A good web hosting service plays an essential role in your website’s success. Hosting is a topic that I’ve talked about a lot on this blog. So, why not some more? 😀
After ample testing and research, I am here with the Cloudways Hosting Review for you! Cloudways differs greatly from all the other web hosts we’ve reviewed here. How, you ask? Read the article to find out.
I have been using Cloudways for more than 3 years now. So, all the results and opinions in this article will be based on my personal experience. Also, this website is hosted on Cloudways currently. In this Cloudways Review, we will begin by discussing how Cloudways differs from other hosting providers.
Further, I will reveal the results of the various tests that I conducted on Cloudways to analyze its performance, like Server Response time, Speed, Uptime, Load Handling Capacity, and more.
Finally, we will also come to its security features, customer support, backups and migration, email hosting, pros and cons, and a lot more. So, is Cloudways hosting a good option for you? Let’s find out!
Cloudways Review 2024
Summary
Cloudways is one of the best managed web hosts in my opinion. It provides you with superior performance in terms of speed, scalability, uptime, and load handling. If you are looking to host high-traffic websites, Cloudways can be a good option.
- About Cloudways
- Difference between Managed Vs Unmanaged Hosting
- Advantages of Managed Hosting
- Cloudways Overview
- Cloudways Review Video
- Cloudways User Interface
- Cloudways Testing Parameters
- Cloudways Server Response Time
- Cloudways Speed Test
- Cloudways Uptime
- Cloudways Load Testing
- Cloudways Data Centers
- Cloudways Domain Name
- Cloudways Cache Plugin
- Cloudways Backups and Restoration
- Cloudways Server Recovery
- Cloudways Support
- Cloudways Pricing
- Cloudways Discount Coupon Code
- Cloudways Training Program
- Lightning Blogs Blogging Course
- Cloudways Migration
- Cloudways Staging
- Cloudways Security
- Cloudways Safe Updates
- Astra Pro Theme with Cloudways
- Cloudways Additional Features
- Cloudways Email Hosting
- Cloudways CDN
- Cloudways Technology and Applications
- Is Cloudways Good for High-Traffic Websites?
- Cloudways Pros
- Cloudways Cons
- Cloudways Alternatives
- Should you use Cloudways?
- Why Should You Trust Me?
- Conclusion
- FAQ
Disclaimer : I strongly believe in transparency. If you buy using the links on our site, we may earn a small commission without any extra cost to you. This helps me to keep producing honest reviews. Read More >>
About Cloudways
Cloudways Hosting is a Managed Hosting founded by Uzair Gadit, Aquib Gadit, and Pere Hospital in 2009. It is headquartered in Malta, Europe.
The primary aim behind creating Cloudways was to offer a perfect mix of managed and unmanaged hosting to their customers so they can enjoy the best features of both worlds!
Recently, Cloudways was acquired by DigitalOcean, which could improve the ability of Digital Ocean to serve small business owners in the various stages of setting up their businesses.
Cloudways marks itself differently from other hosting providers, like Hostinger and A2 Hosting, because it is a ‘Managed Cloud Hosting Provider’. Let us see what that means.
Difference between Managed Vs Unmanaged Hosting
An unmanaged web host basically rents you storage space on their server and offers little or no additional services.
So, everything from software maintenance to backups is your responsibility, which might be a difficult task for non-technical users! Some popular examples of unmanaged hosting are Digital Ocean, AWS, Google Cloud, Linode, Vultr, etc.
Whereas, if you go with a managed web host, apart from providing server space, it handles everything from server maintenance, software updates, security, backups, etc on your behalf. You also get to see more reliable support.
However, these managed cloud hosts cost a little higher than the regular ones. Some examples of managed hosting might be Cloudways, Kinsta, WPEngine, etc.
Advantages of Managed Hosting
Opting for a Managed Cloud provider might be a great option for beginners because it offers a bunch of advantages. For example:
- No technical knowledge is required
- Automated one-click backups and restoration process.
- More responsive and reliable support is available at all times.
- Saves a lot of time spent configuring the website
- Advanced security against viruses, malware, and unauthorized users.
- Cloud Server maintenance, software updates, and website monitoring are performed by their technical experts.
Cloudways Overview
Cloudways is a Managed Cloud Hosting company that is built on top of 5 unmanaged web hosts – DigitalOcean, Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Linode, and Vultr.
In Cloud Hosting, your data is stored on multiple servers which ensures better uptime and easier site migrations in case of accidents.
Find all the features of Cloudways summarized in the table below.
⭐ Rating | 4.3 |
💲 Price | Starts From $11/mo |
⚡ Speed | 1.22 sec |
🕒 Uptime | 99.99% |
🔗 Free Domain | ❌ No |
🌎 Data Centers | 65+ data centers across America, Europe, Asia, and Australia |
➡️ Migrations | 1 |
👨💻 Support | Live Chat, Email, Community Forum |
🛡️ Security | Free SSL, Malware Protection, DDoS Protection, 2FA, Firewall |
🔄 Backups | 1 - 4 weeks |
💰 Money back guarantee | N.A. |
🔥 Coupon Code | "KRIPESH" - get 20% off for first 3 months |
Cloudways Review Video
If you are a video person, you can check out my Cloudways Review for 2024 here. (It’s in Hindi with English subtitles). Hope you enjoy watching it!
Cloudways User Interface
The user interface of Cloudways is modern with an attractive design. All the options and tabs are well-organized and easily accessible.
