Product Name: Cloudways
Summary
After setting up another site here in 2022, I stopped worrying about ‘Resource Limits’ and started focusing on my content. Here’s my 1,000-day Cloudways review where I share all the drawbacks I’ve faced so far.
I don’t remember the exact date, but it was a heavy monsoon day in September 2022 when I switched to cloud hosting from my entry level shared host.
I wanted a host that grows with me. I mean, I don’t want to upgrade the plan each time I need extra ram or CPU power.
At the same time I wanted a host that avoids cheap tricks that cost me more than a normal subscription. In other words, I want transparency.
The name “Cloudways” did not come randomly. I read their existing reviews, and specifically 2 factors grabbed my attention. First is real time billing and instant server scaling.
If your goal is the same, then you can switch to cloud hosting servers. This technology offers extra reliable performance and gives you dedicated resources.
In a span of 3+ years, I am aware of a lot of Cloudways strengths and problems.
In this review, I will also show you how Cloudways perform in a bulk traffic situation.
Cloudways is not for everyone. Let’s find out if it suits you or not.
Disclaimer
We have been using Cloudways (DO 1 GB Premium Plan) for one of our websites for more than 3 years (Since September 2022) now.
Other resources used on this site: GeneratePress Premium theme plus WP Rocket caching plugin.
Table of Contents
- My Overall Cloudways Experience with Limitations:
- Speed Test:
- Cloudways TTFB / Server Response Time:
- Stress / Load Testing:
- Uptime Analysis:
- Support & Help:
- Automated Backups Are Easier But Things Are Paid:
- Real Time Billing Concept:
- User Interface:
- Words on Cloudways Pricing
- Top 3 Cloudways Alternatives & Competitors
- FAQs:
- Final Thoughts
My Overall Cloudways Experience with Limitations:
Here’s the honest truth after spending 1000+ days with Cloudways: It isn’t the most affordable choice for you, especially if you are looking for a free domain and emails.
But for a great performance, it’s been there for me. Now my site didn’t crash randomly. The uptime is good with minor issues. In the last year, my site went down a total of 16 minutes in an interval of 10 incidents.
I’ve been using a DigitalOcean 2GB Premium plan for over two years now. Most of the time, my billing remains less than the base plan.
In a bulk traffic situation like Black Friday, I simply toggle the resources up and down without upgrading the server on a permanent basis.
Cloudways still charges me $1/month for email and $0.333/GB for offsite backups. There is no built-in CDN, hence I am using Cloudflare for such.
Yes, that additional amount disappoints me. But I will continue paying as long as I keep getting good performance from Cloudways.
Cloudways Pros:
- Offered me hosting plans from 5 various cloud hosting platforms
- Gives me complete flexibility to add any number of sites i want
- You can pay for their hosting according to your usage as Cloudways charges you on a “pay as you go” basis
- 24/7 support, including live chat
- Free SSL with all plans
- Automated backups with all plans
- Offers a 1-click staging feature
- Provides you with 24/7 real-time monitoring
- The first website migration is free with Cloudways
Cloudways Cons:
- Cloudways doesn’t offer domain registration, so you have to buy your domain from domain registrars like NameCheap, GoDaddy, etc.
- Only 1 free migration service is available; for every subsequent migration, you have to pay $25 or do it yourself (which can be done easily with the help of Cloudways WordPress Migrator Plugin).
- If you want to create domain-based email addresses, you will have to pay some extra dollars. Cloudways email hosting add-on Rackspace price starts from $1.00/mailbox/month.
- Free CDN is not included.
Speed Test:
Cloudways has ranked as a top fast cloud hosting service in our assessment.
I analyzed the load time of one of our websites, which is hosted on Cloudways (using Digital Ocean 1 GB Premium Plan), and here are the speed test reports;
On GTMetrix
On Pingdom
As you can see above, the site is loading within half a second which is really impressive.
Not only quick load times, but Core Web Vitals, which is a key factor in Google’s search rankings, also passed.
Cloudways TTFB / Server Response Time:
TTFB stands for Time to First Byte. It is the time taken by the browser to receive the first byte of data from the server.
