Cloudways Hosting Review 2021- Is it the Best For WordPress?
User Review
( votes)Table of Contents
Introduction of Cloudways Hosting:
There are multiple web hosting solutions in the market, but choosing the best one amongst them is difficult. With many required Cloudways hosting reviews, features, and plans, it becomes very tough to find one web host that you won’t regret afterward.
Cloudways is one such provider that will catch your attention with its flexible and unique web hosting solutions.
What is Cloudways?
Cloudways was founded in 2009 by Uzair Gadit, Pere Hospital, and Aaqib Gadit. It works with five top cloud providers, which provide the infrastructure—DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud.
Cloudways aims to provide managed cloud hosting solutions to their customers. Being fast and secure, it is a good choice for beginners who don’t know about the bads and goods of web hosting providers.
It offers very affordable and functional solutions when it comes to cloud-based managed WordPress hosting. And not just WordPress, it supports many open-source tools like Joomla, Drupal, Larvel, Magento, and PHP.
Cloudways also gives the flexibility of payment to the business owners, big or small, with a limited budget. You can just pay as you go and keep track of your budget!
You would also be very glad to know that it will help you deploy your website in just a few minutes so that you can concentrate on your business while they handle the hosting tasks efficiently.
Overview of Cloudways Hosting:
Particulars | Details |
Speed | 299ms |
Uptime | 99.99% |
Support | 24/7 Live Chat |
Applications | WordPress, Joomla, Magento, Moodle, and Drupal |
Features | 10 GB RAM, 25 GB of storage, 1 Core Processor, and 1 TB bandwidth |
Hosting Plans | DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud |
Site Transfer | Free |
Pricing | Starting at $10/month |
Common Problems With Hosting Services
With many strong competitors in the market, web hosting providers try to give their best. But we know what we need, whether it is cloudways hosting review, speed & reliability, dedicated servers, or virtual private servers (VPS).
While many providers do offer a great combination of these, only a few offers managed to host support.
One most common problem with other hosting services is that you get to do all the setup and installation manually, along with overseeing the maintenance and the day-to-day operation of your server.
As a fully-managed hosting provider, Cloudways frees you from unnecessary hassles and stress of operating a server.
It makes things simpler and completes your tasks for you without costing you a lot of compromising on the best of the web hosting features.
Other things to consider are hosting reliability, uptime, upgrades, and hosting features including add-ons. We all prefer the best solutions for economical prices to make sure the functionality and affordability of the plan.
The quality of service and stability of the product on the market affect the pricing of the services.
What are the key features of Cloudways Hosting?
Before choosing anything, being a smart client you must ask- “What’s so great about this product that we should buy it?” There are some awesome features that you must know about.
- E-Commerce and Security
Popular e-commerce tools like Magento and Prestashop are offered by Cloudways in its app library for you to choose your tools and create desirable stores just by dragging and dropping.
Cloudways Hosting ensures the safeguarding of your installation from attacks by regularly releasing the operating system and firmware upgrades.
It also offers free Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates. They have also added the recommended Rackspace email with Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) authentication technology for higher security.
- Cloudways Proprietary Management Tools
Cloudways functions as a collaboration tool between team members. Other features that it provides are- DB Manager & CloudwaysBot.
Database management is done through the DB Manager which utilizes “Git” to create workflows, develop and deploy your site and also add SSL certificates.
CloudwaysBot uses artificial intelligence to assist its clients in optimizing their apps and server for better performance. It also sends real-time updates to the channel of your choice (email or text) on the schedule which you decide.
- Control Panel and Infrastructure
Cloudways’ control panel (not cPanel) has a modern design and it’s intuitive to use. You can add applications to it at any time after you get the server running. They only support PHP programming language, although most Cloudways users will be using a CMS.
The Cloudways software infrastructure is built on “ThunderStack” which consists of the Nginx and Apache web servers, MySQL, MariaDB, PHP 7, and several kinds of caching. Debian Linux is the operating system.
- Cloudways CDN
Cloudways has CloudwaysCDN which is based on StackPath (formerly called MaxCDN). Adding this CDN will cost only $1.00 per 25 GB of bandwidth.
- Developer Features
Cloudways provides several frameworks for PHP developers, including RESTful API to facilitate the scripting of operations. It also provides the required assistance and staging and command-line access (by SSH) to the developers.
What is the Cloudways Hosting Performance Analysis?