Cloudways does not have the usual cPanel like ChemiCloud, FastComet, or A2 Hosting. It comes with a custom panel that leaves the traditional cPanel behind!
The interesting thing about this custom control panel is that it grants you both application-level and server-level access!
Recently, Cloudways has launched its New Unified Interface, which is clean, modern, and highly versatile. It splits your servers into Flexible Apps and Autoscale apps, that you can access from the dashboard.
The side navigation helps you easily access all the features and settings from the left panel without any hassle.
Now, with the updated UI, there is no learning curve with Cloudways. The dashboard and the entire management experience is smooth and easy for beginners and professionals.
If you’re a complete beginner, you can check out my Cloudways Training Program! I’ve discussed all the features of Cloudways in detail below. Keep reading!
Cloudways Testing Parameters
For this Cloudways review, I have purchased the DigitalOcean Standard Server (Singapore location). This server is priced at $10 $11/month.
I have made use of the following services and settings on my website:
- Ocean WP Theme (Elementor Based)
- Gym Template (Elementor Based)
- Breeze Cache Plugin by Cloudways (with default settings)
Note – This website is also hosted on Cloudways currently.
For presenting an unbiased and honest review of this hosting, I have conducted multiple tests on my Cloudways website. These include the SRT test, Speed Test, Uptime Test, Load Test, etc. I have also shared the results along with my personal opinions and suggestions.
Apart from that, I have also thoroughly tested additional features of Cloudway, like its data centers, backups, staging support, security features, CDN, migrations, customer support, and more.
I have tried to make this review as comprehensive as possible, covering all features of Cloudways hosting.
Cloudways Server Response Time
I have opted for the Singapore servers with the Cloudways Digital Ocean Starter plan. Therefore, you’ll observe better Server Response Time in Asian regions.
When I tested the SRT in Singapore, it came out to be just 1 ms, which is extraordinarily fast! Then, the SRT kept on increasing in other Asian regions, including Japan (68 ms) and Mumbai (82 ms).
Unlike ChemiCloud, Rocket.net, and A2 Hosting, Cloudways does not support Litespeed servers. Instead, they implement a powerful combination of Apache and Nginx servers that guarantee improved performance. Overall, the Server Response Time was quite impressive!
Cloudways Speed Test
Talking about website speeds, Cloudways hosting offers super-swift speeds. To confirm this, I performed speed tests on my test website from India and US. My servers are based in Singapore. Now, let’s look at the results.
When I tested the website speeds from India, I noted speeds of merely 1.22 seconds. This is excellent considering I had not optimized the Breeze Cache plugin at all!
Next, when I tested my website speeds from US, I noticed speeds of 3.43 sec.
Overall, the speeds on Cloudways hosting are exceptional in the Asian regions due to my Singapore servers. You can also look at ChemiCloud and FastComet for great speeds!
Cloudways Uptime
Even though Cloudways does not offer an uptime guarantee, it’s excellent anyway l! I have been monitoring the uptime of my website hosted on Cloudways for the last 365 days using the Better Uptime tool. This tool checks the uptime of my website every 30 seconds.
Cloudways Uptime Status Report (Last 12 Months):
Here’s the uptime report for Cloudways Digital Ocean Singapore Servers for the last 457 days.
November 2024 | 99.89% |
October 2024 | 99.97% |
September 2024 | 99.99% |
August 2024 | Downtime |
July 2024 | 99.39% |
June 2024 | 99.99% |
May 2024 | 99.99% |
April 2024 | 99.97% |
March 2024 | 99.98% |
February 2024 | 100% |
January 2024 | 100% |
December 2023 | 100% |
November 2023 | 100% |
October 2023 | 100% |
September 2023 | 99.93% |
August 2023 | 100% |
July 2023 | 100% |
June 2023 | 99.99% |
May 2023 | 100% |
April 2023 | 100% |
March 2023 | 100% |
February 2023 | 100% |
The uptime on my website in the last month has been an unbeatable 100%. Along with that, the average uptime that I observed in the last 365 days was again 99.99%, which is highly impressive!
And FYI, my website has not experienced any downtime in the last month!
Note : I have an active plan of Cloudways $11 DO Servers. Every month, the uptime will be updated.
So, I loved the uptime of Cloudways. Even the $10 $11/month servers of DigitalOcean performed exceptionally well and I didn’t face any issues at all! You can also check out Rocket.net for 100% uptime!
Cloudways Load Testing
For conducting the load test, I sent 100 virtual users on my website which made a total of 17.5k requests. You’ll be surprised to know that none of the requests failed!
The P95 response time was merely 8.77 ms, which is exceptionally fast! Whereas, the peak response time went up to 99 req/sec. Overall, there were no major spikes in the response time, which was amazing!
So, we can conclude that Cloudways is good for handling high traffic. It can handle stress without increasing response time or suffering any downtime. You can also check ChemiCloud, Rocket.net, and FastComet if you are looking for good load management capacities.
Cloudways Data Centers
Cloudways hosting offers 75+ data centers that are distributed across the globe. On their website, you can view the locations of all the servers for DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS, Google Cloud, and Vultr.
Update: As of May 2024, Cloudways has reintroduced Linode and Vultr cloud servers along with new server additions. So, now you can enjoy improved performance with better geographical coverage on all servers.
