Cloudways Review : The Fastest Manged WordPress Hosting

As a blogger focused on website speed optimization, I always look for web hosts that offer excellent speed.

I had been with Rocket.net for the last couple of years and sought an alternative. Cloudways was right on the spot.

No, Rocket.net was not bad. It is still the best and fastest web host, but I was looking for cheaper alternatives.

After moving to Cloudways, my website passed all web core vitals, and traffic also increased. We have TTFB now in the range of 100-130ms.

Thanks to Cloudways, Perfmatters, and Super Page Cache for the Cloudflare plugin. We don’t use any other cache plugin, but we still get excellent speed.

I was amazed by how quickly I moved all my blogs to Cloudways. If you try their service once, you will have the same impression—guaranteed!

Yeah, there is a bit of a learning curve as the Cloudways interface is new. However, it’s just a matter of time before we get used to it.

So, here you go! The most detailed and unbiased Cloudways Review that will cover almost every aspect of Cloudways.

Don’t worry. I won’t spare Cloudways for things that could have been better.

Cloudways is a managed WordPress hosting company—we all know that. But what the heck is Managed WordPress hosting? Let’s learn about that first.

What Is Managed WordPress Hosting?

Many of us, including me, do not know much about how a web hosting process works. We don’t know how to get the most out of a web hosting service, so we end up blaming our web host.

That’s not fair at all. To overcome these issues, most web hosts nowadays offer managed hosting services.

What does that mean, exactly?

Some experts from the web host company will maintain everything related to your web hosting service.

They will determine how to optimize the server, identify key variables, and choose the best settings for your hosting environment.

In a nutshell, they will give you the best possible setup for optimum performance.

Now, when discussing Managed WordPress Hosting, your web host goes one step further by optimizing your hosting environment to meet WordPress’s requirements. As a result, you get the best speed and experience from your WordPress blog.

Cloudways Hosting Overview

Cloudways was founded back in 2012 by Aaqib Gadit and Pere Hospital. It has its headquarters in Malta.

As of 2024, Cloudways powers 570K+ websites across 20 countries and has nearly 300+ employees. Its offices are in Malta and Karachi.

Cloudways is a managed hosting company. You can choose servers from Digital Ocean, Google Cloud, Vultr, AWS, and Linode.

Cloudways

Cloudways offers fast, secure managed cloud hosting with easy scaling, built-in caching, and 24/7 support—perfect for WordPress and high-performance sites

$14

Start For Free

✂️

You can choose the RAM, CPU cores, and bandwidth you need.

The best thing about Cloudways is that they charge you monthly—there is no commitment at all, unlike other hosts, who charge you per year.

You can upgrade resources at any time if the current setup cannot handle the traffic. You don’t have to switch to another host just because you experienced a traffic spike.

Cloudways is partnered with Cloudflare, Object Cache Pro, and Malcare (in addition to five cloud server vendors) to offer customized services. All these services will improve your website’s speed.

The image below shows the key components of a typical Cloudways stack.

Cloudways Hosting Key Features

Here are some of Cloudways Hosting’s key features that make it one of the best and fastest hosting services available today.

Renowned IaaS Providers

With Cloudways, you can host your website with renowned IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) providers such as Google Cloud, Vultr, Linode, DigitalOcean, and AWS.

They are all very popular for cloud hosting. If you want to host your website directly with those IaaS providers, it’s a little tricky. But with Cloudways, you are just a click away from hosting.

Dedicated Environment

Unlike shared hosting, Cloudways provides a dedicated environment for each account. This means your resources will be yours alone, not shared with other accounts.

Dedicated accounts drastically improve the website loading speed. From a safety perspective, a dedicated environment is best.

Although there is a limit on CPU usage per hour, it is not as bad as SiteGround’s. The INODE limit is also massive.

Cloudflare Enterprise CDN [ Paid Add-On]

This is Cloudways Hosting’s real trump card. With Cloudways Enterprise CDN, you can enable Full-Page Caching, drastically reducing TTFB (Time To First Byte).

