really care for technology (except my Nokia QWERTY smartphone, of course). That summer, our computer science teacher gave us a few basic programming assignments, instructed us to upload our results to Google Drive, and share the links with him.

That’s the last time I used a pen drive. I bet it’s rotting in some corner of my parents’ house! I now understand how the cloud really works, and it still fascinates me. I wonder when you used a cloud service for the first time.

Let’s dive into the exciting stuff — here are some cloud hosting statistics you need to read!

Can you imagine a world without social media, online shopping, and streaming? That’s what your life would look like without the cloud. We’d basically be in the early 2000s all over again. The cloud industry is booming, and more impactful services are being introduced by the day. It’s no wonder cloud computing revenue is forecasted to reach approximately $917 billion in 2025!

Do you know what makes this cloud hosting statistic truly incredible? Cloud revenue is estimated to surpass traditional technology revenue (from services like on-premises servers and legacy IT infrastructure) by a cool $49 billion!⁷

I can’t confirm whether this is the first time the cloud has beaten traditional IT infrastructure, but it surely won’t be the last. Pen drives and hard drives are surely a thing of the past.

This cloud hosting statistic is an ode to my mathematical genius (humblebrag) because you won’t find it anywhere else. The global web hosting services market is projected to generate approximately $149.3 billion in revenue in 2025.

Since cloud hosting accounts for 8% of the market, I want you to crunch the numbers for me — no cheating! If your screen reads “11,944,000,000,” bingo. Let’s go ahead and round that off to a cool $12 billion.^1,2

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are the undisputed heavyweight champions in the cloud industry. I mean, they control around 63% of the market, with AWS leading the way (33%), followed by Azure (20%), and GCP (10%). More than 60% of a ~$900 billion industry? Geez.

In football terms, they’re like Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Atletico Madrid — no other team stands a chance of winning the league.

Here’s an exercise for you: Can you guess which AWS cloud services are most popular? Honestly, if you aren’t a techie, you won’t get it right.. Anyway, if you thought of Amazon EC2 or Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), please give yourself a pat on the back!

I’d like to make it clear that cloud infrastructure giants such as AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba Cloud (6% market share), IBM Cloud (5% market share), and Oracle Cloud (3% market share) are ideal for enterprise use only.^3,7

If you’re a startup owner or a developer, I recommend a traditional cloud web host like Cloudways or Hostwinds (they’re my favorite cloud hosts). Traditional cloud hosts offer managed or semi-managed cloud hosting plans, and are often built on these big players — which explains their industry standing.

Netflix, for example, has used AWS for cloud hosting since 2008, leveraging services such as EC2, S3, and CloudFront (a CDN) to deliver content to your TV and smartphones. A Cloudways plan simply wouldn’t be sufficient for a company of this scale! Just the thought of it made me chuckle.

Speaking of Cloudways, it’s one of the few traditional web hosts that only offers cloud hosting, specifically, managed cloud hosting (which is even better). Web hosts like Hostinger (another favorite of mine), for example, offer a wide range of hosting services, including cloud hosting.

In my opinion, if you’re on the hunt for a cloud hosting plan, you should choose a dedicated cloud host. Now, let’s get back to Cloudways, shall we?

Since there are more than 1.2 billion websites on the internet, and Cloudways is used by approximately 0.6% of them, that means it provides cloud hosting services for around 7.2 million sites.^4,5

Cloudways plans won’t burn a hole in your pocket as well — with plans starting at $14 per month, you should keep aside an annual hosting budget of at least $200 to enjoy the best of any cloud web host, really

I’m not going to lie; I expected AWS to have earned the most in 2024, but oh well. Azure is a worthy competitor — Atletico Madrid wins the occasional La Liga title!

With revenue of $33.7 billion in fiscal year 2024, Azure generated approximately $9.5 billion more than AWS.⁶ Sometimes it hits me how casually I write about millions and billions of dollars! Just to quench your curiosity, IBM and Salesforce make the rest of the top five list (in that order).

And let me tell you, 2025 will be a grand year for revenue from cloud services — just a glance at the next stat paints the picture.

Do you know what a zettabyte (ZB) is? It’s one trillion gigabytes. To provide context, I have an HP laptop with one TB of storage. It would take one billion such laptops to store one ZB! I don’t think there are even one billion HP laptops on the market…

Anyway, we’re expected to generate an astounding 200 ZB by the end of 2025. Do you now understand why cloud storage has become the go-to resource for companies to store their data? I mean, can you even imagine how much physical hardware a company would have to own without cloud storage services? The electricity bills would be insane!