Cloud Server | Server Locations |
Digital Ocean | 9 data centers in the USA, North America, UK, Europe, Asia, Australia |
AWS | 20 data centers in the USA, North America, South America, UK, Asia, Europe, South Africa, Middle East, Asia, Australia |
Google Cloud | 18 data centers in the USA, North America, South America, UK, Europe, Asia, Australia |
Linode | 11 data centers in the USA, North America, UK, Europe, Asia, Australia |
Vultr | 19 data centers in the USA, North America, UK, Europe, Asia, Australia |
Cloudways Domain Name
Cloudways is not a domain name registrar, so you won’t find the functionality to register domains with them. You don’t get any free domains either.
However, if you have not yet connected your domain to your hosting, Cloudways provides you with a temporary domain that you can use to preview how your website appears. It is also called a Preview URL, and is free to use forever!
If you’re still in the process of figuring out a name for your website or brand, these domain name generators might help you decide on a catchy name!
With the new UI update on Cloudways, they have simplified the process of adding a domain. You can add a new domain with a single ‘Add Domain’ button.
If you’ve added multiple domain names to your Cloudways account, they are listed as Alias under the primary domain. You can quickly mark any of your domains as primary and even bulk delete them if required.
Overall, the domain addition and management process has now been simplified by Cloudways.
Cloudways Cache Plugin
Cloudways has its own in-house caching plugin called the Breeze Cache Plugin. This plugin optimizes your WordPress site and also reduces page load time.
Other than this, they also have several other built-in caching systems like Varnish, Memcached, Nginx, and Redis that are designed to offer fast performance and a smooth experience!
Cloudways Backups and Restoration
On Cloudways, you can create three different backups.
1. Scheduled Backups
It refers to automated backups performed by Cloudways Hosting. However, you are free to customize the backup preferences as you like.
For example, you can set a backup frequency, time, and retention frequency, and all your further backups will be taken according to that schedule.
2. On Demand Backups
You can create manual backups of your database and files before implementing an important change on your website. Manual backups can be taken at any time you prefer.
3. Local Backups
It makes a copy of the latest data that you backed up using the above methods and stores it on your server.
Talking about Backup Restoration, you can restore your backups with a single click using their Restore Service. The number of entries stored in the backup depends on the preferences you mentioned earlier.
Cloudways also offers partial restoration options.
So, on selecting a backup version, you can choose to restore only web files, only databases, or restore everything. Overall, the backup and restoration facility provided by Cloudways is exceptional.
However, the Backups service of Cloudways is not free. They charge $0.033 per GB of data backed up, which amounts to ₹2.74/GB. But the catch is that they’re rounding up the backup charges to a $0.5 increment!
Thus, you’ll have to pay a minimum of $0.5 even if you back up only 1 GB of website data!
Opting for the backup service is compulsory by default if you purchase a Cloudways hosting. Your backups are stored on a different server for better recovery management.
Cloudways Server Recovery
Recently, Cloudways also introduced a Server Recovery feature that lets you restore a deleted server within 15 days!
If you accidentally delete a server from your account, this impressive security feature will help you restore everything to normal.
Cloudways Support
With Cloudways, you get email support and 24/7/365 live chat support, but no call support.
I received comprehensive replies from their live chat support team in under 5 minutes. They’re certainly knowledgeable but the frequency of their replies kept fluctuating between 2 to 5 minutes.
Their Live Chat is available in 3 different stages. If you need advanced support, you can check out the following.
- The Standard support is free and available 24/7.
- The Advanced support add-on promises faster response time and deeper troubleshooting. It comes for $100/month!
- The Premium support offers 24/7/365 days of call support, dedicated account manager, and a private Slack channel. This add-on costs a massive $500/month!
They also feature an extensive knowledge base of helpful annotated articles, a community forum, and a blog where they post content around startups, eCommerce, affiliates, apps, and the latest updates on Cloudways.
Overall, I faced no major problems with Cloudways customer support and got my queries solved quickly and effectively.
Cloudways Pricing
Cloudways offers a variety of pricing plans for all 5 hosting providers. Their DigitalOcean plans start from $10/month $11/month, where you get 1 GB RAM, 25 GB storage space, and 1 TB Bandwidth.
They also implement the unique ‘Pay as you Go’ payment model. This means if you use a server for 2 days, you’ll have to pay the amount for 2 days only!
Their lowest specification server, (1 GB plan of DigitalOcean that costs $11/month) costs $0.015/hour, which amounts to just ₹1.24, which is extremely affordable!
The best part about Cloudways is that the renewal rates remain the same for all their plans. Another important thing to note here is that Cloudways charges you double the plans laid out by the individual hosting providers.
So, if DigitalOcean offers its Starter plan at $5/month, on Cloudways, you will get the same for double the amount. Sure, you could go with the individual hosting providers for a reduced cost. However, then you will lose the ‘Managed’ aspect of web hosting.
Cloudways charges more because it offers top-notch security, support, and maintenance of your server and applications. Basically, it charges for the managed hosting part.
Cloudways Best Plan
Well, if you’re just starting out with your website, I would recommend going with the Standard plans of DigitalOcean which now start from $11/month.
Apart from that, you can also check out Vultr High-Frequency servers that come for $16/month. They offer faster speeds and would be worth it if you have an eCommerce store.
Cloudways Free Trial
You get a 3-day free trial on their DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr hosting providers without requiring a credit card.
This might seem very limited, but I think it is enough to test out all the functions and features of Cloudways and then decide if you should purchase it.
