Have you given hosting your WordPress website or any other kind of website a try with Cloudways? We’ll assist you in determining whether this well-known hosting company is appropriate for you in our in-depth evaluation of Cloudways.
Because it takes a different approach to hosting, Cloudways stands out a little in the hosting industry. Rather than supplying its own infrastructure, Cloudways allows you to choose from five alternative cloud hosting providers: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, and Google Cloud.
After that, Cloudways takes care of correctly establishing and maintaining the server and gives you a ton of helpful tools to administer your website.
This method’s main benefit is that it offers excellent performance at a reasonable cost.
This Is How Our Cloudways Review Was Tested
Since we always want our hosting reviews to be totally unbiased, in order to write this review, we created and paid for a personal Cloudways account. We had the exact same experience as you will, and neither Cloudways nor anyone else knew that we were writing a review or offered us a special deal.
The tests we conducted, the screenshots we took, and our overall observations were all derived from our actual use of the Cloudways account we bought.
Now that we have cleared things up, let’s get into our evaluation of Cloudways.
Key Features of Cloudways
Although Cloudways employs the distinct cloud hosting methodology that we discussed in the introduction, Cloudways continues to deliver a feature set that is competitive when compared to more “traditional” hosting companies.
Let’s start by discussing the hosting environment. Your server is configured using a hybrid “Apache + Nginx” stack by Cloudways. Next, it provides a variety of caching layers, such as Varnish, Memcached, and Nginx, to enhance performance. Redis can also be installed quickly using this approach.
All of this will be automatically implemented by Cloudways during server setup, including with server security and ongoing updates.
In addition, Cloudways provides the following practical features:
- On-demand single-site backups and automatic server-level backups
- backups
- locations for staging
- Breeze is a free performance plugin for WordPress
- Claiming a site
- Free SSL certifications
- Content delivery network (CDN) integrated
- For transactional emails, use SMTP at the server level.
- bot defense
- cron work scheduling
simple server tracking
- Adding team members as an option, to foster cooperation
Many of these features will be covered in greater detail later in our study.
Tests of Cloudways Performance
We’re going to start our practical Cloudways assessment by doing some performance tests. Performance is, after all, one of the most crucial factors of any hosting service.
We set up a full demo site and an actual test site using the well-liked Astra theme to evaluate Cloudways’s performance. Additionally, Cloudways automatically installs the Breeze performance optimization plugin on our test site.
We are utilizing the least expensive $10/month DigitalOcean server for our server.
Next, we used two tools to assess the speed of the website:
- We use WebPageTest to gather one-time performance metrics when using a throttled FIOS connection. After nine tests, we determined the median result.
- Check out Load Focus to see how well Cloudways performs at scale. Twenty people visited our website for a 60 seconds
WebPageTest
In the one-off WebPageTest investigation, Cloudways fared very well, with a median load time of less than 0.5 seconds. Among all the WordPress hosts we examined, this is one of the best outcomes:
Load Priority
Cloudways also fared very well in the Load Focus test. The 90th percentile response time was 611 ms, and the mean average response time was a mere 582 ms. Although Nexcess and WP Engine fared marginally better, this is one of the better performances we’ve observed from all the hosts we evaluated.
Even still, considering that our test site only costs $10 a month, Cloudways is light years ahead of other low-cost hosts.
All in all, Cloudways performed admirably in our tests—especially taking into account its low cost.
Cloudways User Interface
Since Cloudways offers a distinct experience, let’s begin with installing WordPress and configuring a server. Next, we’ll walk you through a few of the features that Cloudways’ unique dashboard provides to help you manage your servers and websites.
Starting up a Server and Setting Up WordPress
Upon registering with Cloudways, you will be required to start a server and set up an “application.” Any software that you wish to install on your server, such as WordPress, Magento, Laravel, and so on, is referred to as an application.
Three crucial choices are available to you after selecting your application and entering some basic information. You have a choice.
- Your supplier of cloud hosting
- The server’s resources
- The physical location of your server
After viewing the price summary at the bottom, click Launch Now to start building your server:
That’s it, too!