Businesses are so dependent on cloud storage solutions that around 60% of global corporate data is stored in the cloud.¹¹

Cloud computing really is the new “IT.” And no, I’m not talking about the movies, which I didn’t like to be honest — clowns aren’t scary. Overall expenditure on cloud computing services is expected to exceed $723 billion in 2025. Yes, you read that right: $723 billion.

If you’re enjoying the perks of the work-from-home culture (I like waking up whenever I want to), you can thank the COVID-19 pandemic for that. It made companies move to the cloud at a faster rate than ever before. I guess every cloud has a silver lining.

While you and I use cloud services like Google Drive for free, your organization doesn’t have that luxury — they have to pay top dollar for these services!

To this end, more than 94% of organizations are now using the cloud.^8,9 Crazy numbers. If you rely heavily on cloud services and are stuck with legacy IT infrastructure, I recommend switching to the cloud as soon as possible. It’ll make your life easier, and I’m certain your boss will thank you (eventually)!

According to survey data, only about 40% of businesses believe their cloud costs are under control. But more than half of businesses believe they overspent on cloud services in 2024.¹²

To be fair, I sympathize with them. Hear me out: I estimate the average organization spends at least $1,000 per employee annually on cloud services (I’ve done a lot of research).

While the pay-as-you-go model is enterprising, it’s hard for companies to predict service consumption — the larger the company size, the greater the difficulty. And that’s just scratching the surface.

It’s time for a small break from heavy-hitting stats. Go ahead, drink a glass of water. Alright, I’m not going to “sell” cloud hosting anymore, as I’ve already said everything I needed to say on the topic.

Here are the numbers you need to know:

Shared hosting costs between $2 to $10 per month, while the average monthly rate for a basic cloud hosting plan is $8.47 per month.10 Not too bad, eh? A good cloud plan can cost upward of $10 each month (at a minimum). But if you really want to enjoy the benefits of cloud hosting, you might have to spend more.

Like I said earlier, if you have an annual budget of at least $200 for web hosting, you should opt for cloud web hosting instead.

Think of the apps you use most often. WhatsApp? Instagram? TikTok? Each app on your smartphone is a cloud-based service — they store your data on remote servers and require internet connectivity to work.

In fact, we’re so dependent on cloud-based services that we use an average of 36 of them a day (I can proudly say I use just 10-15!). Wait until you read how many cloud services the average company uses. Take a wild guess.

100? 500? 1,000? Nah. Try 1,295!¹¹

When’s the last time you used a personal cloud storage service like Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox? I used Google Drive and iCloud in the past couple of hours, and I’m not alone: Around 2.3 billion people use personal cloud storage services.¹¹

Ah, who am I kidding — I’m using Google Drive right now! The real question is, are you using a free service or a paid one? I recommend using free services until you run out of storage.

You may be wondering, what’s a smartphone stat doing in an article about cloud hosting? Well, we both know smartphone apps can’t function without cloud services. And hey, don’t try to act smart and play a downloaded Netflix movie in front of me with your mobile data turned off (I would totally do that)!

Smartphones and the cloud are a match made in heaven (or hell, if you’re a parent whose children hate doing homework!), and we will see people using many, many more devices in just a few years. If you want numbers, there will be more than 7.7 billion smartphones by 2028.¹¹

When did you use Netflix for the first time? How different is the app now compared to then? Your favorite cloud-based apps will only get better.

For example, if you have a few songs you can’t get enough of, Spotify may use advanced AI/ML algorithms to create playlists that match your mood. Let’s say it begins to drizzle. Boom! Spotify sends you a notification asking if you want to hear songs that will “help you relax on a rainy day.”

The cloud industry is bound to hit $1 trillion in revenue soon, and this is just the beginning.

1. https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/web-hosting-services-market-100863/
2. https://umatechnology.org/ultimate-web-hosting-statistics-and-market-share-report-2024/
3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/967365/worldwide-cloud-infrastructure-services-market-share-vendor/
4. https://siteefy.com/how-many-websites-are-there/
5. https://w3techs.com/technologies/comparison/ho-cloudways%2Cho-hostforweb%2Cho-wpcloudca/
6. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1243513/top-10-cloud-vendors-by-revenue-fiscal-quarter-global/
7. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1298890/worldwide-enterprise-it-revenue-by-type/
8. https://protechinsights.com/blog/cloud-infrastructure-spending-a-2025-forecast/
9. https://colorlib.com/wp/cloud-computing-statistics
10. https://www.bluehost.com/blog/cloud-hosting-statistics/
11. https://spacelift.io/blog/cloud-computing-statistics/
12. https://www.cloudzero.com/state-of-cloud-cost/