Platform-as-a-Service with managed runtimes, autoscaling and zero-config databases.
The rankings are warming up.
Platform-as-a-Service offerings (Heroku, Render, Railway, Fly.io, Clever Cloud) host your backend apps without managing the server: git push and your app is live with a managed runtime (Node, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java), provisioned databases, auto-scaling and built-in monitoring. Ideal for startups, side projects, MVPs. Priced per container/memory/CPU time - can get expensive at scale, but excellent time-saved/cost ratio on small projects.
Shared hosting works fine up to ~10,000 visitors/month. Beyond that, or with heavy plugins, a managed VPS brings performance and stability. For e-commerce shops, a dedicated VPS is recommended from day one.
Managed WordPress (Kinsta, WP Engine, o2switch) costs more but bundles optimised caching, automatic updates, staging and backups - you save time and reduce risk. Worth it as soon as the site is business-critical.
WordPress is the most flexible with a huge ecosystem. Webflow excels at design with integrated hosting. Wix and Squarespace are the simplest but most limited. Pick based on the flexibility/simplicity trade-off you need.