A low TTFB score gives a better user experience.
We measured Cloudways TTFB from various locations. Below are the results;
In Europe and America, TTFB is excellent, but in the Asia Pacific & Africa, it’s not that good.
Please note, that this site is hosted in New York and no CDN (Content Delivery Network) is being used. This might be the reason behind the high TTFB value in Asia Pacific & Africa.
To avoid this, choose a data center nearest to your target audience, or take advantage of any CDN service.
Stress / Load Testing:
All the tests performed above are for regular traffic.
What if you have an application or e-commerce store where you can expect a sudden spike in traffic? Is Cloudways server capable of handling heavy loads? Let’s check this.
To perform the stress test, we used an app called k6 and sent 24.9k visits in 5 minutes. Here are the results;
- Avg Response Time: 169ms
- Timeout: Zero
We also monitored our server’s performance during the stress/load tests and noticed only 3% usage to serve 26.9k users in five minutes.
Overall, it’s an excellent result. (This is the data that lets me sleep at night. While other bloggers are terrified of a viral post crashing their site, I know my $11 server can handle 24,000+ visits easily.)
We also checked the report of the Kinsta vs WPEngine vs Cloudways performance test conducted by Cloudways itself which clearly shows Cloudways outperforms other managed web hosting providers when it comes to serving a bigger audience.
Uptime Analysis:
Nothing could be more frustrating than an entirely down website.
If your website speed is good but is frequently down, you are miles away from running a successful online business.
An offline website not only impacts the site visitor’s immediate experience but also potential long-term loyalty, brand reputation, and sales opportunities.
So, it becomes important to keep an eye on the uptime of your web hosting provider before making a firm decision.
Cloudways offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee to all its customers.
Let’s see whether they meet this requirement as well…
Well, from the beginning, we have been monitoring the uptime of the same site with a tool called UptimeRobot, and the report is in front of you.
In the last year, my site went down for a total of 16 minutes. The average uptime is 99.994%, which meets the standards for most of the sites.
Did you see that?
You can cross-check your server functioning from the Manage Services tab under Server Management. From here, you can also stop or restart any service manually with just one click.
Support & Help:
Cloudways has a great team of experts which is an absolute peace of mind.
You can connect with them via live chat or tickets, and expect all your platform-level queries to get resolved promptly.
And if you believe in “do it yourself” you can navigate through their massive Knowledge-Base, which has answers to all your questions.
In the past 2 years, we contacted their support team several times, and every time they solved our problem instantly.
Below is the snapshot of our latest conversation with the Cloudways support team.
As you can see in the picture above, we asked a question early morning from India and received a quick reply.
The best part is that we are on the Standard support which is a completely free service.
Cloudways Support Add-ons
Having said that, you may also opt for Cloudways Advance Support ($$25/mo) or Premium Support ($500/mo) add-ons which include the following features;
- Priority Support with improved SLAs
- Plugin/Theme Troubleshooting
- On-demand Performance/DB Optimization
- Deeper investigation of server errors
- Proactive Monitoring of your server
- Customization of your stack/server,
- Dedicated Account Manager
- Private Slack Channel (Premium)
- Phone Support (Premium)
For small businesses, the standard support system works well. However, for larger sites, the Cloudways premium support add-ons are invaluable for resolving high-level issues. If your site gets hacked or crashes, this premium support service can be extremely helpful. Nevertheless, charging an additional $500 solely for phone support is quite steep, and Cloudways should consider lowering this price.
Automated Backups Are Easier But Things Are Paid:
Cloudways offers me automated backups that help me automatically store and retrieve all my files easily with just one click.
But there is a catch…
Please be informed that they charge me $0.033 per GB for the total space consumed for backup data at their off-site location.
The off-site backup cost is a mandatory cost with each server and mostly it is charged at most $0.50 for the majority of customers (if the backup size is at most 15GB of data of the off-site backup consumption).
If the backup size is within 15-30GB it will be charged $1.00
If the backup size is within 30GB-45GB it will be charged $1.50
If the backup size is within 45GB-60GB it will be charged $2.00
& Vice versa.
