Cloudways Hosting Review For 2025

Best Web Hosting Companies: Top Managed Cloud Solutions for 2025

Choosing the best web hosting provider will affect your website performance and security a lot. In the year 2025, you have plenty of choices. Whether you’re opting for regular shared hosting or something more tailored like WordPress hosting, it’s crucial to identify what you need and how tech-savvy you are.

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting provider that strikes an astonishingly fine balance between performance and flexibility. In addition to this, it’s packed with useful features but isn’t as complicated as cloud infrastructure usually is. You can deploy your website on premium infrastructure offered by providers such as AWS, Google Cloud and DigitalOcean, as per their choice. Furthermore, they manage the technical backend to ensure hassle-free experience.

If you are a business or developer in search of a reliable WordPress hosting service, the optimized stack, automated backups, and 24/7 support of Cloudways offers excellent value. Regular hosting companies have various plans that make their customers use one (without any proper explanation). Unlike them, Cloudways’ resources are scalable and can increase as your website grows. Hence, this platform is perfect for growing companies. Also, high-traffic sites can take advantage of their flexible resources that will change when you need them.

What Is Cloudways Compared To Traditional Hosting Providers?

Cloudways is unique among hosting providers in that it offers managed cloud hosting only. Cloudways is simply a mediator in the delivery of managed cloud hosting platforms and eases the usage of high-performance cloud infrastructure. Unlike conventional shared hosting companies that have owned data centers, Cloudways does not own its own datacenters.

Unlike Cloudways, traditional hosting providers are either shared or VPS or dedicated server with fixed resource allocations. Compared to cloud platform companies like Amazon and Google that enable apps through APIs but lack shared servers, Cloudways gives access to the infrastructure of superior cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean with a single management suite.

The pricing models also differ substantially. Unlike traditional hosts that charge with upfront payments and long-term commitments, Cloudways implies pay as you go pricing with hourly billing and no long-term contracts.

Key Differences:

Feature	Cloudways	Traditional Hosts
Infrastructure	Cloud-based (AWS, GCP, DigitalOcean, etc.)	Often proprietary data centers
Scaling	On-demand vertical scaling	Usually requires manual upgrades
Technical Management	Fully managed platform	Varies (often self-managed)
Pricing Structure	Pay-as-you-go	Fixed monthly/annual plans
Performance	Enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure	Varies by plan tier

Cloudways takes care of the server and everything related to it, meaning you don’t have to. Developers and agencies are able to focus on website development instead of management of infrastructure.

Regular hosting providers usually support entry-level beginners. Cloudways targets developers, agencies, and businesses who require enhanced performance and flexibility. The platform offers staging environments and deployment tools that many traditional hosts lack.

What Type Of User Gets The Best Value From Cloudways?

Cloudways offers excellent value for certain types of website owners. Agencies and developers gain a lot from its developer-friendly tools, staging sites and team functionalities.

Small to medium-sized business owners get great ROI from Cloudways when their sites need better performance than what shared hosting provides. E-commerce websites that conduct major sales or have high traffic find this platform ideal.

If you are a blogger or content creator whose WordPress site has outgrown basic hosting, Cloudways makes for an ideal option due to its balanced pricing and top-notch performance. The platform removes the complexity that keeps content creators away from powerful hosting solutions.

Ideal Cloudways Users:

• Web developers managing multiple client sites
• Growing businesses with moderate to high traffic
• E-commerce stores needing reliable uptime
• WordPress professionals seeking optimal performance
• Digital agencies requiring client collaboration tools

Anyone who can learn something a little more difficult than basic hosting will get the most value from it. Cloudways makes it easy to use cloud hosting. Still, it is more technical than a regular shared hosting provider.

If you’re on a budget and need a little more oomph than shared hosting but don’t want to fork over premium charges for something like Kinsta, Cloudways fits perfectly. With this model you only pay for what you actually use!

 

Cloudways may not be right for complete beginners or those who want too much support. It is best for someone with some technical ability who wants a good quality hosting solution without being in charge of server.

Cloudways Main Features

Cloudways has the complete functionality to simplify the management of cloud hosting, providing enterprise-level functionality. Anyone can use their interface as both the beginners and experienced developers get to leverage it.

