Cloudways 2024: The Hosting Review That Could Change Your Mind

Cloudways is a managed cloud-hosting platform developed by DigitalOcean. Unlike many other cloud providers, including its parent company, Cloudways isn’t so much a network in itself, but a streamlined digital platform that allows you to choose from a variety of top cloud hosting providers.

Cloudways combines a user’s custom settings with its own security framework and management services to offer an easy, highly scalable experience. If you’re looking to cut out the hassle of on-site server management, then Cloudways' robust suite of tools may be the solution for you.

Join us for an in-depth guide to everything you need to know about the popular cloud hosting provider. We’ll fill you in on everything Cloudways does (and doesn’t do) to help you make an informed choice for your business.

Is Cloudways Shared Hosting?

Cloudways connects you with top cloud hosting providers, which differ significantly from shared hosting providers. In case you’re new to the server game, let’s go over a quick breakdown of the differences.

Shared hosting is a type of web hosting that allows multiple customers to share a single server. While this tends to be an economical way to go, it also has plenty of drawbacks, such as limited storage, CPU power, and bandwidth.

Not to mention that you never know who you’re sharing your service with. If one of your fellow server sites has a sudden spike in traffic, it can have a direct impact on your site’s performance.

Is Cloudways Faster and More Reliable Than Shared Hosting?

Cloudways offers cloud hosting, which cuts out the traditional cons of shared hosting by allowing content to be spread across multiple virtual servers. This not only makes it a lot easier to scale your site as needed but offers far more reliability and faster speeds than traditional web hosting.

Which Cloud Providers Will Cloudways Support?

Cloudways’ three main cloud infrastructure partners are DigitalOcean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud, all of which are renowned as the best in the business. Cloudways also offers options like Linode and Vultr, though they seem to feature the first three options more prominently.

Not only can you choose your providers, but even the location of the data center you want to use. Cloudways makes it easy to utilize location hosting, which can help boost loading speeds and makes for an easy way to enhance user experience.

With Cloudways, you can choose from over 65 data centers on four different continents. Just be aware that locations may only offer data centers from specific partners, while others cater to all three major providers.

Who Should Choose Cloudways?

From e-commerce providers and entrepreneurs to bloggers and digital agencies, Cloudways is a solid choice for a variety of different types of businesses. Flexibility is one of Cloudways’ biggest strengths.

In addition to the cloud provider of your choice, you’ll also be able to select your RAM size, backup frequency, add-ons, and integration options. Better yet, there’s no need to be a computer expert to use it.

Is Cloudways for Beginners?

With a simple interface and step-by-step demo, Cloudways is quite possibly the best choice out there for beginners. That said, cloud hosting is one of those things it's only possible to make so simple, so some brand-new users may have to spend a little more time going over the instructions than others.

If you already have experience with hosting or cloud hosting, however, you'll likely find it a refreshingly easy experience. Now let’s talk about traffic.

Exactly how much traffic can Cloudways handle?

Remember how we mentioned that Cloudways is all about flexibility? This extends to the ability to choose from one of several different plans.

If you’re just starting out, you can choose the lowest tier plan, which can handle 840,000+ visitors a month at an average load speed of 2.5 seconds. Looking to cater to a far larger audience?

You might choose the 4 GB DO plan, which can handle over 6,700,000 visitors a month. Cloudways offers a wide range of plans to suit the needs of businesses of every size.

It’s also important to note that each server Cloudways offers comes with different options. For instance, if you choose the AWS option, you can choose from servers that offer up to 384GB/month with 20 GB of storage and a 2GB bandwidth.

If you go with DigitalOcean, however, you can choose a 16 GB/month server with 320 GB of storage and a 6TB bandwidth. If you’re not sure which to choose, then rest assured that Cloudways has experts standing by that are happy to help.

Is Cloudways good for SBMs?

If you run a startup or small-medium-sized business (SBM), don’t be intimidated by the huge number of gigabytes and RAMs we threw out in the section above. Cloudways’ most popular option is actually the 4GB plan, but there are even smaller plans that offer 1GB a month and start as low as $11.

What is the server limit for Cloudways?

Another great perk of going with Cloudways is that you can host as many websites on the same server as you want, which can be a cost-effective way to go. Cloudways makes it easy to host multiple sites on a single server, even from the same IP.

What is Cloudways best for?

Looking for a faster hosting solution for your WordPress blog or eCommerce site? Cloudways offers a series of add-ons and integrations that can help take your site to the next level.

Is Cloudways good for WordPress?

