As a website owner and hosting expert, I have been reviewing web hosting providers for a long while and it’s not all the time you see a host without its own data centers. Cloudways is an excellent provider for small to mid-sized businesses, thanks to their super-innovative solutions. In the rest of this review, I’ll share my thoughts on the host’s plans and pricing, support, performance, and other important metrics… and who knows, they might be just the perfect match for you!

Cloudways Review

Cloudways is a dedicated cloud hosting provider/affiliate that helps small to mid-sized businesses with tailored cloud hosting solutions sourced from five other popular cloud giants – DigitalOcean, VULTR, Linode, AWS and GoogleCloud. They are also partnered with CloudFlare, malcare, and Object cache Pro.

Founded in 2012, the company now serves over 570,000 websites and continues to help them with the right cloud solutions for their needs. Cloudways also offers managed WordPress and reseller hosting packages.

As a Malta-headquartered company Cloudways does not have a BBB rating. However, on Trustpilot, and compiled from over 1,500 reviews, Cloudways has an overall rating of 4.6.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Cons

Starting to outgrow your shared hosting and need the best cloud services on the market? Want three days to try it out for free without having to put in your credit card? Sign up for Cloudways today!

 

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Rating Breakdown

Hosting providers come in all shapes and sizes… with different plans and pricings… and even more features. How do you compare the vast number of hosting providers based on the goodies they offer?

Our experts at HostAdvice have developed a detailed rating methodology with different factors to consider and specific scores to give each host, based on how they perform in the said factors.

Cloudways Prices & Plans – 2023

Cloudways can be a little technical to understand as they don’t offer their own hosting plans. The best way to understand their services is that they act as a reseller – optimizing the packages from five other cloud providers and then reselling a much more tailored plan to you.

They offer cloud hosting plans from five providers – DigitalOcean, VULTR, Linode, AWS, and GoogleCloud… as well as WordPress optimized plans, also from the same providers.

While Cloudways doesn’t say much on a money-back guarantee, they do offer a 3-day (no credit card) free trial and once you commit, you only pay for what you use. And when you do decide to commit to Cloudways, you can pay via credit card and Paypal, plus wire transfer for transactions above $1000.

Digital Ocean

Standard

Premium

The third plan in both the standard and premium DigitalOcean packages is the recommended. You get 80 GB SSD storage and 4 TB bandwidth for both plans.

VULTR

Standard

High frequency

Just like DigitalOcean plans, the third Cloudways-VULTR plans (for both standard and high frequency) are recommended. For standard you get 80 GB storage and 3 TB bandwidth while for high frequency, you get 128 GB storage and also 3TB bandwidth.

Linode

The third hosting package – offering 80 storage and 4 TB – is the recommended from this provider. You also enjoy a subscription for Object Cache Pro.

AWS

For AWS packages, Cloudways recommends the second plan with 20 GB and a rather low 2 GB bandwidth.

GoogleCloud

Just like AWS, Cloudways recommends the second plan on its GoogleCloud plans promising 20 GB storage and 2 GB bandwidth.

WordPress Hosting

Cloudways WordPress hosting plans are priced and have the same features as their regular plans for all five providers.

Reseller Hosting

DigitalOcean – standard

DigitalOcean – premium

The third plan with 80 GB storage and 4 TB is the recommended Cloudways-DigitalOcean standard and premium reseller plans.

VULTR – standard

VULTR – high frequency

Like DigitalOcean, the recommended plans on Cloudways-VULTR packages are the third. With the standard giving you 80 GB storage and 3 TB bandwidth, and the high frequency plans giving you 128 GB storage and also 3 TB bandwidth.

Linode

We recommend Linode’s third plan – 80 GB storage and 4 TB bandwidth… as well as all the other goodies.

AWS

If you’re just starting out, we recommend the third Cloudways-AWS plan with 20 GB storage and 2 GB base bandwidth.

GoogleCloud

Also recommending the third plan, you also get 20 GB storage plus 2 GB bandwidth.

