The most visible cloud hosting platforms in Europe, October 2026

October 2026 · 105 questions asked from 7 countries · ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Google AI Mode · 420 answers read

Leader

AWS

60Heralded Score, range 55–65

Most cited source

youtube.com

76citations

From Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews

Where engines disagree most

Microsoft Azure

1/4engines put it in their top three

Top three on ChatGPT, not on Google AI Mode, Gemini and Google AI Overviews

Brands

Search is not measured for this board yet, so it ranks on AI answers.

Rank Brand Rank change Heralded Score All AI Score trend Mentioned Recommended By engine Mentioned by Change
– dogado DE Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading
– DonDominio ES Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading
– DreamHost US Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% First reading
– ElfHosted Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading
– Ergonet IT Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading
– Exoscale CH Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading
– Fasthosts Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading
– Gandi FR Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading
– Gazduire.Net RO Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading
– Găzduire.ro RO Unranked Too few answers Not measured
–
  • : Unranked
0% 0% None First reading

“=” marks brands whose score ranges overlap, so the test cannot separate them. Every brand named in at least three answers is ranked. AI gives each brand’s score and rank from the engines’ answers; Search is not measured for this board yet. By engine has one dot per engine (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Google AI Mode), darker the more often it names the brand.

Most cited sources

Rank Source Type Cited in Engines Pages cited Brands its pages mention
1 youtube.com Social 10.7% 2 of 4 55 Not read
2 shopify.com Vendor site 6.2% 4 of 4 33 20
3 reddit.com Community 7.1% 3 of 4 27 Not read
4 woocommerce.com Vendor site 2.9% 1 of 4 11 2
5 medium.com Community 3.8% 3 of 4 10 Not read
6 searcheye.io Vendor site 3.1% 2 of 4 1 10
7 linkedin.com Social 2.6% 2 of 4 7 Not read
8 freecodecamp.org Reference 2.4% 3 of 4 1 8
9 hostadvice.com Review site 2.4% 1 of 4 8 Not read
10 instawp.com Vendor site 2.4% 3 of 4 1 14

Questions asked

QuestionLanguageMost recommended
best cloud hosting platform for independent developers English DigitalOcean and Render, tied
cloud hosting for small software teams English DigitalOcean
how can a developer host an app without managing servers English Vercel
how to keep a startup website online as traffic grows English AWS
managed cloud hosting vs self-managed servers for startups English No brand recommended

Each engine's top three

Method

Each leaderboard ranks brands on two sides. AI is how ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode answer the board's buyer questions. Search is Google's top 10 results for the keywords behind those questions. All combines the two, where Search is measured.

For the AI side, each month Heralded asks every engine the same buyer questions, twice each, and reads every answer. An answer counts 0 for a brand it leaves out, 50 for a brand it names and 100 for a brand it recommends, and the Heralded Score is built from those. A brand named in at least three answers gets a score and a place.

How the leaderboards are measured