Data Backup and Restore

Automated backup solution from Cloudways saves your website data without manual effort. The solution backs up your entire server’s apps, databases, as well as server settings.

Users can schedule a backup of their choice daily, weekly, and monthly for up to four weeks, based on their designated plan. Fixing your server just takes one click so there is no downtime for you.

Cloudways takes extra efforts to store your backups at different site, away from your server. It also allows you to download backup your backups locally for extra safety.

Scheduled backup makes sure that you do not lose valuable data when something goes south. With backups that can be downloaded on-demand or scheduled, Cloudways gives you no reason to worry.

Website Staging

The staging environment feature makes it possible for developers to create the exact copy of a live website to test updates before implementation. Testing of the staging environment helps facilitate troubleshooting, training and debugging of live applications.

Cloudways simplifies staging with an easy clone feature that creates an exact duplicate of your application environment. Developers can safely update themes, install plugins, or modify code.

You can synchronize your staging and production environments easily. When successful, we easily push changes to the live site with just a click.

Multiple staging environments can be run layering to facilitate complicated builds. Having those will be useful, especially for agencies that manage many client websites or developers that are doing a big update on the site.

Cloudways Security

Cloudways’ protection is the largest layer of your hosting ambiance. It helps you to never worry about the security. The server is continuously updated with the latest and most secure versions of the operating system and patches.

To prevent unwanted access or attacks, the system has firewalls and whitelisting along with 2-step verification. You can install the free SSL certificate with one-click to ensure that information remains encrypted at all time.

Cloudways offers protection from bots to prevent automated attacks. They regularly scan for and remove malware to keep you safe.

You can access the servers using SSSH and SFTP instead of FTP which is not secure. Only authorized access to the database; credentialing system is managed and hushed.

The platform is appropriate for businesses that require stringent protection of their data and have compliance with the industry standard.

Cloudways Customer Support

Cloudways boasts a round-the-clock 24/7/365 presence. For instance, support is available via live chat, computer ticketing system, and mobile telephone for higher-level plans. Their team is made of cloud hosting experts who can handle difficult server problems.

Response times are quite fast, with live chat usually replying in a minute or less. The support team can help with server optimization, movement, problem solving, and application-specific issues.

If you prefer to do it by yourself, then you can take help from the tutorials and guides that are available on the Cloudways knowledge base. Users can connect with their peers and Cloudways experts via their community forum.

You can receive help from senior support engineers as part of premium support plans. Cloudways offers dedicated support for a single user and business accounts.

Apart from their customer support, Cloudways also has a success team available that helps customers optimize their environment and best practices.

Cloudways Acquired By DigitalOcean

In August 2022, DigitalOcean announced to acquisition of Cloudways at $350 million. DigitalOcean buying Cloudways combined its infrastructure with the latter’s hassle-free managed platform.

The deal bolstered both companies’ positions in the competitive cloud hosting market. DigitalOcean got Cloudways’ small and medium business (SMB) customer base and simplified hosting interface. Cloudways got the extensive resources of DigitalOcean, along with its software development talents.

Changes for existing Cloudways customers have been intentionally smooth. Cloudways will remain an independent service like usual and won’t change even after being purchased by DigitalOcean.

Key Benefits of the Acquisition:

• Enhanced infrastructure reliability
• Accelerated feature development
• Expanded support resources
• More competitive pricing options

Cloudways multi cloud strategy has been maintained by DigitalOcean allowing users to continue to deploy on AWS, Google Cloud and other providers.

This acquisition is a major development in managed WordPress hosting. By March 2025, Cloudways will be benefitting from the infrastructure investments made by DigitalOcean while continuing to remain its user-friendly self.

The overall feedback from customers about the acquisition has been positive, with users experiencing improved performance post-acquisition. Now, a single entity serves more than 124,000 clients worldwide.

Cloudways vs. Other Quality Hosting Providers

Cloudways and other managed WordPress hosting providers which we are going to compare today with respect to their performance, pricing, features, and quality of support. Each provider has unique strengths that may make them better suited for certain users.

