Written by With PC and console prices skyrocketing due to RAM shortages, cloud gaming has become an increasingly affordable and practical alternative. Sure, nothing beats installing a game and then booting it up on your own device, but thanks to massive file sizes and expensive hardware, that’s often not an option, which is where cloud gaming comes in.
Minimal setup, freedom to play anywhere, and the ability to turn your devices into a gaming system are only a handful of reasons why cloud gaming has gained so much popularity recently. With that said, here are the 10 best cloud gaming platforms, ranked from cheapest to most expensive.
10. NVIDIA GeForce Now (Free)
Credits: NVIDIA
Credits: NVIDIA
Credits: NVIDIA
Credits: NVIDIA
Credits: NVIDIA
NVIDIA GeForce Now’s Free tier is the perfect introduction to cloud gaming, allowing players to stream supported PC titles they already own from platforms like Steam, Epic, Ubisoft Connect, and Xbox and play them anywhere with solid performance. With the GeForce Now Free tier, you get access to 2000+ Ready-to-Play titles, so you can jump in without waiting and stream over 2000 titles seamlessly.
It’s worth noting that the Free tier only supports 1-hour gaming sessions, 1080p resolution, and up to 60 FPS with ads. So, it’s free and undeniably the cheapest pick on this list, but it doesn’t have the necessary features to guarantee high-end cloud streaming, and ads will hinder the experience.
9. Boosteroid Cloud Gaming
Credits: Boosteroid
Boosteroid Cloud Gaming allows you to run hundreds of PC titles from platforms such as Steam and Epic Games Store on any device without any downloads or updates, thanks to the games running on remote servers. Seamlessly launch and stream titles you already own without any session time limits, and the cheapest tier is the Boosteroid Classic Ultra tier for €7.49 /month (on an annual subscription), which includes up to 4K resolution, 120 FPS, and a high-end remote virtual machine with Ray Tracing.
You can play the games you own on any low-end device, including browsers, which makes this one of the most affordable options on this list, eliminating the need to have a premium PC at your disposal.
8. NVIDIA GeForce Now Performance
Credits: NVIDIA
NVIDIA GeForce Now Performance is a better version of the Free tier, allowing players to stream over 4000 titles, including Ready-to-Play and Install-to-Play titles (from Steam). The Performance tier of GeForce Now cloud gaming supports 6-hour gaming sessions (100 hours monthly), up to 1440p resolution and 60 FPS, Ray Tracing, surround sound, and more.
Players can subscribe to this tier for $9.99/month, making it one of the cheapest cloud gaming options currently available. Launch any game you own or a Ready-to-Play title and stream it in high quality and solid settings.
7. Amazon Luna Cloud Gaming
Credits: Amazon
Amazon Luna not only offers a monthly library of free titles to claim and keep forever, but it also provides cloud gaming services. Luna Standard is included for free with an Amazon Prime subscription. Still, for $9.99/month, players can upgrade to Luna Premium to stream an even larger library of titles, including the full GameNight collection of couch co-op and party games on any device you own.
If you’re looking for a family-friendly cloud gaming platform without any downloads or console requirements, Amazon Luna is a clear no-brainer pick, since the dedicated GameNight collection is perfect for players who want to play games with their family or partners.
6. Blacknut Cloud Gaming
Credits: Blacknut
With Blacknut cloud gaming, you can stream over 1000 titles on any device without downloading, from AAA heavy-hitters to indie titles. Fresh games are added every month, and there are no playtime restrictions. While a free trial is available, the Standard monthly subscription offers the best value at $15.99/month, which includes a selection of over 1000 titles, the ability to have 5 player profiles with a single subscription, Bonus Games access at no additional cost, parental controls, and Add Pass options.
It’s not as cheap as the previous services, but 1000 games for 16 bucks sounds reasonable enough, and it always has something for everyone, so you’ll never run out of games to play.
5. PlayStation Plus Premium
Credits: PlayStation
A PlayStation Plus Premium membership gives players access to seamless cloud streaming on a PS5 console or PlayStation Portal remote player, featuring a diverse collection of high-quality PlayStation 5 titles. No downloads are required for these selected games, and your save data is stored in the cloud.