Cloudways Features

• Cloud hosting via 5 providers
• Free SSL
• CloudFlare CDN compatible
• SSD hosting
• Auto healing servers
• Unlimited app installs
• Auto backups
• SSH and SFTP Access

Cloudways is special among most other hosting providers thanks to their model. By implementing five other providers, they give you access to over 65 data centers around the world. Incredible!

Asides from the features already provided by each of these providers, you also get Cloudways’ own features that are must-haves for your website’s performance and security.

Performance

This review won’t be complete without testing Cloudways performance – speed, uptime, and load times. If you’re planning to host your website on their platform, how quickly would your website load when a user visits?

To get values on the host’s performance metrics, I tested https://apps.geo.tv,a website hosted on Cloudways on GTMetrix to see how they scored.

These were the results:

On GTMetrix, the website had an impressive 254 ms response and a fully loaded time of 1.7s. The site also has an impressive overall performance of 96%:

Do note that the overall performance is not the same as the uptime. Cloudways promises a 99.9% uptime – i.e your website will be online 99.9% of the time (which has now become the industry’s standard).

Level Of Support

Cloudways offers support 24/7/365 via:

Live chat

Live chat is a must-have for any hosting provider where you’ll get support directly from a live agent. So I tested Cloudways live chat but couldn’t find it. Even after signing up on the platform, you need to activate a server before you can get the live chat support.

Thanks to their no credit card policy, I was able to chat with an agent and they were very knowledgeable and responded promptly:

Phone

However, their phone support is only available on their Premium support plans.

Ticketing

If you don’t have an emergency, you can request support via a ticket and you’ll be contacted within 24 hours:

A vast knowledgebase

And for self help? Their vast knowledgebase with a built-in search engine will give you to answers to most questions quickly:

A private Slack channel

Cloudways also offers support via a private Slack channel (quite unique) but also only available on their Premium plans.

User-Friendliness – Ease of use

Registration

It is very easy and straightforward to register and sign up on Cloudways. Their free trial allows you to create an account and have access to your dashboard without needing to specify the features you want immediately.

From the pricing page, just click ‘Start for free’

You’ll be asked to put in your name, email, and your account password. Next, you’ll be sent an activation email which once you click, will lead you to Cloudways intuitive control panel.

Cloudways Control Panel

Cloudways offers its own customized control panel – a cPanel alternative.

It is incredibly intuitive and from here, you can choose the provider and plans you want. Cloudways did an awesome job at making it easy to manage your hosting plans without the nostalgia of cPanel – and is exceptionally great for beginners.

Installing WordPress on Cloudways

Cloudways offers WordPress-optimized hosting that makes it easy to install and launch your WP packages in one click.

Once your account is active, under Application & Server details, Choose ‘WordPress’ and then name the Application & server, and finally click ‘select your project’

Next select the provider you want from the size and then specify the resources you’ll be needing. Next choose your server location and click ‘Launch now’:

Once your server is ready, go to ‘Applications’ > ‘WordPress’ > ‘Access details’ then ‘Admin panel’.

From there, you’ll be able to see your WordPress login details and temporary URL.

Add an email account with Cloudways

Cloudways doesn’t offer their native email hosting but has partnered with Rackspace – and it will cost you an extra $ 1/month.

You can use the Rackspace email add-on to add emails and manage them. Simply click the grid icon on your account homepage and click ‘Add-ons’. Then the edit icon beside ‘Rackspace email’:

Next simply fill in your email address and password and you’ll have it ready. Do note that for first-timers, you’ll need to configure your DNS records and it’s better to contact their support for help if you’re not very technical.

Conclusion: Do We Recommend Cloudways?

Despite not providing their own in-house hosting services, Cloudways is a remarkable third-party hosting provider that gives you far more flexibility and resource control than you’d get if you purchased plans from the cloud providers directly.

They have an exceptional server footprint for superb response times, a customized control panel that rebelliously makes website management super easy, and also offer the most versatile plans on the market.

I recommend Cloudways as the go-to cloud provider if you are looking for scalable resources that can serve every kind of business.