To make backups of your website, log in to your Cloudways hosting account and click on the Backups option.
Then, you can select a backup frequency and make changes. You can also take backups manually whenever you want.
Here’s what it looks like;
See that? It’s extremely easy to take backups of your site on Cloudways.
On-demand Backups
Moreover, I can take manual backups anytime I want with the help of the on-demand backup feature. This is very helpful when you make some major changes to your website. I use this feature whenever I make a change at the design level. It saves me from unwanted site crash and data loss situation.
Data Backup / Application / Server Restoration
You are also allowed to restore your backups (full or partial) with a single click.
Even if you accidentally delete an application or server, you can recover the same within 14 days of deletion.
Real Time Billing Concept:
Cloudways charges me only for the resources my website uses. This is one of the main reasons I still stick with them.
I opted for $11 per month but because of real time billing sometimes my bill goes beyond $11, and sometimes I am charged below my subscription rate. The savings are small, but you can’t neglect it.
User Interface:
Cloudways doesn’t give me a traditional cPanel where everything is buried under menus. Instead, it uses a visual easy-to-use unified interface where I can easily manage your servers and websites.
I can easily manage all the following things with the intuitive interface offered by Cloudways.
Installing SSL certificates: I can easily install a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, which is free, or upload a custom SSL certificate for my websites and applications.
Staging Management: I can create a copy of my site and do experiments without impacting the live website. Once I am ready to reflect those changes on the live website, I can do the same with a single click.
Cloning a server: I can create a copy of your current server that includes all your applications and the desired configurations. This feature is very helpful when you want to helpful if you want to change your cloud provider / server size / server region or want to perform load testing.
Adding Team Members: Onboarding team players like developers, designers is all easy. I gave access to the Cloudways dashboard to all my team members.
Words on Cloudways Pricing
Let me review the pricing aspect so you don’t make a mistake while selecting the plan.
Cloudways gives you access to 5 cloud providers, including;
- Digital Ocean
- Vultr
- Linode
- AWS (Amazon Web Services)
- Google Cloud
The pricing plans differ for each cloud provider, so let’s talk about the pricing packages offered by all the above cloud hosting providers.
| Features | Digital Ocean | Vultr | Linode | AWS | Google Cloud |
| Plans | DO1GB – DO192GB | Vultr1GB – Vultr64GB | Lin1GB – Lin192GB | AWS Small – AWS 24XL | GCE Small – GCE HC 16XL |
| RAM | 1GB – 192GB | 1GB – 64GB | 1GB – 192GB | 2GB – 384 GB | 1.75 GB – 64 GB |
| Processor | 1 Core – 32 Core | 1 Core – 16 Core | 1 Core – 32 Core | 2 Core – 96 Core | 1 Core – 64 Core |
| Storage | 25GB – 3840GB | 25GB – 1280GB | 25GB – 3840GB | 20GB | 20GB |
| Bandwidth | 1TB – 12TB | 1TB – 10TB | 1TB – 20TB | 2GB | 2GB |
| Price | $11/mo – $1056/mo | $14/mo – $400/mo | $14/mo – $1253/mo | $38.56 – $3569.98 | $37.45 – $1593.58 |
| Free Trial | 3 Days | 3 Days | 3 Days | ❌ | ❌ |
Few Pointers to be Notice:
- Digital Ocean offers various packages in the “Standard” as well as in the “Premium” category. Pricing for premium category plans is slightly on the higher side.
- In Vultr, the High Frequency category is also there and you have to pay a little more for this category plan.
- In Linode, Pricing is straightforward, there is no category as Standard, Premium, or High Frequency.
- In AWS & Google Cloud, Bandwidth is on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Cloudways pricing is flexible & transparent, and every plan is packed with incredible features.
If we compare it with its top competitors like WP Engine, Kinsta, and WPX, Cloudways pricing is certainly less expensive. Cloudways pricing starts at $11/mo while WP Engine starts at $24/mo, Kinsta starts at $35/mo, and WPX starts at $24.99/mo.