In addition to caching, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN offers prioritized DDoS protection, an advanced firewall, Brotli compression, PCI DSS compliance, and more.

If you don’t want to use Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, you can use “Super Page Cache For Cloudflare,” a free plugin that activates “Full Page Caching”. You will get the speed, but you will miss the safety features.

Below is a snippet of Cloudflare Enterprise CDN’s features tailored to suit the Cloudways environment.

• 100 GB bandwidth [ CDN Overage: $0.2 / 10G]
• Priority DDoS protection
• Intelligent firewall (WAF)
• Image optimization with Polish
• Brotli compression
• Mobile optimization with Mirage
• Wildcard SSL support
• PCI DSS compliance
• HTTP/3 support
• Reserved for Cloudways IPs & prioritized routing
• Full page caching

It is worth noting that Cloudways does not offer the full-featured version of Cloudflare Enterprise CDN. Instead, it’s a trimmed version with limited features.

But think about the pricing. Cloudways charges only $4.99 per month, whereas the full-fledged version costs $200 per month.

Here are the top three hosting companies that offer Cloudflare Enterprise CDN. The tables below show the feature comparisons.

Redis Cache Support

Cloudways supports Redis and Memcached for object caching. By caching database queries, object caching can drastically improve website loading speed. It can also enhance the speed of the WordPress admin area.

Typically, Redis is far more advanced and faster than Memcached. Please read this article to learn about the difference between Redis and Memcached.

With all 2 GB plans and higher, Cloudways offers the Redis Object Cache Pro plugin for free, which typically costs $95 when purchased directly.

If you have the 1 GB plan, you can also use Redis cache. However, you need to install Redis on the server, then use the free Redis Object Cache plugin to enable Redis in WordPress.

To enable Redis Cache on the server, please go to Server->Settings and Packages-> Install Redis.

After you install Redis on the server, you can start or stop the Redis server by going to Server -> Manage Services.

Install and activate the Redis Object Cache plugin in WordPress. If you are with a 2GB plan or higher, the Object Cache Pro plugin will be installed automatically when you activate the service at the server level.

Caching Comparison Chart

Free WordPress Cache Plugin [ Breeze ]

Breeze is a free WordPress cache plugin offered to all Cloudways customers. It has all the features of other mainstream cache plugins like WP Rocket.

In addition, it integrates directly with Varnish, Cloudways’ server-level cache.

If you use Breeze with Cloudways, you will save the money you would spend on other cache plugins.

However, Breeze has a lot of room for improvement. In specific setups, it may not work correctly. We will discuss that further later in this article.

SafeUpdate For WordPress

When hosted with Cloudways, all your servers come with an Auto Healing feature. In the event of a server crash, most issues are resolved with an Auto-Healing server restart.

Cloudways has a SafeUpdate feature that automatically detects, tests, deploys, and rolls back WordPress updates. Visual regression testing ensures that plugin updates don’t break your site.

Using SafeUpdates, you can convert hours of work into minutes. Just schedule updates and move on with your day.

Vertical Scaling

What would you do when there is a spike in traffic?

Change the host for better resources?

Well, with Cloudways, it’s not the case. You can upgrade your server resources at any time without affecting any customization you might have made.

You can buy more RAM, CPU cores, and bandwidth, or upgrade or change your server.

But how about a downgrade? Is it possible?

If you are with Digital Ocean, the downgrade is not possible. However, you can upgrade or downgrade your AWS and Google subscriptions at any time.

Note that if you are with DigitalOcean, you can only upgrade the package, not the individual resources.

For example, if you have a DO 1 GB plan and want to upgrade to 2 CPU cores, you need to upgrade to a 4 GB plan only, as the 2 GB plan still offers 1 CPU core.

However, with Google Cloud and AWS, you can scale resources individually.