Cloudways Payment Methods
It primarily supports payments through Credit and Debit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex) and Paypal. However, in some rare cases, you can also pay through Wire Transfer, but the minimum amount has to be at least $1000!
If your priority is Indian payment options, Hostinger and Bluehost would be suitable hosting platforms for you!
Cloudways Refund Policy
Unlike other hosting solutions like A2 Hosting or Bluehost, Cloudways doesn’t have any Refund Policy. However, you get to see a 3-day free trial that does not require a credit card.
This is good for getting a test run of their services to decide if you need them.
Cloudways Discount Coupon Code
Yes, I have a special discount code for you! All you need to do is to purchase a Cloudways hosting plan using my link and enter the coupon code KRIPESH.
This will give you an additional 20% off on your favorite hosting plan for the next 3 months. For more details, keep an eye on my Cloudways coupon code article.
Cloudways Freebies
Here are some freebies that you get with your Cloudways subscription.
Cloudways Training Program
Now, coming to the most awaited part! Well, I have created a dedicated Cloudways Training Program which is currently hosted on Thinkific course creator.
It comprises video tutorials in Hindi language and covers all important topics from setting up Cloudways hosting, to setting up WordPress, creating backups, managing cache, and emails, connecting Cloudflare CDN, etc.
Users who purchase any hosting plan of Cloudways through my link would get free entry into this program. So, check out my Cloudways training program article to know how you can enroll in it!
Lightning Blogs Blogging Course
Recently, I have also launched a Lightning Blogs Blogging Course that will help beginners in creating a blog from scratch using free themes and templates. Through this course, you can create an attractive and optimized blog with a 90+ page speed score in just 7 days!
You can enroll in this course separately or get it for free along with your Cloudways hosting. To know the detailed process of getting this course, check out my Blogging Course article.
Astra Pro Theme with Cloudways
Here’s good news for Cloudways customers! Recently, Cloudways has partnered with Astra where they are providing Astra Pro for free for a complete year!
With Astra Pro, you will get access to hundreds of well-designed templates, sticky headers, white labeling, blog layouts, advanced color controls, and a lot more on unlimited websites for a duration of 1 year.
After 1 year, you will be charged $4/month for unlimited websites on your Astra Pro plan. You can read my detailed article to know how to get Astra Pro free with Cloudways.
Cloudways Migration
Cloudways offers to migrate your first website for free. This applies to all of its hosting plans. For WordPress users, you even get their own WordPress Migration plugin that helps you transfer your websites easily.
For more migrations, you are charged on the basis of applications. If your priority is migrations, a better option would be ChemiCloud. It offers 50 cPanel migrations for free!
Cloudways Staging
Cloudways offers a staging environment with all its plans. Staging helps you create a copy of your entire website and test changes over it.
These changes are done locally and don’t reflect on the live website. Once you are happy with the changes, you can implement them on your live website with a single click.
So, if you want to test a change, you will first need to clone your live website.
You can do this using the ‘Push’ operation. All you need to do is:
- Select the Staging application and hit the Push button.
- Select if you wish to clone only the application files or the entire database.
It will create a clone of your website. Now you can modify it and test out changes over it.
After you are done, you can use the Pull operation to copy your clone site’s data to the original one with a single click. Sounds easy, right?
Cloudways offers 2 types of options while copying your files.
- Overwriting copies the changes on top of the previous ones. So, it completely replaces your original data with the new one.
- Incrementing only copies the changes that you’ve made to the files and all the other files remain as they were originally.
Overall, I was pretty impressed with the quick and effective Staging functionality offered by Cloudways.
Cloudways Security
Security is the most important aspect of your website. Cloudways offers the following security features.
- 2FA: With Two Factor Authentication, you can protect your logins with security codes generated by Authenticator apps like Authy or Google Authenticator.
- New Login Alert: When a new device logs in to your Cloudways account, you can enable email notifications or receive a security code for verifying that device!
- Unlimited SSL: Unlimited Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates can be installed on all websites for free. They also support third-party SSL certificates.
- Bot Protection: It actively blocks hackers and bots and prevents them from harming your site.
- Server Monitoring Alerts: If the downtime of the server or any of the resources exceeds 10 minutes, you are automatically notified via email.
- Firewall: It protects your website from malware and cyber-attacks.
- IP Blocking: You can Blocklist or whitelist certain IP addresses from accessing your website.
Apart from these, Cloudways has also introduced the following security tools.
WordPress Vulnerability Scanner
Recently, Cloudways has introduced the WordPress Vulnerability Scanner powered by Patchstack.
It keeps on checking the Patchstack vulnerability database to detect any vulnerabilities in the plugin and theme versions installed on your WordPress site.
Additionally, if the vulnerabilities have been fixed in the newer versions of the themes or plugins, it recommends upgrading them to the latest version.
Cloudways Safe Updates
If you use the WordPress CMS for managing and publishing your blog posts, you might be at risk! The plugins and themes that we use on WordPress might have vulnerabilities that can result in your entire website getting compromised.
Thus, Cloudways has recently come up with a fantastic solution in the form of Safe Updates for WordPress. It works by taking a backup of your website and creating a staging website.
The updates are performed on this staging site and screenshots are taken before and after the updates. Then various speed and performance tests are performed on the staging site to check for any complexities or errors.
Once all the updates are checked thoroughly, they are pushed onto your live website. The advantage of this update is that your website won’t suffer any downtime, design changes, breakdowns, or performance issues.
