Acquia Cloud Platform vs Pantheon (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Acquia Cloud Platform if

• Fits if you run an enterprise Drupal site and want the host to run the platform
• Makes sense if you need compliance support and tiered support contracts

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want a listed price, because every annual subscription is quoted by sales
• Not for you if your site isn't Drupal, as the platform is purpose-built for it
• Watch out: Cloud CD environments are an add-on on Standard and included from Plus up
• Watch out: the 99.99% SLA, security package and technical account manager are add-ons on some tiers

Pick Pantheon if

• Fits if you run several WordPress or Drupal sites and want staging by default
• Works for teams that need an uptime SLA and SSO

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you want one live site: Gold plus a Basic site is $500 + $42 a month
• Skip it if you want a free site that goes live, since sandboxes can't use a domain
• Watch out: Basic's visitor allowance is 25k a month, or 35k on annual billing
• Watch out: Multidev, automated updates and 24/7 support need Gold, and SSO and an SLA need Platinum or Diamond

Acquia Cloud Platform

• Prices are not published; the pricing page lists tier limits only and annual subscriptions are quoted by sales.
• Cloud CD development environments are an add-on on Standard and included from Plus up (3 on Plus, 5 on Premium, 10 on Elite).
• The 99.99% uptime SLA, enterprise security package and technical account manager are add-ons on some tiers.
• It is a Drupal platform; the pages describe it as purpose-built for Drupal rather than for general web hosting.

Pantheon

• Cost is workspace plus one site plan per live site: Gold with a Basic site is $500 + $42 a month on annual billing.
• Sandbox sites on the free Silver workspace cannot go live or connect a domain without a site plan.
• Annual billing raises the visitor allowance by 40%, for example 35k instead of 25k on Basic.
• Multidev, automated updates and 24/7 support need Gold; SSO, multi-zone failover and an SLA need Platinum or Diamond.

Acquia Cloud Platform

Managed Drupal operations

Acquia handles the operating system, patching, updates and scaling, with 24/7/365 application-level Drupal support.

Auto-scaling infrastructure

Acquia Cloud Next runs Kubernetes-based environments across 9 global regions, with multi-zone availability and a 99.95% uptime SLA.

Platform CDN

A built-in CDN with 65 points of presence across 9 regions is included without a separate contract.

Developer toolchain

Includes a Cloud API and console, Acquia Pipelines for CI/CD, a browser-based Cloud IDE, Drush, Composer and the Acquia CLI.

Compliance posture

The vendor lists FedRAMP, HIPAA, PCI, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 at the platform level, which applications on it inherit.

Tiered support

Critical-issue response SLAs run from 1 hour on Standard, Plus and Premium to 30 minutes on Elite, with advisory hours from 2 to 16.

Pantheon

Dev, staging and production

Every plan includes separate development, staging and production environments with built-in version control and backups.

WordPress and Drupal

Sites run WordPress or Drupal, and the platform pages also describe Next.js hosting and a serverless CMS option.

Git-based pipeline and CLI

A Git-based CI/CD pipeline and a command line interface come with the free Silver workspace.

Multidev environments

On-demand environments for testing changes in parallel are part of the Gold workspace and above.

Autopilot updates

The Gold workspace adds automated updates and visual regression testing for plugin and core updates.

Global CDN and WAF

The platform lists a global CDN with a web application firewall, and Platinum adds an advanced CDN with WAF.

Acquia Cloud Platform

Pricing could not be confirmed. See acquia.com.

Pantheon

• Silver workspace$0

  per month, plus a site plan to go live

  Two sandbox sites, Git-based CI/CD, a command line interface and basic chat support. Sandbox sites cannot use a domain.

• Gold workspace$500

  per month, billed annually ($600 billed monthly)

  Everything in Silver plus on-demand environments (Multidev), automated updates, visual regression testing and 24/7 support.

• Basic site plan$42

  per month, billed annually ($55 billed monthly)

  For small, low-traffic sites: 35k monthly visitors on annual billing (25k monthly), 1 app container and 5 custom domains.

• Performance Small site plan$160

  per month, billed annually ($200 billed monthly)

  35k visitors on annual billing (25k monthly), 1 app container and 10 custom domains. Medium is $275 ($350 monthly).

• Performance Large site plan$550

  per month, billed annually ($700 billed monthly)

  210k visitors on annual billing (150k monthly) and 3 app containers. XL is $917 ($1,150 monthly) for 420k visitors.

• Platinum and DiamondCustom

  Sold through sales for up to 100M visitors: multi-zone failover, SSO, an uptime SLA for elite sites and an advanced CDN with WAF.

Acquia Cloud Platform

No public discounts listed.

Pantheon

• Annual discount

  Annual billing lowers the monthly rate

  Site plans are cheaper per month when billed annually, for example Basic at $42 instead of $55, and annual billing also adds about 40% more visitors.