If you were with shared hosting, you might know they trap you for at least a year ( sometimes 3-4 years). In between, if you want to upgrade, you need to buy a higher plan. With Cloudways, it’s a different story.

Enterprise Grade Security

One of the reasons I moved away from SiteGround is that my site was hacked about twice in three years.

With Cloudways, all my sites have been safe to date.

The reason is straightforward. Cloudways offers a dedicated environment with several security measures installed at the server level.

Recently, Cloudways has collaborated with Malware Security. Now, all Cloudways customers will get the Malcare security plugin for free ( Known as Bot Protection)

In addition, Cloudways offers the following security features.

• The dedicated firewall at the server level
• SSL Certificate
• Regular security patching
• Two Factor Authentication
• Advanced DDoS protection [ When you use the Cloudflare Enterprise CDN]
• Web Application Firewall [ When you use the Cloudflare Enterprise CDN]
• Safeupdate for WordPress

Application And Server Cloning

Your server or application can crash at any time. This could be due to a wrong setting, a bad plugin, or a theme. There are thousands of reasons why your server or application may crash.

But with Cloudways, you don’t have to worry!

You can do one-click server or application cloning. You can perform all your testing with the cloned server, and when you are ready, deploy it to the production server.

Unlimited Applications

With Cloudways, you can install unlimited applications and create unlimited databases as long as storage is available.

But my suggestion is to monitor CPU and RAM usage and, based on that, decide how many applications you should install.

The more applications you install, the more load on the CPU, and the slower your applications will be.

Just because Cloudways allows unlimited applications doesn’t mean you should install too many. It will slow down all your sites.

No Long-Term Contract

Cloudways pricing is hourly or monthly. There is no commitment, not even for a month. You can leave Cloudways anytime you want. There is no need to pay for the whole year up front.

If you feel you need more resources due to a sudden spike in traffic, you can always scale up. I have never encountered a web host as flexible as this one.

Excellent Support

Cloudways support used to be bad, but I have never encountered this issue. Whenever I contacted Cloudways support, I got a prompt response.

They have often solved problems that may not come under their support coverage. But they have done that on goodwill.

The only issue I noticed was that the Cloudways support team is in Karachi. So, if you try to chat with them from a different time zone, it may take some time to connect, but it won’t be more than 2-3 minutes.

Here are the Cloudways support features in a nutshell.

• 24X7X365 live chat support
• Ticket-based support
• Server configuration and customization
• Phone-based support (Only for premium support plan customers)
• Fixing application-level issues
• Server-level Cron job creation
• Application monitoring

Basic support is free ( More than enough) and available 24/7. But if you run a big company and need premium support, Cloudways also offers that option.

I found Cloudways’ support to be outstanding. The team is very knowledgeable and eager to help their customers.

The best support mode is live chat, available 24/7.

Easy Migration

Cloudways partners with BlogVault and, together, has developed a plugin called CloudWays Migrator that automatically transfers your website from other hosts to Cloudways.

The migrator tool is excellent. It never failed to transfer. The UI is very smooth, and all options are well laid out.

If you don’t want to use the Migrator tools, you can use the WPVivid plugin to transfer your website easily.

We will talk about the migration process later in this article.

Customized Control

Cloudways is a Cloud hosting, so you can control everything you want on your server. You can change the PHP configuration, install modules you want (if they’re supported), or do anything that can be done on a web server.

You can also change the application web root, access files via SFTP, run automated backups, or create server-level cron jobs.

If you are comfortable with server customization, the Cloudways support team is always available to help.

Excellent Pricing

I see many people have concerns about Cloudways’ pricing. But trust me, Cloudways plans are not that costly.

Cloudways is a Cloud Hosting Provider, not a typical shared hosting provider. So, the pricing comparison should be between Apple and Apple, right?

Cloudway’s introductory pricing starts at $14. Can you find better-managed WordPress hosting for $11? Maybe not. I would pay a little extra for hosting for better speed and security.

Cloudways can be costly only when you choose Google Cloud or AWS. Other than that, the pricing of different servers is good enough to host.