Talking about pricing, for 1-3 applications, you would be charged $3/month for every application. Whereas, for more than 6 applications, you’d be charged $2/month for every application.
Cloudways Additional Features
Inode Count
Inode Count refers to the total number of files stored on your hosting plan. In my $10/month $10/month plan of DigitalOcean, I get 16 lakh inodes, which is around 4 times higher than other hosting providers like Hostinger, ChemiCloud, and FastComet which offer 3-6 lakh inodes.
If you’re looking for unlimited inodes on your hosting account, Rocket.net would be a suitable option.
Cloudways Account Sharing
Account Sharing is a unique feature for a hosting provider. Cloudways lets you add team members to your account and grant them access to your console.
You can either grant them full access to your hosting account, or share partial access to specific servers, applications, or categories like Billing, Console, Support, Specific Server, etc.
All these permissions are helpful in situations where you need to give your account access to your clients, manager, support staff, etc.
Cloudways Vertical Scaling
With Cloudways hosting, you can scale your server, CPU, and storage space as you encounter any spikes in your website traffic.
With DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr, this process is permanent and you can’t scale down your resources again. Whereas, if you go with Google Cloud or AWS, you can seamlessly scale your services up or down as per your requirements!
With different providers, you get different services. For example, Google Cloud and AWS let you scale your server, CPU, and storage individually.
But the Linode, Vultr, and DigitalOcean only let you scale up all of them together. This is inconvenient, especially if you have no need for scaling the other factors.
I’ve discussed a hack to downgrade your server on my Cloudways Training Program. Also, Vertical Scaling may lead to server downtime. So, it is always recommended to scale your services during inactive hours.
Cloudways Autonomous
Recently, Cloudways has introduced the ‘Cloudways Autonomous‘ feature on their hosting platform. It is a fully managed WordPress solution that automatically upscales or downscales your servers according to the incoming traffic.
It adds 3 incredible features to your hosting solution – autoscaling, load balancing, and high website availability. You also get Cloudflare’s Enterprise-grade CDN and Edge cache along with the premium Redis Object Cache Pro plugin.
All these features ensure top-notch performance and high website uptime. Cloudways Autonomous is ideal for anyone using WordPress or WooCommerce for their websites. Its pricing starts from an expensive rate of $35/month.
Cloudways Self-Healing Servers
Cloudways has these unique self-healing servers that automatically restart in case any issue is encountered.
So, if the server goes down, you don’t have to do anything. It will automatically start functioning on its own.
You can also keep a check on the status of the processes running on your server from the Manage Services tab under Server Management. In case of any issues, you can manually restart or stop any service with a single click!
Cloudways Website Traffic Metrics
With Cloudways console, you can keep a check on your website traffic and other important metrics like:
- IP Requests: It shows which IP address is accessing your site the most.
- Bot Traffic: It displays a list of bots consuming your website resources, so you can block them instantly.
- URL Requests: It shows the most visited URLs on your site.
- Status Codes: It helps you keep a tab on web pages that are inaccessible due to 404 error, 502 error, etc.
Cloudways Email Hosting
Unfortunately, Cloudways does not offer free email hosting on any of its plans. Their add-on called Rackspace Email lets you host one professional email account for $1 per month.
However, there are ways through which you can use email hosting for free. Want to know what they are? I’ve discussed them all in my Cloudways Training program. So, make sure you check it out!
In my recommendation, Zoho Emails would be a pretty good option if you need email functionality on your site.
Cloudways CDN
Well, Cloudways does not provide a free CDN with its hosting plans. The Cloudways CDN add-on is not included with the hosting pack but can be enabled at a cost of $1 per 25 GB.
If you are looking for a free CDN, you can connect the Cloudflare CDN. Or you can also get access to the Cloudflare Enterprise Grade CDN with Cloudways now.
Cloudflare Enterprise CDN
Cloudways has now partnered with Cloudflare to provide you with its Enterprise Grade CDN at extremely affordable rates! The Enterprise CDN of Cloudflare is the most expensive and costs anywhere between $1000 to $5000 per month.
However, if you have a Cloudways hosting, you can get the same Enterprise-grade CDN with all its advanced features at just $5/month! And if you have multiple websites hosted on Cloudways, you only need to pay $2/month for every website.
For more details, check out my article on Cloudways Cloudflare Enterprise.
Cloudways Technology and Applications
Talking about technology, Cloudways uses PHP 8.1 along with Apache and Nginx servers. It supports a variety of CMS platforms, eCommerce applications, and PHP-based apps. You can install WordPress, WooCommerce, PHP, Magento, and Laravel with a single click!
Whereas, 13 other applications, including Drupal, Joomla, PrestaShop, OpenCart, etc, can be installed on your server manually through the PHP Stack.
Is Cloudways Good for High-Traffic Websites?
After looking at these results, I would highly recommend Cloudways even for websites with high monthly traffic with over 1-2 lakh viewers per month. Why?
Because with its Vertical Scaling feature, you can upgrade or downgrade your servers whenever you want. Start with the $11/month plan of DigitalOcean and upgrade as your traffic grows. In case you want to downgrade later then also you can do it easily.
Cloudways Pros
1. Exceptional Speed
Because of its 65+ server locations and a combination of Apache and Nginx servers, you get to experience excellent speeds on all locations.
2. Unbeatable Uptime
Cloudways hosting offers an unbeatable uptime performance. Even the cheapest server of Digital Ocean provides 99.99% uptime.