- Speed test results– On setting up a test site, I found out that Cloudways gave an average of 99.99% uptime, which is quite stable and good.
- Server response time– The response times ranged from 293-379ms with an average of 299ms, which is quite speedy for a WordPress site.
Last 12 Months Average Time
- January 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
- February 2020 average uptime: 100%
- March 2020 average uptime: 99.98%
- April 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
- May 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
- June 2020 average uptime: 99.98%
- July 2020 average uptime: 100%
- August 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
- September 2020 average uptime: 100%
- October 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
- November 2020 average uptime: 100%
- December 2020 average uptime: 99.99%
Pros & Cons We Found In Cloudways Hosting Review
PROS
- Offers a free 3-day trial period.
- The strong infrastructure of DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Computing Engine (GCE).
- SSD hosting, Nginx/Apache servers, Varnish/Memcached caching, PHP7, HTTP/2, Redis support.
- One-click unlimited WordPress installations & staging sites, pre-installed WP-CLI and Git integration.
- Free site migration service, automated backups, SSL certificate, CDN & dedicated IP.
CONS
- It doesn’t offer free domain registration.
- No free email hosting. (pay $1 per month)
- No cPanel/Plesk control panel.
- Unusually designed back end makes it difficult to point that purchased URL to the hosting setup.
Is Cloudways Specially Designed For WordPress?
Cloudways is particularly known for its cloud-based managed WordPress hosting. It promises fast loading of the WordPress sites and relieves you from any such hosting headaches.
These cloud servers come with an amazing set of features that you can adjust as your website grows. Cloudways makes your business strong from the core with its speed, performance, and security.
It offers managed cloud-hosting services especially for WordPress sites on a cloud server where multiple copies of your content get replicated throughout your chosen data center.
This all is handled by a complex algorithm so that even if your main server goes down, a copy of your website is served from the next available server.
Hence, ensuring the rapid deployment of computing resources, service reliability, and high performance.
Another mind-blowing feature is that your installation receives a top-class treatment by auto-updating the CMS, performing automatic daily backups, and providing real-time site monitoring and WordPress-specific security.
Cloudways Vs Other Web Hosting
Apart from these features, what makes Cloudways different from other web hosting services? So let us put this in some points.
- Cloudways offers a “pay-as-you-go” service, which means that you only need to pay for the part of the services you have used or the amount of time you’ve used them.
- Cloudways is a cloud-hosting server which means that your site is stored on multiple servers, hence, it can be migrated easily in the case of any incidents, unlike in traditional hosts.
- Cloud hosting also improves the uptime speed as one of the other servers in the network can take over the task in case anything goes wrong.
- Cloudways is an SSD-based (solid-state drive) WordPress Hosting which intends to keep your site fast with dedicated and reliable resources.
- Cloudways uses a range of security techniques and tools to process your WordPress site and keep it safe, in comparison to traditional hosts.
- As a business owner, you can scale and manage the services very quickly on Cloudways, in case of a spike in traffic.
- As cloud hosting is faster than traditional hosting, the server is able to detect your clients’ location and transmit content from the server nearest to them, making your business easier for you.
What are the Cloudways Plans and Pricing?
Cloudways has a unique pricing model that enables its clients to pay for the part of the service which they use.
You can choose from the finest infrastructures- DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud.
Amongst the most affordable plans, the DigitalOcean package is the best one which costs $10 per month and gives 25GB of storage, 1TB of bandwidth, and 1GB of RAM. A similar plan is of Linode plan starts at $12 per month, while Vultr starts at $11 monthly.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) start at $36.51 per month and offer 1.75GB of RAM, 20GB of storage, and 2GB of bandwidth. These servers are fully configurable and the bandwidth is based on usage. On the other hand, Google Cloud starts at $33.30per month, but it comes with one reduction that is RAM.
These monthly plans scale up to $1,035 for 3840GB of storage, 12TB of month data transfers, 192GB of RAM, and a 32-core processor.
Cloudways Hosting Coupons
You can get up to 40% on all Cloudways Hosting Plans. It comes with a variety of features. You can visit here to get the Cloudways Coupon Code and Promo Code– Cloudways Hosting Coupon.
Why you should host on Cloudways?
Cloudways offers a great balance between affordability and functionality, especially when it comes to cloud-based managed WordPress hosting.
Someone looking for the benefits of cloud hosting without overly technical setup, fluctuating payments, etc., can sign up for it.
