Krystal
The UK's largest independent host, a B Corp with a London cloud, per-second billing in pounds and UK engineers on the phone, without managed databases or Kubernetes.
Who owns it
Krystal (Krystal Hosting Ltd, company number 07571790, London, founded 2002, independently owned, a certified B Corp) is the answer to a buyer who wants the company on the contract to be British. Its cloud platform, Katapult, was folded into the brand as Krystal Cloud on 8 April 2026, same team and same kit; katapult.io now redirects. There are three regions, London, Amsterdam and New York, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus, DDoS mitigation included on every VM, free triple-replicated NVMe system disks, private networks, firewalls, two-factor authentication with YubiKey, multi-user organisations, an API, the katapult CLI and an official Terraform provider. Support is engineers based in the UK, by chat and phone. Energy use is matched with renewables and the company funds reforestation through 1% for the Planet.
What it costs
Prices in GBP, ex VAT (there is an "include VAT" toggle), read 8 September 2026. The smallest instance is C-1, 1 vCPU, 1 GB and 10 GB with 1 TB of transfer for £10 a month (£0.0137 an hour); the reference C-4 is 2 vCPU, 4 GB and 75 GB with 2.5 TB for £27.50 (£0.0377 an hour), billed by the second. The IPv4 is £2 a month per address, backup storage is £0.05 per GB a month, block storage £0.15 per GB, object storage £5 a month for 250 GB, a load balancer £10, and transfer is pooled across the organisation with inbound free and overage at £0.02 per GB. Backing up the full 75 GB disk would add about £3.75, so the real monthly cost of the reference server is about £33.25, the highest of the non-hyperscalers here, and Krystal does not say whether backups are on by default. There are no managed databases, no managed Kubernetes, no app marketplace (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Alma and Fedora images only, with no stated maintainer or cadence) and no MCP server; GPUs (T4, L4) attach to any VM by the hour.
What you get and what to watch
Two facts to weigh against the British ownership. Krystal's own data processing agreement states that personal data "may need to be processed outside of the UK or EEA" under standard contractual clauses, so UK ownership and UK support are not the same as a promise that data stays in the UK; and one of the three regions is in the United States. Trustpilot is 4.9 on 2,412 reviews (98% five-star, 1% one-star, no recent history of inviting), the best score in this comparison by a distance, and the status page did not resolve when we checked. For a UK company that values a UK company, UK engineers and a clean, simple bill over price and managed services, Krystal is the choice.
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, documentation and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +UK-owned, UK-registered, a B Corp, with UK engineers on the phone and Trustpilot 4.9 on 2,412 reviews
- +Per-second billing in pounds, pooled transfer, DDoS mitigation and replicated storage included, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus
- +London and Amsterdam; API, CLI and Terraform
Cons
- −The dearest server here outside AWS: £10 minimum, £2 a month for the IPv4, £33.25 for the reference server with backups
- −No managed databases, Kubernetes, app images or MCP server; three regions, one of them in the US
- −The DPA allows processing outside the UK or EEA
Pricing
Minimum commitment: £10 (£10/mo × 1 seat × 1 month (no commitment)). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
C-1
£10/mo · no commitment
Same price on any term
- ✓1 vCPU / 1 GB / 10 GB NVMe, 1 TB pooled transfer, £0.0137/hr, billed per second, ex VAT. IPv4 £2/mo extra.
C-4
£27.50/mo · no commitment
Same price on any term
- ✓2 vCPU / 4 GB / 75 GB NVMe, 2.5 TB pooled transfer, £0.0377/hr. IPv4 £2/mo, backup storage £0.05/GB/mo (about £3.75 for the disk), overage £0.02/GB. Real monthly cost (estimate): £33.25.
Specifications
| Rating | 3.5 |
| Pricing and plans | |
|---|---|
| Smallest instance | £10/mo (1 vCPU / 1 GB / 10 GB NVMe (C-1)) |
| Reference instance | £27.50/mo (2 vCPU / 4 GB / 75 GB NVMe (C-4)) |
| Real monthly cost* | £33.25/mo |
| Hourly billing | ✓ |
| Transfer included | 2.5 TB |
| Public IPv4 | £2/mo |
| Backups | £0.05 per GB per month of backup storage |
| Snapshots (per GB/mo) | £0.050 |
| Free credit | None found |
| Features | |
| UK location | ✓ |
| EU locations | 1 |
| Locations | 3 |
| Managed databases | No |
| Kubernetes | No |
| Object storage | ✓ |
| UK cities | London |
| Block storage | ✓ |
| Load balancers | ✓ |
| Bare metal | No |
| GPU instances | ✓ |
| ARM instances | No |
| Private networking | ✓ |
| Integrations and developers | |
| Egress overage | £0.020/GB |
| API | ✓ |
| Terraform | ✓ |
| MCP server | No |
| Image marketplace | No |
| CLI | ✓ |
| Ownership and trust | |
| Owned in** | UK-owned |
| Sovereign offering | Local contracting entity |
| Owner | Independent |
| Vendor-maintained images | No |
| Trustpilot (reviews) | 4.9 (2,412) |
| HQ | UK |
| Publicly listed | No |
| ISO 27001 | ✓ |
| SOC 2 | No |
| DDoS protection included | ✓ |
| 2FA | ✓ |
| Support | |
| Phone support | ✓ |
| Support channels | Live chat, Phone (UK), Knowledge base |
*Real monthly cost: the reference instance (the nearest to 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB) with automatic backups switched on and a public IPv4 address, per month at the monthly or capped-hourly rate, in the currency the vendor shows a UK visitor on the research date; see each profile for the VAT basis, the backup rule and the egress bill on top.
**Owned in: where the company that owns the provider answers to. A US-owned provider is subject to US law (including the CLOUD Act) wherever the data centre is; a local data centre is not the same thing as local jurisdiction. "Sovereign offering" records what the vendor offers beyond a local data centre.
Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
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