At $19.99/month, you not only get access to the Game Catalog, monthly free titles, and Classics Catalog, but also cloud streaming, which lets you stream titles featured in the Game Catalog, along with PS2 and PS3 games from the Classics Catalog. The previous entries might not offer PlayStation titles to stream, apart from their titles on PC, so having a PS Plus Premium fixes that problem perfectly, of course, at a higher rate.
4. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Credits: Xbox
One of the best cloud gaming services belongs to Microsoft, and with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you can not only play first-party titles day one along with monthly free additions, but also stream a massive library of games without downloading them. Game Pass Ultimate offers a library of 500+ games that you can stream on your Xbox console, PC, and other devices for $22.99/month.
It’s a tad more expensive than the previous options. But you get unlimited cloud gaming at the highest quality with the shortest wait times for 23 bucks a month, which also includes new titles on day one, including first-party offerings like Forza Horizon 6 and the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day.
3. Maximum Settings Cloud Gaming
Credits: Maximum Settings via YouTube
Maximum Settings offers cloud gaming via dedicated cloud-based gaming PCs that can stream almost every title and application. You can turn your PC or phone into a gaming machine that supports Ray Tracing, high resolutions, and frame rates. Additionally, you can install your previously purchased titles from launchers such as Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, and more, and stream them at up to 120 frames per second and 4K resolution on compatible devices.
While packages start from $9.95 CAD/month, the most expensive yet value-for-money option is the AMD 7900XTX GPU & AMD 7800X3D CPU, which costs $29.99 CAD/month (around $22 USD), and includes the aforementioned GPU and CPU, 192GB RAM, 750GB SSD Storage with 4TB Mechanical Storage, and 500Mb/s download speed, among other features, making it one of the costliest cloud gaming options. It’s kind of an all-rounder service, but not cheap at all.
2. Airgpu Cloud PC
Credits: Airgpu
Airgpu is a cloud gaming service that lets you play titles you own on platforms like Steam and Epic Games Store and run GPU-intensive workloads from any device with low latency and high-end performance. It doesn’t offer traditional monthly subscriptions; instead, it features a pay-as-you-go model, essentially letting you rent a gaming PC by the hour. The NVIDIA Datacenter Series starts at $0.65/hour and goes up to $1.20/hour.
This Series is available globally and supports Ray Tracing with NVIDIA L40S (similar to GeForce RTX 4080), offering the most value at $1.20/hour. However, it can easily become one of the most expensive options depending on your usage because you can not only run games on your Cloud PC via Parsec or Moonlight, but also use it for GPU-intensive tasks such as video editing and rendering, so consider it as your own high-end PC without owning one.
1. Shadow PC Cloud Gaming
Credits: Shadow
Shadow PC Cloud Gaming is similar to the previous two entries, as it allows you to take advantage of a high-end gaming PC from anywhere and on all your devices. Stream a dedicated virtual Windows PC with Shadow, install your favorite titles from platforms like Steam, Epic, and Battle.net, and play them at high resolution with low latency. If you own a Mac, you can also install all your Windows titles via Shadow PC and access your game libraries and applications without any limitations.
However, the subscriptions are quite expensive, starting from €158.35 for 6 months (RTX 4060 16GB-equivalent performance) and going up to €359.95 for 6 months (NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 24 GB performance). But you cannot deny the versatility that comes with it since you can play games and run any application of your liking on the cloud PC.
Here’s a quick summary table:
RANKPLATFORMPRICE1Shadow PC Cloud GamingStarting from €158.35 for 6 months (RTX 4060 16GB-equivalent performance)2Airgpu Cloud PCNVIDIA Datacenter Series starts at $0.65/hour3Maximum Settings Cloud GamingPackages start from $9.95 CAD/month4Xbox Game Pass Ultimate$22.99/month5PlayStation Plus Premium$19.99/month6Blacknut Cloud Gaming$15.99/month7Amazon Luna Cloud Gaming$9.99/month8NVIDIA GeForce Now Performance$9.99/month9Boosteroid Cloud Gaming€7.49 /month (annual subscription)10NVIDIA GeForce Now (Free)Free
Which is your preferred cloud gaming platform? Let us know in the comments section below!
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