At Cloudways, it costs just $132 for a complete one year of service. If you pick any other alternative, you will end up paying a lot more dollars.
The best part? There is no limit on the number of applications you can host with Cloudways in any plan while other web hosts have certain limits which makes Cliudways pricing more fair.
All of this makes Cloudways hosting a great pick for bloggers, SMBs, and agencies.
Top 3 Cloudways Alternatives & Competitors
Looking for alternatives to Cloudways hosting? Here’s a handpicked list of best hosting alternatives for Cloudways you can try in 2026 and beyond.
1. WPX Hosting
WPX is the same web hosting provider we’ve been using on this blog since 2016.
Here, you get automated backups, XDN (their own custom CDN), unlimited migrations, and unlimited emails for free.
WPX offers 3 pricing plans, starting at $11.99/month.
Want to learn more about WPX? Read our honest review of WPX Hosting to find more details about its performance, features, and more.
2. WPEngine
WPEngine is the most trusted WordPress platform. You get fast & secure sites along with expert WordPress guidance and innovative tools.
You get Genesis blocks and 1-click staging and dev. environments for easy site creation, and EverCache® and Global CDN for better performance.
WPEngine offers 4 pricing plans, starting at $27 per month.
Want to learn more about WPEngine? Read our honest review of WPEngine Hosting to find more details about its performance, features, and more.
3. Kinsta
Kinsta is yet another trusted platform where you get fast, secure, and feature-rich WordPress hosting.
Your site will be hosted on Google Cloud’s fastest servers (C3D and C2 VMs) plus access to Kinsta HTTP/3-enabled CDN that results in lightning-fast load times from every corner of the world.
Kinsta offers 4 pricing plans, starting at $35 per month.
Want to learn more about Kinsta? Read our honest review of Kinsta Hosting to find more details about its performance, features, and more.
If you are interested in a cheaper solution then you may consider Hostinger hosting.
Hostinger is the leading name in shared hosting services. The great thing about Hostinger is that it offers affordable cloud hosting packages as well where you get a free domain, free CDN, a dedicated IP address, and a lot more. You can read our unbiased Hostinger review if you want to find more details about their hosting and features.
| Cloudways Alternatives | Starting Price | No. of Websites | Storage Space |
|---|---|---|---|
| WPX Hosting | $11.99/mo | 1 | 10GB |
| WPEngine | $27/mo | 1 | 10GB |
| Kinsta | $35/mo | 1 | 10GB |
| Hostinger | $6.99/mo | 100 | 100GB |
FAQs:
No, it’s a premium web hosting service thus comes at a cost. However, you can take advantage of their free trial.
It’s an opportunity given by Cloudways to try Digital Ocean, Vultr, and Linode services for 3 days for free without any risk, no credit card required.
As they got you covered with a free trial, there is no money-back guarantee.
The cloud host Digital Ocean is the cheapest hosting plan from Cloudways as their standard plan starts only at $11 per month. You’ll get 1 GB of RAM, 25 GB of storage, 1 TB of bandwidth, and 1 core processor.
You can easily pay your invoices via credit cards or debit cards (Visa, MasterCard, and American Express). A one-time refundable fee of $1 will be charged for authorization. Once authorized, all your invoices will be paid automatically and hassle-free. Alternatively, you may opt for PayPal. PayPal payments are not automated, so you have to pay manually.
At Cloudways, you can take on-demand backups or take automated backups at an offline location and restore your backups with just one click. You will be charged $0.033 per GB of backup storage.
Yes, the first website migration is free with Cloudways. You need to contact their support team, and tell them about your current host details – they’ll migrate to Cloudways servers for free.
Related Web Hosting Reviews:
Final Thoughts
If all you want is an affordable cloud hosting platform to host your site, Cloudways is an excellent choice for you.
Not only is Cloudways affordable but it also offers excellent performance and security.
It offers everything from an easy-to-use dashboard to automated backups to 24/7 expert support and more.
If you’re looking forward to it, The 3 days trial is the perfect point to start. Once you start your site you can learn How to Speed up WordPress Multisite via Cloudways CPU-optimized server.
