Windows VPS hosting (often marketed as “Windows cloud hosting”) sits in a useful niche for UK businesses that need Windows-specific software running outside their own office. Here is who actually benefits, where it fits, and where it does not.
Who Windows VPS hosting fits
You are a good candidate for a Windows VPS if any of these apply:
1. You run accounting or ERP software that is Windows-only
Sage 50, Sage 200, QuickBooks Desktop, Pegasus Opera, and many sector-specific applications are Windows-only. Hosting them on a Windows VPS lets your team access them remotely without keeping the office machine on, and gives you proper backup and disaster recovery for the data.
2. You need a remote desktop for a small team
A Windows VPS with Remote Desktop Services can serve 5 to 20 concurrent users at modest cost, with all the data and apps in one secure UK location. Useful when your team is hybrid or fully remote and you do not want to maintain a server in the office.
3. You host a .NET or Windows-specific web application
IIS, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server. Some applications are easier to run on Windows than to migrate to Linux. Windows VPS gives you the platform without the cost of dedicated hardware.
4. You need a Windows file server for offsite access
SMB shares, AD-integrated permissions, scheduled backup to our Sheffield Ceph cluster. A small Windows VPS can replace a stack of NAS appliances scattered across multiple offices.
5. You want to develop or test against Windows
Developers, ISVs, IT consultants who need a Windows environment for testing or for client work without burning local resources.
Who it does not fit
Windows VPS is the wrong answer if your workload is genuinely cloud-native (containerised, autoscaling) or if you have a heavy database workload that really wants its own physical hardware. For those, look at Single Server Colocation or talk to us about a dedicated host.
What our Pro Windows VPS includes
Our Pro Windows VPS starts at £12.50 per month and runs on HP servers with Proxmox/KVM virtualisation, backed by an all-flash Ceph cluster in our ISO 27001 Sheffield data centre. The price premium over Linux is the per-vCPU Windows licensing cost. Includes:
- Windows Server 2022 (Standard) licence included
- NVMe-class Ceph storage with self-healing redundancy
- 10 Gbit network internally, Tier 1 carriers externally
- Console access via KVM (noVNC) when remote desktop is unavailable
- Snapshots held for 7 days by default before risky changes
- Optional Veeam backup add-on to our second UK data centre
Sizing guidance
For a single-user accounting app: 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB disk. For a 5-user RDS environment: 4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 200 GB disk. We can resize live without downtime as your usage grows, with pro-rated billing.
Get started
See our Virtual Servers page for full Pro Linux and Pro Windows specs, or talk to us about your workload and we will size and quote the same working day. All UK-resident, all UK-managed, all in our Sheffield data centre.
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