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Adobe Commerce Cloud Alternative UK: Self-Managed Hosting Explained
The usual Adobe Commerce Cloud alternative is self-managed hosting: you run Adobe Commerce on your own licence, or move to Magento Open Source, on servers that a hosting company manages for you. With EveryHost, those servers are in our London data centre. You gain control over the stack, your release timing and a fixed monthly hosting bill. You give up Adobe's managed cloud tooling, and you take on more of the decisions yourself. This guide sets out the differences, how a move works, and when staying on Adobe Commerce Cloud is the better choice.
What Adobe Commerce Cloud is
"Adobe Commerce Cloud" usually means one of two Adobe products:
- Adobe Commerce on Cloud Infrastructure, Adobe's platform as a service. Pro projects run on three separate AWS or Azure availability zones, and the production environment has three virtual machines behind a load balancer. Fastly CDN and New Relic are included, and Adobe's web application firewall "is available on production environments only".
- Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, Adobe's software as a service, where "the continuous delivery of new features and updates eliminates the need for manual patching".
Both are for Adobe Commerce licences, not Magento Open Source. Adobe does not publish prices: its pricing page offers "customized pricing" only. On either product, the merchant still owns a share of the work. Adobe says "Merchants are responsible for the compliance of their custom code, system and network processes, and organization".
What self-managed hosting means
Self-managed hosting means the software runs on servers you choose, rather than on Adobe's platform. There are two routes:
- Adobe Commerce on your own licence, hosted by a company like EveryHost. You keep Adobe Commerce and its features.
- Magento Open Source, the free edition on the same core platform, without Adobe Commerce's extra features.
Either way, we run the server, the Magento stack, the server firewall and Sentinel security monitoring, matched to your Magento version, with 99.5% uptime on every plan. Plans start from £119 a month + VAT for a Managed VPS, £249 for a dedicated server and £799 for high availability, which is a multi-node web tier with high-availability database options, built to order. For the plans in full, see our Adobe Commerce hosting UK page.
EveryHost is not Adobe Commerce Cloud, and we do not sell it.
How the costs are structured
On Adobe Commerce Cloud, hosting comes as part of an agreement with Adobe, priced by quote. Self-managed hosting splits the bill in two:
- The software. Adobe Commerce stays a licence agreed with Adobe. Magento Open Source has no licence fee.
- The hosting. A fixed monthly price for the server, the stack and our support, in pounds, plus VAT. If you want us to look after the store as well, our Managed and Fully Managed plans add a fixed monthly fee.
Whether self-managed hosting costs less depends on your Adobe agreement, so compare the two side by side before you decide. We cannot see Adobe's prices, and we will not guess them.
Control over the stack and release timing
Adobe sets deadlines for its cloud. Its lifecycle policy sets 1 June 2027 for 2.4.4 and 2.4.5, and 1 June 2028 for 2.4.6 and 2.4.7, and says that from 1 June 2027 it may suspend traffic to Cloud environments on unsupported versions.
On self-managed hosting, you and your developer decide when to upgrade. Adobe's support dates still decide which versions get security fixes, so falling behind is still a risk: see Magento end of life dates. We match the server stack to your Magento version, and prepare a staging copy for each upgrade. Upgrades are quoted, and timing depends on how complex your store is: see Magento upgrades and security patching.
UK data location
With EveryHost, your store runs in our London data centre, and its on-server backups stay on that server. A UK data centre keeps latency low for UK shoppers and keeps the question of where your data lives simple. It does not make a store compliant on its own: we can work with you to help meet your UK GDPR obligations, depending on the services and extensions you use.
What you give up
Moving off Adobe Commerce Cloud means leaving Adobe's managed cloud tooling behind:
- Fastly CDN and Adobe's WAF. We do not provide a CDN or a WAF. If you want one, we recommend putting Cloudflare in front of your store, on your own Cloudflare account.
- New Relic and Adobe's monitoring. We monitor the server and the stack, and Sentinel reads your server's logs and blocks abusive sources at the server firewall. Sentinel is not a WAF.
- Three availability zones by default on Pro. On EveryHost, a single server is one machine. If you need more than one, our high availability plans are built to order.
- One supplier for software and hosting. You deal with Adobe for the licence, and with us for the hosting.
What you take on
- Your licence choice: Adobe Commerce from Adobe, or Magento Open Source.
- Your own CDN and WAF, if you want them.
- Your deployment process, with your developer or agency.
- Magento security patches, applied by your developer on our staging copy, or by us on Fully Managed.
- Your own PCI DSS responsibilities, as before: see PCI DSS and Magento hosting.
How a move works
A move off Adobe Commerce Cloud is a project, scoped and quoted before work starts. Our free migration covers straightforward Magento 2 host moves only, and a Cloud project has services built around it that need replacing.
- Review. We look at your store, your extensions, your integrations and the Cloud services you rely on.
- Licence. Check with your Adobe account team which licence you need to run Adobe Commerce on your own servers, or plan the switch to Magento Open Source with your developer or agency. Switching edition means replacing any Adobe Commerce features you use, and that work is scoped in the quote.
- Build. We build the server, with the stack matched to your Magento version.
- Staging. We copy your store to a staging copy for you and your developer to test.
- Cutover. We move the live store in an agreed window, with minimum downtime.
When Adobe Commerce Cloud is the better fit
Staying with Adobe makes more sense if you:
- rely on Adobe's managed services, such as Fastly, New Relic and the Cloud deployment tooling, and do not want to replace them;
- want one supplier accountable for both the software and the hosting;
- need multi-zone infrastructure without managing its design yourself;
- want the software-as-a-service route, where Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service removes manual patching;
- are partway through an Adobe agreement that already includes the hosting.
Related reading
For self-managed Adobe Commerce plans, see Adobe Commerce hosting UK. For running Magento on AWS yourself, see Magento hosting on AWS vs managed UK hosting, and for everything else, our Magento hosting UK home page.
Frequently asked questions
Thinking of leaving Adobe Commerce Cloud?
Tell us about your store and your Adobe setup, and we will tell you honestly whether a move makes sense.