Acquia Cloud Platform vs Upsun (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Upsun grades higher than Acquia Cloud Platform: 2.2 against 2.0 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Acquia Cloud Platform grades higher on ease of use. Upsun grades higher on features and platforms. They get the same grade on value for money and the free plan.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Acquia Cloud Platform
Managed cloud hosting built for enterprise Drupal sites
Free trial
Upsun
Application cloud priced by provisioned resources
Free trial · from €9/mo
Which one is for you
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 Upsun if
- Fits if your team wants a preview environment for every branch
- Works for developers who deploy across several clouds
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a simple site host, as projects are configured in files
- Watch out: the total is a project fee plus users plus CPU, memory, storage and bandwidth
- Watch out: Elasticsearch and MongoDB are premium services that need a minimum commitment and sales
- Watch out: the page opened in euros, and object storage is not available on trial projects
How we grade them
| 2.0GPAAcquia Cloud PlatformFair | 2.2GPAUpsunFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CNo price is published: annual subscriptions are quoted by sales, so it sits at C for want of a figure to compare. | CEUR 9 per project plus EUR 10 per user a month, plus CPU, memory, storage and bandwidth, so one person lands around the top of the category. |
| Free plan and trial | CA 14-day free trial of a Drupal 11 site with no card. No free plan. | CA 15-day trial with no card, covering 1 project fee and 1 user license. |
| Features | CManaged Drupal operations, auto-scaling, a CDN, a toolchain and compliance support. Cloud CD environments, the 99.99% SLA and the security package are add-ons on some tiers, and it is Drupal only. | BPreview environments, multicloud deployment, backups and access management cover the whole job. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. There is a developer toolchain to learn and environments to set up. | DNo store rating on record, and projects are set up with configuration files. |
| Platforms and integrations | CWeb only, with a short list of integrations: Drupal, New Relic and SearchStax. | BWeb and API, with AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, IBM Cloud and OVHcloud as hosts and Okta for sign-in. |
| Best for | managed hosting for enterprise Drupal sites | an application cloud for developer teams |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Acquia Cloud Platform and Upsun. How we grade
Where they differ
- Upsun also covers databases.
In commonWebPublic APIWorkflow automation
At a glance
| Acquia Cloud Platform | Upsun | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free trial |
| Starts at | Not published | €9 per project / month plus €10 per user / month, plus resources |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial of a Drupal 11 site, no credit card required | 15-day free trial with no card; a monthly credit covers 1 project fee and 1 user license |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Acquia | Upsun |
| Price read from | Not confirmed | upsun.com |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
Worth knowing
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.
Upsun
- The page opened in euros and offers GBP, USD, CAD and AUD; the figures here are the euro prices shown.
- Costs depend on what you provision: a project's total is the project fee plus users, CPU, memory, storage and bandwidth.
- Elasticsearch and MongoDB are premium managed services that need a minimum commitment and contact with sales.
- Object storage is not available on trial projects.
Key features
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.
Upsun
- Preview environments
- Every Git branch can get a full-stack environment, and on-demand preview environments are part of the project fee.
- Provisioned resources, billed per second
- Shared CPU is €0.033 an hour and 1 GB of application memory €0.013 an hour, billed per second on what is allocated.
- Multicloud deployment
- Projects can be placed on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, IBM Cloud or OVHcloud, with a 3% credit in six greener regions.
- Storage and backups
- Disk is €0.49 per GB a month per environment, backups €0.10 per GB, and object storage €0.0833 per GB with a 512 GB minimum.
- Access management
- Advanced user management adds teams, MFA enforcement and single sign-on through Google or OIDC providers such as Entra ID and Okta.
Plans
Acquia Cloud Platform
Pricing could not be confirmed. See acquia.com.
Upsun
Project fee€9.00
per project / month, plus resources
Includes preview environments, 30 days of metrics, 10 GB egress and 500,000 ingress requests.
User license€10.00
per user / month
Custom project and environment permissions; Advanced user management adds €9 per user for teams, MFA and SSO.
Ways to pay less
Acquia Cloud Platform
No public discounts listed.
Upsun
- Other savings
First project incentive
The pricing page says the first user license and first project fee, up to $19 a month, are saved automatically, with terms and conditions applying.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Acquia Cloud Platform or Upsun?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Acquia Cloud Platform has no price we could confirm, and Upsun starts at €9 per project / month plus €10 per user / month, plus resources.
Which has a free plan, Acquia Cloud Platform or Upsun?
As of Nov 13, 2026, neither Acquia Cloud Platform nor Upsun has a free plan. Both have a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.