3. Impressive Load Handling
The load-handling capability of Cloudways is par excellence! It passed our load tests with zero HTTP failures and a stable response time, even with many requests.
4. Unlimited Websites
Irrespective of the Cloudways plan you opt for, you get to create unlimited websites. So, you can host and manage all your websites in the same dashboard.
5. 75 Server Locations
Cloudways partners with 5 unmanaged web hosts, including AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr, which together offer 75+ data center locations to their users.
6. Customizable Backups
With Cloudways, you get full control over your server and your apps. You can either create on-demand backups or set your backup preferences for automated backups as frequently as you need.
7. All-Round Security
It offers a bunch of security features to safeguard your website from malicious software, unauthorized users, malware, and more. They have also introduced the WordPress Vulnerability Scanner which detects vulnerabilities in your website themes and plugins.
8. Good Customer Support Quality
I personally liked their live chat support. All their representatives were technically well-versed, and I had no issues with getting my queries resolved.
9. Managed Cloud Service
Because Cloudways is a Managed Hosting Provider, everything from backups to server management, app installation, and resource monitoring is just one click away!
You also get responsive support and automated updates for all your apps!
10. Scalable
Cloudways platform is extremely flexible because, at any point in time, you can scale your servers up as per spikes in your website traffic. They have recently introduced the premium Cloudways Autonomous service that automatically upscales or downscales your server as per traffic.
11. Constant Updates
Cloudways hosting keeps on actively implementing updates and new features frequently on their platform. This is how it maintains its position as one of the best hosts in the market!
12. No Extra Renewal Fee
On Cloudways, you are charged a fixed amount for new hosting and its renewal. You don’t need to pay anything extra for renewal, which is great! They also have a unique ‘pay as you go‘ pricing model, so users only pay for what they use.
Cloudways Cons
1. No Email Hosting
Sadly, you don’t get free email hosting on Cloudways. You can enable this feature through their Rackspace add-on for $1/month for one email account.
2. No Free CDN
Most hosting services provide CDN for free on their plans. But Cloudways doesn’t offer a free CDN on any of its plans.
3. Acquired by Digital Ocean
There have been no major performance changes since the acquisition by Digital Ocean. However, the Vultr and Linode servers have been removed now.
4. Slight Learning Curve
Techno-friendly users would have no problems with operating the Cloudways console. However, beginners might experience a slight learning curve with the numerous options and settings.
5. No Free Domain
Cloudways does not function as a domain registration service. So, you need to register your domain on some other domain registrar like GoDaddy or Dynadot and then get hosting for it using Cloudways.
6. More Charges on Larger Server
The hosting prices keep on increasing as you go on scaling up your server size. For example, the Starter plan of DigitalOcean servers with 25 GB space costs $10/month $11/month. But their 160 GB servers cost you $88/month!
Cloudways Alternatives
If your work heavily revolves around WordPress CMS, then Cloudways is an excellent option for you. However, if you want to look for alternatives, you can check out the few mentioned below.
1. Rocket.net
Rocket.net is a fully managed WordPress hosting platform that offers lightning-fast speeds, unbeatable uptime, good load management, and auto-scaling features.
Similar to Cloudways, it also offers advanced security, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, good backup features, and doesn’t support email hosting. However, its pricing plans are quite expensive for beginners. Its plans start from $25/month.
You can get your hosting plan for merely $1 for the first month by entering the coupon code LAUNCH at checkout! If that doesn’t work, you can get 30% off your hosting for 1st three months by using the coupon code KRIPESH at checkout.
2.Nexcess
Nexcess is a premium managed hosting service that offers exceptional load management, fast speeds and uptime, and auto-scaling features.
However, unlike Cloudways, Nexcess also features free unlimited email hosting, premium plugins, etc. The only downside of Necess is its average support, lack of free domains, and average CDN services.
The pricing plans of Nexcess start from an expensive price of $21/month. But with my link, you can get the Starter plan for just $13/month. Along with that, you’ll also get access to premium WordPress plugins like iThemes Security Pro, Astra Pro, etc.
3.Kinsta
Kinsta is a managed WordPress hosting with competitive pricing and features. It is one of the easiest hosting services with lightning-fast speeds and excellent performance and security.
Similar to Cloudways, you get 24/7 support, free CDN, SSH access, security services, and manual and automated daily backups on all plans. Its 30-day refund policy and unlimited free migrations give it an upper hand on Cloudways.
The hosting plans of Kinsta start at an expensive price of $30/month. But if you use my link, you can get 2 months of free hosting with your favorite Kinsta plan.
4. Flywheel
Flywheel is a managed WordPress hosting that is mainly focused on clients and agencies. It offers excellent speeds, unmatched uptime, and efficient load management along with robust security tools.
Its loads of workflow management tools and 10 StudioPress themes make it stand out from Cloudways. If you’re a designer, developer, or agency, Flywheel has convenient tools to improve your client’s experience.
The hosting plans of Flywheel start from a slightly expensive price of $13/month.