Kinsta

Kinsta managed WordPress hosting is a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) exclusive product. Cloudways on the other hand is more flexible. It gives us access to several cloud providers like GCP, AWS, DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode. Kinsta has a plan that costs $35 for one WordPress installation. In comparison, Cloudways’ plan starts from $14 with DigitalOcean – which is much cheaper.

Both services have fast load times and a lot of uptime. Kinsta gives you free migration and free backups on a daily basis. It also features a custom dashboard made for WordPress.

Kinsta having a team of WordPress experts offers more specialized support as compared to Cloudways. Kinsta doesn’t offer the options for server flexibility and pricing that Cloudways provides.

The free SSL certificate, regular malware scanning, and built-in firewall protection security features are similar.

WP-Engine

WP-Engine is a host that is designed specifically for WordPress on a robust platform. Their plans start at $30/month which places them between Cloudways and Kinsta in terms of entry cost.

WP-Engine utilizes its own caching systems and EverCache which can be a tiny bit faster than Cloudways. Their staging environments and one-click restore points are easier to use than Cloudways.

Feature	WP-Engine	Cloudways
Starting Price	$30/month	$14/month
Support	24/7 WordPress-specific	24/7 general cloud support
Migrations	Free automated	Paid or DIY
Dev Tools	Git integration, staging	Basic staging

WP-Engine’s Smart Plugin Manager uses AI to safely update your plugins automatically, while Cloudways does not. Nonetheless, Cloudways offers many more server-level customization options and access to other clouds.

Rocket.net

Rocket.net has arrived on the web-hosting scene fairly recently with much backing of Cloudflare Enterprise. For only $30/month you get Cloudflare Enterprise benefits that would cost hundreds more elsewhere.

Rocket.net stands out due to its 250+ Cloudflare CDN locations around the globe as opposed to Cloudways.
As a result, load times will speed up globally, especially for global audiences.

The platform has an impressive DDoS protection and other serious features which are way better than what Cloudways has. Every Rocket.net plan gives you Unlimited WordPress installs unlike Cloudways who charge you by server.

Rocket.net’s dashboard is better than Cloudways. It is more beginner-friendly. Cloudways is quite difficult to navigate for those new to cloud hosting. Still, Cloudways actually offers more server locations and more granular control.

Cloudways Main Pros

With the Cloudways optimized stack, they provide an amazing performance on the server for the website. It loads your website quickly and takes good care of the website traffic. Their platform uses the cloud infrastructure of AWS, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean. As a result, your uptime and scalability are reliable.

The control panel is easy to navigate and lets you manage your server easily without any tech know-how. Through a clean interface, users can launch servers, deploy applications, and manage domain, all without introducing commands.

Flexible pricing is another significant advantage. Through cloudways, you don’t have a long-term contract, rather a pay as you go. Thus, businesses can scale up or down according to real need.

Dedicated firewalls, routine backups, and SSL certificates are preventive measures. The platform is automatically patched with updates so owners do not have to worry about vulnerability issues.

Cloudways offers round-the-clock customer support via chat and tickets. Their support team response to technical issues quickly and in-depth documentation helps users fix common ones themselves.

The platform supports a variety of PHP applications, including WordPress, Magento, and Laravel. It is versatile enough to be used for different kind of projects.

You can scale your server in minutes and not hours. RAM, CPU, and storage can be adjusted as needed. With the flexibility, they can manage spikes in traffic easily.

The valuable data is backed up automatically at frequent intervals with a choice of duration. The one-click staging area allows changes to be tested before being pushed into production.

Cloudways Main Cons

While Cloudways comes with a lot of impressive features, it has a lot of drawbacks as well. The service does not provide a domain registration. Thus, they must buy the domain from somewhere else and link it to the hosting.

It may be hard to follow for a novice as they offer: Pay-as-you-go plans that are unlike traditional hosting plans. Many users say there is a steeper learning curve to use it.

Technical Limitations:

• No email hosting included (requires third-party solutions)
• Limited server locations compared to some competitors
• No cPanel interface (uses custom dashboard instead)

Sometimes during peak times response times may be delayed. Sometimes they pass over complicated problems to ticket systems through chat only, so that may delay their resolution.