Taking Care of Your Server
There are two primary tabs on your Cloudways dashboard:
- Servers: this is where all of your cloud servers are managed.
- Applications: this is where you may control each of your own webpages.
When you access a server’s dashboard, you can control every aspect of the server, such as:
Monitoring: Pay attention to the resources on your server.
Vertical scaling allows you to quickly expand your server’s capacity.
Make sure you have backups of your whole server.
SMTP: At the server level, you can configure an SMTP provider for transactional emails.
Taking Care of Your WordPress Website
All of your WordPress sites are listed, if you select the Applications tab. The dashboard of a certain website will open when you click on it.
You can use all of the site-specific tools and information here, such as:
- viewing the credentials for FTP, MySQL, WordPress admin, and other accounts.
- linking domains to your website.
- cron job configuration.
- putting the free SSL certificate in place.
- Creating and keeping backups.
- Installing a website using Git.
- adding the Cloudways CDN in.
Examining a Few Practical WordPress Tools
Let’s now examine some of Cloudways’ most helpful tools for WordPress site management.
First, from the main Applications list, you can utilize Cloudways’ simple cloning and staging tool. Either build a real staging site, or simply copy your website to a new or alternative server:
A staging site that you establish will seem as a separate application, and you can simply push and pull data between it and your live site:
In addition to the server-level backups that Cloudways automatically creates, you can create on-demand backups for a specific site using the Backup and Restore tab:
To create your own server cron jobs, use the incredibly easy-to-use interface found on the Cron Job Management tab:
Lastly, a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate may be installed with a few clicks using the SSL Certificate tab:
We’re primarily trying to show that Cloudways does provide you with a full array of management tools that compares favorably against more “traditional” hosts, but this is by no means an exhaustive list of them.
Cloudways Assistance
At Cloudways, support can be a bit of a touchy subject.
Although Cloudways’s support is good for what it does, you should be aware that it isn’t as comprehensive as it could be with another host, particularly a managed WordPress host.
Both the Cloudways platform and your hosting server are supported by Cloudways by default. In the event that you encounter issues with either the server or Cloudways itself, Cloudways will undoubtedly step in and assist you.
They are available for contact via live chat support around-the-clock.
But by default, Cloudways does not offer application support. In other words, they don’t formally provide support for any programs—like WordPress—that you install on your server.
For instance, Cloudways’ support team can assist you if you’re experiencing issues with the WordPress installer that they provide. However, if you’re experiencing a problem with your WordPress website, Cloudways will occasionally assist you even if it’s not covered by the free service.
You can purchase premium support for a higher fee if you require this kind of advanced application help, but it is not inexpensive.
Cloudways Invoice
The cost of Cloudways is contingent upon the cloud hosting provider of your choice and the capacity of your server.
Generally speaking, the least expensive choice is the $10 entry-level DigitalOcean server, which already provides great performance. Utilizing our Cloudways discount will result in an even lower price.
There is no additional cost associated with cloud hosting. Both the Cloudways fees and the underlying cloud hosting charges are included in the price that you see at Cloudways.
It is important to keep in mind that the overall cost is typically more than the cost of the underlying hosting.
Here is an overview of the DigitalOcean plans, for instance:
- The total price comprises the Cloudways fee in addition to the underlying. You pay this amount each month.
- The cost of the managed VPS if you purchased it straight from DigitalOcean is called the “DigitalOcean Price.”
- Implied Cloudways Fee: the amount you essentially pay (total price minus DigitalOcean price) just for the Cloudways service.
| DigitalOcean Price | Implied Cloudways Free | Total Price | Tier (RAM) |
| $5 | $5 | $10 | 1 GB |
| $10 | $12 | $22 | 2 GB |
| $20 | $22 | $42 | 4 GB |
| $40 | $40 | $80 | 8 GB |
As you can see, when you improve your hosting, the premium you pay for Cloudways compared to the underlying cloud hosting increases, which creates an odd situation:
Cloudways is quite reasonably priced for servers with fewer resources. For instance, Cloudways provides exceptional value if you choose to purchase the entry-level server, which is suitable for the majority of websites. In this case, you are really only paying $5 a month to have Cloudways run your DigitalOcean server.