Cloudways Vs Rocket.net Vs Kinsta Vs Flywheel
Factors | Cloudways | Rocket.net | Kinsta |
---|---|---|---|
⭐ Rating | 4.3 | 4.5 | 4.5 |
💲 Price | $11/mo | $25/mo | $30/mo |
⚡ Speed | 1.22 sec | 1.7 sec | 1.4 sec |
🕒 Uptime | 99.99% | 99.99% | 99.99% |
🔗 Free Domain | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No |
🌎 Data Centers | 65+ data centers across America, Europe, Asia, and Australia | North America, Europe, Australia, Asia | USA, North and South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe |
🔄 Backups | 1 - 4 weeks | 14 days | 14 days |
➡️ Migrations | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
💰 Money back guarantee | N.A. | 30 days | 30 days |
🏆 Best For | High Traffic Websites and eCommerce stores | Professionals earning decent revenue from their website | High traffic and eCommece sites |
🔍 Review | Cloudways Review | Rocket.net Review | Kinsta Review |
🔥 Coupon Code | "KRIPESH" - get 20% off for first 3 months | 1st month for $1 with my link | Get 2 months free with my link |
Should you use Cloudways?
In my opinion, Cloudways is still one of the best web hosts for 2024. It provides you with superior performance in terms of speed, scalability, uptime, and load testing. Apart from that, it also offers powerful options for backups and security.
In the past year, they’ve implemented a lot of updates on their platform. These include Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, Astra Pro Collaboration, Safe Updates, Partial Restoration, WordPress Vulnerability Scanner, Cloudways Autonomous, New User Interface, and more.
Thus, Cloudways offers you top-quality service with constant updates at a good price point. This is why I find it worth every dollar of your money spent!
If you have good traffic (over 100k+) on your blog or are earning money out of your blog, then Cloudways would be a great choice. Small to mid-sized businesses, professional bloggers, resellers, agencies, and seasonal websites definitely look at Cloudways.
However, if you want a hosting solution on a budget, you can go with Hostinger, Chemicloud, or FastComet.
Why Should You Trust Me?
I have been working full-time in the digital domain since 2015. In all these years, I have extensively used a range of web hosting companies for my work and clients.
I have been a paid user of Cloudways for the last three years and have reviewed it every year since then. In fact, my personal blog kripeshadwani.com is hosted on Cloudways as well!
Hostinger, FastComet, and ChemiCloud are some noteworthy hosting that I’ve reviewed as well. I still have active plans for over a dozen hosting services and regularly update their latest features and uptime data on my blog every month.
Constantly using and testing a variety of hosting services has given me enough knowledge, experience, and expertise to compare their features and recommend you the best ones for your requirements.
Conclusion
With Cloudways, you get excellent speeds, uptime, reliable customer support, a modern interface, and top-notch security at affordable rates. It lets you create unlimited websites and keeps on adding new features quite often.
Thus, Cloudways proves to be a powerful and functional package of hosting for 2024. If you want to try out Cloudways, you can use my link and get a 20% discount on any plan of your choice. You will also get a free entry into my Cloudways training program. So, go grab this offer right away!
I have personally hosted my blog on Cloudways. However, after the recent acquisition of Cloudways, I am thinking of switching to a different host like Nexcess. This is because Cloudways would become expensive as my traffic grows and Nexcess would be a suitable and cost-effective option then.
Anyway, if you find my content useful, don’t forget to subscribe to my weekly newsletter where I share updates on my latest videos, blog posts, and the best discount deals running on digital tools!
This is Kripesh signing off. See you in the next article. Keep learning! 🙂
FAQ
Is Cloudways good for e-commerce plans?
Yes, Cloudways’ eCommerce plans are outstanding! They offer an innovative combination of Nginx and Apache servers that promise better performance.
Is it possible to scale servers up & down on Cloudways?
Yes, you can easily scale your server up from the Vertical Scaling tab under Server Settings. However, for Vultr, Linode, and DigitalOcean servers, this change is permanent and you cannot scale it back down. Though, you can shift it easily to a new downgraded server.
When do I pay for services on Cloudways?
Cloudways implements a ‘Pay as you go’ service on all its plans. This means that you only pay for the time you use their services and not for the entire month/year.
What are the payment methods supported on Cloudways?
Cloudways supports payments through Credit and Debit Cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex), and Paypal. It also supports the Wire Transfer service, which is only accessible on a minimum purchase of $1000.
When not to use Cloudways hosting?
Absolute beginners might experience a slight learning curve with Cloudways. It is apt for technical users.
So, if you are a complete beginner to the world of web hosting, you can begin with shared hosting providers that offer an easy-to-use interface. Hostinger, Bluehost, HostArmada, are some examples.
What are the key features of Cloudways Hosting?
The key features of Cloudways Hosting include a unique managed hosting infrastructure, 65+ data center locations, one-click vertical scaling, website staging, swift speeds, and uptime, and its ‘Pay as you go’ payment model.
Where is Cloudways based?
Cloudways has its headquarters in Malta, Europe.
Does Cloudways offer free migration?
Yes, you get one free website migration with all the plans of Cloudways. And if you want to transfer your WordPress website, they offer a dedicated WordPress Migration plugin as well!
How many cloud providers does Cloudways have?
Cloudways offers 5 cloud providers, namely AWS, DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, and Google Cloud.
What is the difference between DigitalOcean and Cloudways?
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform built on top of 3 unmanaged hosting providers. One of them is DigitalOcean. Cloudways users can opt for a DigitalOcean server for hosting their website.
What if I want to scale resources down on Cloudways?
It depends on your server. Scaling your resources down is not possible if you have the servers of DigitalOcean, Linode, or Vultr. Once you scale these servers, the changes are permanent.
However, AWS and Google Cloud offer unlimited scaling up and down of resources. But their plans are expensive!
What makes Cloudways different from other web hosting companies?