Cloudways’ entry-level plans don’t let you host unlimited websites, unlike shared hosting providers. This can cost users managing several smaller sites more money.

The platform’s staging areas are useful but lack some advanced features at more expensive WordPress hosts. Users without technical knowledge might find it hard to migrate their website.

Developers are disappointed the basic plan does not offer Git integration. Current available package lacks some advance caching options like competitors.

Changing your server power in Cloudways is doable but not as smooth as some cloud options out there. When core resources are upgraded, users may see downtime.

Cloudways Main Cloud Providers

Cloudways has allied with five top-tier infrastructure providers that power our managed hosting platform. The partnerships allow customers to choose the infrastructure that suits them best for performance, location and budget.

Digital Ocean

Cloudways most popular infrastructure is Digital Ocean. It is widely used due to its performance vs cost-differential balance. The cost of servers starts at only $10/month, making it good for small businesses and freelancers.

Digital Ocean has data centers that are located in 8 regions around the world like New York, Amsterdam, and London. Your website will load faster for your visitors because of this geographical diversity.

The infrastructure of digital ocean is very simple and it is managed by cloudways. Users enjoy reliable performance characteristics, dedicated resources, and SSD storage at an affordable price.

For medium sites – sites which you expect to get a traffic of up to 50k of Traffic a month, Digital Ocean have power for you without unnecessary buck. The Spaces object storage service also works great for media-heavy sites.

VULTR

VULTR is a strong competitor in the list of Cloudways providers that offer high-performance computing at reasonable prices. VULTR offers High Frequency Compute plans that give speed to demanding apps and busy websites

VULTR offers excellent geographical coverage across 25+ locations on six continents. No matter where the visitors are from, it minimizes the latency.

VULTR offers multiple plans with NVMe storage, delivering up to 4 times the speed of standard SSD disks. This tech helps databases to work faster and overall website to respond faster.

Starting at $11/month via Cloudways, it is great value for money. For developers and businesses that need great speed but do not want to pay enterprise prices, VULTR is the right compromise.

Linode

Linode (now owned by Akamai) focuses on reliable performance and developer-focused functionality. Their infrastructure prioritizes stability rather than sheer speed metrics.

Starting at $12/month on Cloudways, Linode has 11 data-centre locations across North America, Europe and Asia. Their regions are less than some competitors but their network performance is good in their area.

Linode is especially great for CPU-focused programs and development areas. Their servers have dedicated resources that ensure performance during variable loads.

Linode’s pricing and performance attributes are simple for developers. If you don’t need cutting-edge specs for your projects; then Linode through Cloudways is a robust infrastructure choice.

AWS

Cloudways customers have access to enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure with AWS. AWS provides the most extensive collection of supplementary services and unrivaled scalability.

AWS is the priciest option available in Cloudways starting from $36.51/month. You can get better reliability, more security features, and almost limitless scaling at this price point.

AWS has the most extensive global network comprising multiple regions and availability zones. This application is perfect for Global reach requiring 99.99 uptime guarantees.

Organizations with fluctuating traffic can benefit from AWS’s scalable resources. The platform smoothly handles sudden traffic spikes without lag. For enterprise sites & apps with strict compliance requirements, AWS is the gold standard.

Google Cloud

The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) delivers exceptional performance over Google’s global network. The same infrastructure that supports Google’s services drives its performance and networks around the globe.

GCP is premium and offers better performance and pricing starting at $33.18/month on Cloudways. Their Live Migration technology is capable of keeping the uptime of their client’s service during planned maintenance of their host system. In other words, there are no planned downtimes.

GCP is Excellent in workloads involving Data Analytics and Machine Learning. Websites that need advanced customization or complex data processing can get value from Google’s infrastructure.

GCP has 24 regions and 73 zones worldwide, making it great for a global audience. Their premium network layer has better routing and lower latency than almost every competitor, making it great for international corporations and content-heavy applications.

Cloudways Pricing and Plans

With Cloudways from Rome, pricing is flexible and helps scale your website. You can pay as per your usage. You don’t have to make long term commitments. If you use you pay.

The Digital Ocean starter server plans start at $10/month and comes with 1GB RAM, 1 processor core, and 25GB storage. This basic choice is ideal for blogs & small business websites with medium level of business.