Cloudways Pricing And Cloudways Hosting Plans

Cloudways charges on an hourly or monthly basis. There is no long-term commitment and no hidden fees. You pay what you see when buying the plan.

For example, if you use their hosting for 10 days, you must pay for 10 days, not the whole month. There is no renewal fee in Cloudways.

You may wonder why we can’t host directly with cloud service providers like Digital Ocean or Vultr.

Of course, you can do that. The pricing is about 50% lower than what you pay Cloudways for a similar set of resources.

But there is a catch.

If you host directly with Cloud server providers, you will miss the benefits of Managed hosting. You will need to manage everything yourself, which is not easy. The image below shows what you will miss if you directly host with a Cloud service provider.

Cloudways offers five IaaS providers: Google Cloud, AWS, DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode. Here are the different Cloudways plans based on other cloud servers.

Cloudways Data Centers

Cloudways’ data center location depends on the cloud server you choose. If you are targeting the USA and Europe, almost all cloud service providers have data centers.

However, if your target audience is in India, you may choose DigitalOcean. The image below shows the list of data centers across different regions.

Cloudways Performance And Test Results

We never review any hosting provider without using it and running rigorous speed testing. Unlike other bloggers who never show the URL used for testing, we test actual sites.

We proudly show the URL used for testing because we believe in transparency and unbiased review.

For Cloudways, we took our live site ( RiansTech), and below are the results. We did not use any caching plugin for this test, as they always affect server performance.

We have only used Perfmatters and Cloudflare CDN.

Here is how our site performs across different regions. Did you notice we are getting almost the same speed across various locations? That is the power of Cloudways and Cloudflare.

Speed Test Report

The images below show the speed test reports for RiansTech, which we tested using different tools.

GT Metrix Speed Test

GTMetrix shows a perfect 100 score with a fully loaded time of 0.2 seconds, which is excellent. Just look at the total blocking time and CLS, which are 0. It’s all because of Perfmatters.

Web Core Vitals Test Report

Yes, we passed the web core vitals. It was possible only due to Cloudways. We scored almost a perfect 100 in both the mobile and desktop versions.

Speed Vitals Test Report

We have also scored a perfect 100 here. Just look at the TTFB. It’s only 36 ms. Can you believe that?

TTFB Test ( Time To First Byte)

Here is RiansTech’s TTFB report for different regions. We are getting almost the same TTFB across all areas.

Please note that TTFB is the main factor in your website’s speed. TTFB is the time it takes the server to render the first byte.

How To Host With Cloudways

You might have heard that hosting a website on Cloudways is tough, especially if you are moving from cPanel.

Yeah, the Cloudways interface may be confusing for many, but once you get the hang of it, you will find every option well laid out.

We are here to help you host your first website on Cloudways. If you follow the steps below, you will be done in 10 minutes.

Sounds interesting? Let’s go!

1. Sign Up For Cloudways

First, you need to buy a hosting plan. Click this link to go to the Cloudways home page.

There, click on the “Pricing” option on the menu bar. That will show you the Cloudways plans and pricing.

Choose a plan based on your requirements. You can choose between “Cloudways Flexible” and “Cloudways Autonomous“. You also need to decide which server to use.

Click on “Start Free“.

You will be presented with the sign-up page. Enter all the details and sign up.

2. Deploy Your Server

The next step is to choose a server. Enter the application information, server name, project name, etc. Then, select the server and the RAM size.

Choose the data center close to your targeted audience. That will affect your server TTFB. The data center location varies based on the server you choose.

At the end, click “Launch Now.“

Deploying a server may take a couple of minutes (5-10 minutes). Please don’t refresh or close the page during the server deployment.

3. Launch Application

To add Applications, go to “Applications” and click “Add Applications.” Then, select the server for your application.

Select the server, then click “Add Application.“

Then select the application type (for example, WordPress) and your application name, and finally click “Add Application.”