The unique Managed hosting infrastructure of Cloudways built on 3 unmanaged cloud hosts makes it different from other hosting companies.
Thus, you can enjoy the features of managed and unmanaged hosting together!
How easy is it to launch your website on Cloudways?
It’s pretty easy. All you need to do is log in to your account and click on ‘Add a Server’. Next, you need to select an application, your server type, size, and server location. And it’s done!
How much traffic can Cloudways $11 server handle?
The $11/month plan of the DigitalOcean server on Cloudways can handle high traffic of up to 1-2 lakh visitors per month.
Does Cloudways charge extra for email hosting?
Yes, you can subscribe to their Rackspace Email add-on that costs $1/month for one email account.
Does Cloudways have a website builder?
Unfortunately, you won’t find a website builder with Cloudways.
Does Cloudways offer free backups?
No. Cloudways charges $0.033 per GB of data that you back up. However, they round up the charges to a $0.5 increment. So, if you wish to back up just 1 GB of data, you’ll have to pay a minimum of $0.5 to them.
Does Cloudways have a free trial?
Yes, you can get a 3-day free trial of Cloudways’ services. You don’t need to enter your credit card details for availing it. However, it only applies to Digital Ocean, Vultr, and Linode servers.
Cloudways Pros (+)
- Swift Speed
- Excellent Uptime
- Good Load Handling
- Unlimited Websites
- 65 Server Locations
Cloudways Cons (-)
- No Email Hosting
- No Free CDN
- Acquired by Digital Ocean
- Slight Learning Curve
I am regular visitor of your youtube channel, I want to share cloudways experience with you.
When I installed Breeze cache my website traffic down 99% immediately. Told your users, if they face this situation, remove Breeze and use other cache plugin.
Second. Cloudways support team is awesome. They migrate my website with subdirectory with two different databases.
They told that they charge 25$ for every migration but they migrate subdirectory for free and its work smoothly.
Also add point in your article My 2GB DO plan handle 600K traffic with 4 installed applications.
And, I want to see your article on the top. Good luck
Thank you so much for sharing your experience Mehul.
This will help a lot of users.
And thanks for the wishes 🙂
for most websites, shared hosting better, and more secured than cloudways, that popping costy addons.
i better pf looking for shared hosting thab that greedy company
which hostinger best for usa traffic sitecountry and cloudways?
Cloudways
Hello,
Thanks for providing such great, in-depth knowledge. You have given information about every aspect.
I want to know whether Cloudways also provides shared, VPS, and dedicated server plans.
It doesn’t provide shared, VPS or dedicated servers.
Thank you so much for your reply… 🙏🙏
Plz share best domain provider.
I love Namecheap for their service and the price point they offer.
Careful with Cloudways! They will keep your credit card information after you delete your account.
Support at first threatens with debt collectors because of their mistake, then stops responding whatsoever.
Never experienced such awful service.
Cloudways là bọn lừa đảo chuyên ăn cướp tiền hoa hồng của đối tác. Khách Hàn Quốc đừng nên bỏ tiền đăng ký dịch vụ của bọn này, chúng nó đánh giá Hàn Quốc như một nền văn minh chưa được khai hoá, nghèo nàn lạc hậu, không đủ khả năng trả tiền để sử dụng dịch vụ của chúng nó. Không có bất cứ văn bản nào cấm kiếm khách hàng ở thị trường Hàn Quốc, mà khi kiếm được khách xong nó đổ tại thị trường Hàn Quốc lạc hậu, tệp khách hàng Hàn Quốc kém chất lượng… vin lý do để huỷ hoa hồng 30k USD của tôi. Bọn khốn kiếp ăn chặn tiền mồ hôi xương máu của người khác.
Cloudways is a good choice but in recent times I’ve noticed a decline in some of the things I once loved about it . Since being taken over by digital ocean, they have had some console issue where sometimes I was unable log into my console. I also noted they removed Linode and Vultr as options for new users. I believe because these servers are direct competitors to Digital Ocean. But I find they perform better than DO Infrastructure. They denied this claim when asked privately but I think we all know how amalgamations work and no other reason was given.
I still think it has good support and the customer service is always obliging even reaching out to discuss things.
But for me my journey ended only because I have clients who I need to direct to high functioning servers at a cost efficient price and with Linode or Vultr as an option, I can’t refer them any longer.
But if Digital Ocean Servers are a good choice for your tech stack. or you are able to invest into Amazon and Google Infrastruture, Cloudways certainly has many perks to explore as a software stack. Unlike Kinsta they do not charge extra for Redis and Memcache addons.
My suggestion is if you use them to not use their recommended plugins Breeze and the object cache. I find these technologies actually slow the site down and even moreso over time until the opcache is cleared. I used w3 total cache with page cache, browser cache and reverse proxy for Varnish and my sites were super slick.
Well said Mark, I also agree that ever since the acquisition from Digital Ocean, there seems to be a bit of a decline.
You mentioned your journey with Cloudways has ended, so I’m curious, which hosting are you using right now?
From my perspective, Nexcess and Nestify are two solid alternatives to Cloudways at the moment. Both offer robust features and reliable performance.
What do you think about these options?
Hello Kripesh,
abhi cloudways pe 30% off ka sale chalraha hain
kya mein apka link se purchase karke apka training program pe enroll kar sakta hu?
promo code mein auto SUMM304 a raha hain
Yes, you can use my cloudways link and enter their coupon code.
For the training program mail me the authorisation date and time.