The Vultr High Frequency plan begins at $13/month for growing websites and is ideal for busier WordPress sites. Bigger companies can go with premium givers like AWS or Google Cloud, starting at $36.51/month and $33.30/month respectively.

Each plan includes:

• Free SSL certificates
• Free website migration
• 24/7 customer support
• Server monitoring
• Built-in caching
• Automated backups

Cloudways has no setup fee, and unlimited application installation is included in all plans. Users can easily scale resources up or down as their traffic demands change.

You do not need to enter your credit card information for a 3-day free trial. It helps potential customers check performance before going for payment.

Cloudways has the ability to enable team collaboration at no added cost to your business. Users will be billed monthly but inserting funds in advance will save users’ money.

Cloudways is not like those hosts that restrict the number of websites but rather the level of performance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What are the key features highlighted in the Cloudways review for 2025?

A: The Cloudways review for 2025 emphasizes its managed hosting services, user-friendly dashboard, and a variety of cloud hosting plans. It also highlights the cloudways support as a standout feature, providing reliable assistance to users.

Q: Why should I choose Cloudways over other web hosting providers?

A: You should choose Cloudways because it offers a range of web hosting options tailored to different needs. Its cloud hosting plans are flexible, and the cloudways autonomous feature allows you to scale resources easily. Additionally, Cloudways support is highly rated among users.

Q: How does Cloudways compare with other web hosts like SiteGround?

A: Cloudways vs SiteGround shows that Cloudways offers more flexibility with cloud hosting and managed hosting options. While SiteGround is known for its shared hosting plans, Cloudways focuses on cloud servers, which can provide better performance for high-traffic websites.

Q: What are the cons of using Cloudways?

A: Some cons of Cloudways include the lack of traditional shared hosting options and the learning curve associated with its platform for beginners. Additionally, cloudways doesn’t offer domain registration services, which may require users to manage their domains separately.

Q: Can I use Cloudways for a WordPress website?

A: Yes, you can use Cloudways for a WordPress website. It is optimized for WordPress hosting and provides various tools and features to enhance performance and security, making it one of the best managed hosting providers for WordPress users.

Q: What does Cloudways include in its hosting plans?

A: Cloudways includes features such as a free SSL certificate, automated backups, and a one-click WordPress installation in its hosting plans. Additionally, it offers the ability to choose your cloud provider, giving you flexibility in managing your server resources.

Q: Are there any alternatives to Cloudways that I should consider?

A: Yes, there are several alternatives to Cloudways, including Kinsta, DigitalOcean, and AWS. Each has its own strengths, but if you’re looking for a managed hosting provider that emphasizes cloud performance, Cloudways is a highly recommended option.

Q: How does Cloudways handle server performance and scalability?

A: Cloudways allows users to scale their servers easily according to their hosting needs. The platform utilizes advanced caching mechanisms and optimizations to ensure high performance, making it a suitable choice for growing websites.

Q: What types of support does Cloudways offer to users?

A: Cloudways support includes 24/7 live chat assistance, ticket-based support, and a rich knowledge base. This ensures that users can get help whenever they encounter issues or have questions about using Cloudways.

Final Thoughts

Cloudways is one of the best-managed cloud hosting solutions you will find in 2025. It offers a traditional hosting experience powered by enhanced cloud performance.

With flexibility in mind, the platform allows you to choose from various cloud service providers that include AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, etc. This option to choose allows companies to get the most out of their cost.

Cloudways is best for WordPress as it takes care of performance and security. You can easily manage your cloud with the help of the dashboard.

Cloudways isn’t the cheapest option available, but it offers excellent value for the performance, reliability, and support it provides. The pay-as-you-go model allows business owners to pay for only the resources that they actually use.

With the help of the platform’s solid security features, automated backups, and staging environments, site owners can mind less. The tools are helpful to ensure that the site remains intact and changes test safely.

Cloudways provides great scalability options for growing business. With cloud hosting, a site can easily increase its resources as traffic increases without migration hassles that are customary with tradtiional hosts.

You can always count on the support team to effectively handle any issues. The proficiency with the platform and WordPress provides a quintessential support experience than many others.