It may take some time (2-3 minutes) for the application to get installed.

4. Install SSL Certificate

Once you have installed the application and clicked it, you will see the following window.

Here, you can see the temporary URL, the temporary admin URL, the admin username/password, and the database details.

If you want to access the hosting files, you need to create application credentials (4), as shown on the right.

To install the SSL certificate, please click the “SSL Certificate” option on the left.

Enter the email ID and the domain name on which you want to install the SSL certificate. Please check the ” Apply Wildcard ” option, as it will also install the SSL certificate for all subdomains (if added to Cloudways).

Finally, please add the CNAME records to your DNS registrar. After some time, click “Verify DNS” to confirm the CNAME records have been added.

Record Type: CNAME
Host Name:_acme-challenge
Value/Alias: wordpress-851545-3099472.cloudwaysapps.com [ This will vary based on your application]

After that, please click “Install Certificate.”

5. Connect Your Domain

The final thing that you have to do is to connect your domain. When you installed the application, you got a temporary URL. Once you connect your domain, the temporary domain will be replaced by the actual domain.

To connect your domain, click the “Domain Management ” option.

Enter your domain name and save the changes. As shown on the right, you can add additional domains.

Finally, add the A Record and the CNAME record (4) to your domain registrar.

First Record

Record Type: A
Host Name:@ [ If you use Cloudflare, enter @, otherwise follow your domain registrar]
Value/Alias: Your Cloudways IP [ You will get that IP on your application details page]

Second Record

Record Type: CNAME
Host Name: WWW
Value/Alias: Your Cloudways IP [ You will get that IP on your application details page]

Once these DNS entries are live, you can access your website with the actual domain address.

That’s it. You are now hosted on Cloudways.

6. Request for Migration (In Case You Need it)

If you are moving away from another hosting provider to Cloudways, you can request a free migration.

Please note that only the first website migration is free. Additional migrations will be charged at the rate below.

To raise a migration request, please go to “Add-ons” and submit it.

Did you know that Cloudways also has a migration plugin? You can transfer your website with that tool very easily without any support.

You can download the migration plugin by following the instructions below.

Getting Used To Cloudways Control Panel

The Cloudways interface differs slightly from the traditional cPanel interface. So, let’s explore the interface and learn how we can manage our hosting.

Cloudways Backups

Cloudways has three backup options. Please note that Cloudways backup is not free. They charge $ 0.50 per GB of data backup.

• Scheduled Server Backup
• On-Demand Server Backup
• Application Backup

Scheduled Server Backup

Cloudways automatically backs up servers daily. However, you are free to change the frequency. The scheduled backup option is available for the whole server.

On-Demand Server Backup

You can also perform an on-demand backup of your server that can be downloaded to your local drive.

To enable on-demand backup, turn on the local backup option.

Application Backup

Like On-Demand Server Backup, you can also easily back up an on-demand application and restore it when needed.

Cloudways Cron Job Management

You should turn off WordPress cron to improve the loading time of your website. However, many functions, such as WordPress backups, depend on cron jobs. If you disable the cron job, the backup won’t run.

In that case, you can use the server-side cron job, which won’t affect your website speed. To create a corn job yourself, please refer to this guide or raise a support ticket.

You can see the list of server-side cron jobs in the cron job management tab.

Cloudways Bot Protection

Cloudways Bot Protection is an excellent security tool that blocks unwanted traffic to your website. It is the Malcare security plugin tailored to the Cloudways environment.

Once you enable Bot Protection in the Cloudways dashboard, the plugin will automatically be installed in your WordPress application.

Application Monitoring

Cloudways features a detailed application monitoring system that provides various data, as shown below. This data is useful for identifying the root cause of any issues your application may face.

Cloudways Vs Competitors

The best thing about Cloudways is that they have plans from $11 to $285 per month. Whether you are a beginner or have a high-traffic blog, Cloudways has a plan for you.