Cloudways Hosting has WordPress cloud servers which come with a great feature set, and you can even scale hosting resources as your website grows.
Their “pay-as-you-go” model makes them ideal for businesses and users who have a limited budget for hosting. And, such a pricing structure ensures that you don’t get locked up in an expensive subscription plan.
Their custom control panel makes things easy for users who are unfamiliar with command lines and are absolutely new to website building.
In my opinion, Cloudways Hosting India offers cloud-based hosting services that are totally about speed, performance, and reliability for every location, like India.
So if you’re still unsure about Cloudways, they offer the free three-day trial for you to test out their services.
Cloudways Hosting Support and Service
Available 24*7 for you, Cloudways offers great customer service via web chat or call. For a phone or Skype call, you’ll need to fill out a form which will be followed by a representative calling you to discuss your issues.
Sometimes it might happen that the form might not accept your request, which gives a drawback to Cloudways.
Webchat is the easiest way to resolve your issues as the representatives respond in seconds and you don’t need to wait longer.
They help you with accurate information and present you with true and reliable facts about Cloudways.
What Others Say About This Hosting?
- Danny Cave: Hands down the greatest support I’ve ever had from a host. Not just about solving problems as they come up, either. Support has actually been quite proactive about reaching out, offering a lending hand, etc. 100% helpful information without a drop in the sales pitch.
- Jack McConnell (@jackmcconnell): Also @Cloudways support is mighty quick. Best I’ve seen in the hosting, er… sphere?
- Jacqueline Chong: I had experience with Google Cloud but still decided I need to move all my sites to Cloudways. I have no doubt about hosting performance but what you need is also completely reliable technical support. Cloudways Live Chat is worth everything!
- @TheJoshuaDay: Cloudways is awesome. I am using it atop Digital Ocean. @Cloudways
- Ilya Bohemia: Over the years I used a number of hosting companies, yet the greatest satisfaction I got from moving over a year ago to Cloudways.
CW managed hosting interface is well designed and implemented. It makes it so much easier to do what needs to be done – even (or especially) for a relatively low-tech fellow like myself.
And whenever there is a question – their customer support is always there for you via nearly instant chat responses. - Joanna J van Vuuren (@chickasskick): Holey Moley, @Cloudways are absolutely the best! Now add free SSL certs to your websites with just one click! Awesome!
- Orlando Salcedo (@osalcedo): I’m going to leave this one right here… If you’re looking for managed hosting… @Cloudways is awwwwesome! I’m loving it
FAQs on Cloudways Hosting
- How can I upgrade/scale my hosting account for my company?
All you need to do is easily move up to the next level of hosting, with additional RAM, storage, bandwidth, and CPUs, as you feel your company is outgrowing it. You can also scale your account, but only with a Google or Amazon server.
- How do the payment plans work?
Cloudways offers month-to-month payment plans where you only pay for the resources you consume. And if you want to pay annually, you can load the funds into your account, where they will automatically be deducted each month to pay for your hosting and server fees.
- What payment methods do they support?
You can pay through PayPal, alternatively, you can use any credit cards such as MasterCard, Visa, and American Express.
- Does Cloudways offer FTP access?
Yes, you get SFTP or SSH to access and update files and folders on your application.
- And dedicated server and IP?
Yes, each server comes with a dedicated cloud environment and a single dedicated IP address.
- Does Cloudways offer free backups?
Yes, it backs up all your application data and related databases for free.
- How is Cloudways a good choice for a WordPress site?
Cloudways offers features as unlimited WordPress installs, pre-installed WP-CLI, Git integration, and an unlimited number of staged URLs, which are perfect if you’re a professional blogger. It also migrates existing sites for free.
- How easy is it to use Cloudways?
The customer support at Cloudways is very fast and responsive to even the tiniest of your needs. It also offers managed-to-host, making it easy for anyone to get a secure site online. So you can concentrate on your business while they take care of the behind-the-scenes management.
- Are there any features that Cloudways offers to make a team member’s job easier?
Yes. “The Team Member” feature of Cloudways helps in project collaboration and allows the account owner to designate access for each team member on an account, server, and application level. Also, the owner can restrict the access of any team member accordingly.
- What type of security measures does Cloudways employ to keep the cloud server safe?
The Cloudways infrastructure is designed to prevent any attacks on any of the servers through tightly-controlled firewalls. The security team works on applying patches to the application-hosting servers for the proper functioning of the system.