Cloudways is already the WordPress host of choice for over half a million WordPress sites and it’s easy to see why. Not only does it offer more perks than shared hosting solutions, but for a similar price.

Cloudways offers top-tier site performance, multi-site hosting, and no restrictions on site visitors or plugins. With loading speeds of 200-400 milliseconds, your site can enjoy up to 99.99% uptime, not to mention free SSL certification and end-to-end encryption security.

If you decide to make the switch, you can rest assured that you won’t have any issues with your site’s current content or setup. Cloudways is not only optimized to produce the best WordPress experience but to support all the themes and plugins available in its repository.

What other applications does Cloudways support?

Not only is Cloudways great for WordPress sites, including WooCommerce, but it also offers 1-click instillation options for Magento and PHP, including Laravel. Prefer to build your own website?

Cloudways can do that too. The platform offers a Beaver Builder integration, which features user-friendly drag-and-drop tools that allow you to get your new site up and running in no time.

Will Cloudways help move my site to Cloudways’ servers?

When you make the switch to Cloudways, you’ll enjoy one free migration if you’d rather have the platform’s team handle the move for you. But if you’d rather do it yourself, there’s also a free Cloudways WordPress migrator plugin that makes the entire process incredibly simple.

Just download and install the plugin, fill in the correct credentials in the panel, and click on the Migrate option. If you run into any issues, then check out this detailed guide to the WordPress migration process.

Can cPanel or Plesk be used on a Cloudways server?

Cloudways is more of an alternative to cPanel or Plesk than something you’d use in conjunction with either. While cPanel was initially designed to simplify web hosting, Cloudways offers an easier, more modern solution that requires far less tech expertise to use efficiently.

Cloudways is also becoming a popular alternative to Plesk, the server management control panel. By combining the best of hosting, management, and more into one user-friendly interface, Cloudways is quickly proving itself to be the easier option.

How does Cloudways pricing work?

Cloudways operates on a unique pricing model that allows you to pay as you go - and only for the services you actually use. That platform calculates your monthly charges on an hourly basis based on the price of your chosen plan.

Imagine, for instance, that you’ve chosen a plan that costs $46 a month, but only use it for two weeks before deactivating it. Cloudways Autoscale would divide $46 by the total number of hours for the month and send you an invoice for the number of hours you used.

In other words, you can stay on a plan for the entire month or a single hour - either way, you’ll only be charged for the time you used. The Pay-as-You-Go option makes it easy to upgrade, downgrade, or deactivate your plan any time you want.

When will I need to start making Cloudways payments?

Unlike other hosting providers which require upfront payment, Cloudways only charges you for the services you used in the previous month. You’ll receive an invoice for the services you use each month between the 1st and 6th of the following month.

If your Cloudways account is already funded, then the money it contains will be used to cover your invoice costs. If not, however, Cloudways will automatically charge any remaining balance to the payment method of your choice.

What payment methods does Cloudways accept?

Cloudways accepts either credit or debit cards from major providers like Visa, Amex, and Mastercard. In some instances, such as when you upgrade your account, you may also be able to use Paypal, though your payments will not be automated.

Can I scale up or down with Cloudways servers?

Cloudways is all about flexibility and makes it incredibly easy to scale up at any time, even during the middle of the month. While it is also possible to downgrade, the process is a bit more complicated and requires cloning your server.

Additionally, if you use DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode, it’s important to know that if you want ot scale up either your memory, storage, or CPU, you’ll have to scale up the other two features as well. For this reason, if you’re just looking for more storage, it may be easier to use DigitalOcean Block Storage.

When is Cloudways’ customer support available?

Cloudways customer support team is available 24/7, though how you can reach them will depend on the support option you choose. For most people, the free standard option is enough, as it allows you to chat with a representative at any time, send an email, or request a call during business hours.

There are also two add-on options, however, including Advanced SLA ($100/month) which includes app support, customization, and proactive investigation for alerts. Or you can spring for the Premium SLA option ($500/month), which also includes private Slack and phone support at any time.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Cloudways?

As you can see, Cloudways has a lot going for it – but nobody’s perfect, right? Let’s take a closer look at some of the pros and cons of Cloudways.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a managed cloud-storage option that offers plenty of flexibility and robust features, then Cloudways is definitely worth looking into. The user-friendly interface makes Cloud hosting as simple as possible, which can be a great option for those looking to make the switch.

Cloudways also ranks high in terms of reliability and speed, offering a cost-effective way to upgrade your site’s user experience. While the 3-day trial offer isn’t super generous, it’s just enough time to take the platform for a test drive.

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