Due to this wide price range, Cloudways competes with many web hosts like Rocket. Net, Kinsta, and WP Engine come close to (or better) Cloudways in terms of speed and features.

Cloudways Positives And Negatives

Things That Could Have Been Better

No hosting is perfect, and Cloudways’ service also has its share of flaws. Although the benefits of Cloudways outweigh its drawbacks, we must let you know about them so you can make an informed purchase decision.

Breeze Plugin Needs A Lot Of Improvement

You might be tempted to use Breeze, a free cache plugin Cloudways offers. But trust me, this plugin has a bunch of issues.

The support team does not know how to fix these issues, and the developer does not intend to improve them.

When I used Breeze with CloudFlare CDN, my site broke multiple times, although the support team proactively restored it.

I suggest you use WP Rocket or FlyingPress, along with Perfmatters, to cache your website.

Use Apache And Not LiteSpeed Server

Although the competition has moved away from Apache, Cloudways still uses it. The response time of the Lite Speed server is 2-3 times better than Apache’s.

Although the NGINX reverse proxy has reduced the need for Apache, Cloudways still relies heavily on its selection of web servers.

CPU Outage Issue In 1 GB Plans

I faced this issue a couple of times. However, the support team was prompt in suggesting a solution.

A CPU outage occurs in 1 GB plans due to the use of an Apache Web server and the low CPU seconds per hour limit. It is better to go with the 2 GB plan or higher.

You can resolve the CPU outage issue by changing the following settings.

• Disable WP heartbeat
• Disable Auto Save
• Disable Cron [Ask Cloudways support to create server-side Cron]
• Use MariaDB 10.4
• Use PHO 8.0
• Increase PHP Memory limit
• Increase PHP maximum execution time

No Email Hosting

For me, it’s not a negative, but for many, it could be. Cloudways does not offer email hosting. But you can buy the Rackspace add-on for $1/month/mailbox.

Rackspace can be integrated into the Cloudways dashboard. A detailed guide is available here.

If you don’t like RackSpace, you can use Google Workspace or Zoho (a cheaper option). I use Zoho, and I am pleased with it.

No File Manager

Unfortunately, Cloudways does not offer a file manager. You must rely on tools like FileZilla to access your hosting files.

Should You Use Cloudways

Yes! Cloudways offers the most value-for-money hosting plans. Cloudway speed complements the pricing. You won’t get a fast hosting service like Cloudways at the price range it offers.

The only other hosting that can beat Cloudways is Rocket.Net. Our testing shows that Rocket.net beats Cloudways in speed and security.

But Rocket.net pricing starts at $30, whereas Cloudways pricing starts at $14. You need to consider that as well.

So, if you are a blogger, small business owner, or own a small e-commerce store, Cloudways would be an excellent choice for web hosting.

Conclusion: Cloudways Hosting Review

Cloudways is way better than shared hosting. The speed is excellent even without a cache plugin, and the WordPress admin area runs very smoothly.

Since Coudways does not use a C panel, there is a learning curve to getting used to the interface. However, Cloudways has an extensive knowledge base of articles that will help you learn things better.

Do you recommend Cloudways?

Yes! Of course.

Cloudways is undoubtedly the fastest-managed web host available in the market today, right behind Rocket.net.

Yeah, compared to Rocket.net, Cloudways isn’t that fast, but when it comes to pricing, Cloudways is the most value-for-money host.

Once Cloudways offers full-page caching, it can easily catch Rocket.net in terms of speed. I hope Cloudways offers this service soon.

So, if you are serious about your website speed, I would say move to Cloudways. You will get better speed, safety, and customer support, along with a better overall hosting experience.

Guaranteed!

Cloudways

Cloudways offers fast, secure managed cloud hosting with easy scaling, built-in caching, and 24/7 support—perfect for WordPress and high-performance sites

Price: 14

Price Currency: $

Operating System: Linux

Application Category: WordPress Hosting

Editor's Rating:
4.8

FAQ | Cloudways Review