However, Cloudways can be pricey for what it delivers if you’re thinking about buying one of the higher-resource servers. Even though the Cloudways platform is the same in both cases, you pay a $40 premium for the 8 GB plan as opposed to a $5 premium for the 1 GB plan’s underlying hosting circumstances
Which Cloud Host Is Best for You?
If you’re unsure about which cloud hosting company to select, we advise utilizing the Vultr High Frequency servers first. Although they cost a bit more than the cheapest DigitalOcean servers, the enhanced performance makes the slight increase in cost worthwhile.
If necessary, you can scale your server after starting with the least expensive server and its fewest resources.
Cloudways Advantages and Disadvantages
As our evaluation of Cloudways draws to a close, let’s discuss some advantages and disadvantages of using Cloudways for hosting.
Advantages
- Outstanding value for the money: Excellent performance can be obtained even under scale with the least expensive Cloudways subscription.
- No capricious restrictions: There are no arbitrary website limits imposed by Cloudways. You can host as many sites as you like, provided your server has sufficient resources.
- Practical WordPress tools: this package includes features like backups, staging sites, a plugin for WordPress optimization, and much more.
- Server-level SMTP: This is a very helpful feature for sending emails that are dependable, as many other cloud server panels need you to configure SMTP services for every WordPress website you own.
Disadvantages
- A little more difficult than standard hosting: Once more, you do not have to be a developer, but those who are new to the field may wish to avoid it.
- The cost of servers with more resources is higher: Cloudways can be costly for high-resource servers since its fees are a multiple of the underlying hosting cost.
- Not hosting emails: To generate a personalized email address such as you@yoursite.com, an independent email hosting provider is required.
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FAQ for Cloudways Review 2024
Let’s explore some FAQs to wrap up our analysis of Cloudways.
Is Cloudways quick?
Indeed! In addition to being incredibly quick, Cloudways provides great value for the money. To obtain the finest performance on a budget, take a look at the Vultr High Frequency servers.
Is WordPress compatible with Cloudways?
Indeed! WordPress-specific capabilities including WordPress-optimized server-level caching, staging sites, a free WordPress optimization plugin, and more are included in Cloudways, which is an excellent platform for WordPress users.
Are new users suited for Cloudways?
While Cloudways is undoubtedly usable by non-developers, we wouldn’t advise complete novices who are launching their first websites to use it. Until you grasp the fundamentals of managing your website, you might want to select a more conventional host.
How long does the Cloudways free trial last?
Three days are allotted for the free trial. You will then have to pay for a plan.
How is billing handled by Cloudways?
Pay-as-you-go billing is available from Cloudways; long-term contracts are not required. Your monthly payment will be determined by your actual usage, which is calculated hourly. You will receive an invoice at the start of each month that is based on your usage from the previous month.
Which cloud hosting services are good substitutes for Cloudways?
There are several tools available to assist you in managing cloud hosting due to its growing popularity. The most well-liked choices are Ploi, RunCloud, GridPane, and SpinupWP.
These tools have a little increase in complexity.
Will Cloudways Still Be Useful in 2024 and Later?
Although Cloudways is an amazing host that may deliver extremely good performance for the money, as we indicated at the beginning, it isn’t the best option for everyone.
Now, let’s discuss when to use Cloudways and when to select a different host (as well as several excellent Cloudways substitutes).
Use Cloudways in the event that…
Because of its innovative approach to cloud hosting, Cloudways is an ideal choice for anyone searching for high performance on a budget. As long as you use page caching, you can host numerous websites with surprisingly high traffic on the least expensive DigitalOcean server.
Although Cloudways is slightly more complex than a regular website, if you’ve created a few websites previously, you should have no trouble utilizing it.
For those seeking high-performance hosting within the $10–$50 pricing range, Cloudways emerges as a highly viable choice.
To save some cash on your first three months, don’t forget to utilize our Cloudways coupon.