With shared WordPress hosting, you share a server (the computer that stores your website) with several other websites. This keeps the costs down for the host, which is why most cheap WordPress hosting plans use shared hosting.
Dedicated WordPress hosting gets you a server all to yourself! This will give your website better performance and allow you to configure things exactly how you want them. However, dedicated hosting is also much more expensive and therefore not really an option for low cost WordPress hosting.
Cloud-based WordPress hosting uses a network of interconnected servers to host your website, which means you can target users in particular locations and quickly allocate extra resources if you’re expecting traffic spikes. Although it’s generally cheaper than dedicated hosting, it’s still more expensive than shared hosting, so you’ll rarely see it in budget WordPress hosting plans.
Finally, managed WordPress hosting is less about the server set up and more about providing a service that is specifically tailored for WordPress websites. So WordPress will be preinstalled, automatically updated and highly optimized. The support team will also be WordPress experts.
Managed hosting will usually have staging areas, so you can test your code before you push it live, malware and security monitoring and reliable backup systems. For these reasons, it’s also usually more expensive.
Be aware of cheap managed WordPress hosting services that are nothing more than overpriced regular shared hosting plans. If it’s really “managed”, it’s typically twice as expensive as shared hosting.