Cloudways was founded in 2011 in Malta and acquired by DigitalOcean in 2022 for $350 million. The platform occupies a distinct position in the hosting market — between traditional shared hosting and raw cloud VPS. Users choose a cloud provider and server size, and Cloudways handles server provisioning, security patching, performance optimization, staging, backups, and support. The underlying cloud infrastructure is from major providers — DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, or Google Cloud — but the management complexity is abstracted behind Cloudways’ control panel. The DigitalOcean 2GB plan at $28 per month is the most popular entry point for growing WordPress and WooCommerce sites. It provides dedicated RAM and CPU (not shared with other accounts on the server), server-level caching with Varnish, Redis, and Memcached, staging environments, automated daily backups, free SSL, a firewall, and Cloudflare CDN integration — all included at no extra charge. This feature set would require significantly more technical expertise and higher combined cost on a raw DigitalOcean VPS. The pricing model is pay-as-you-go with hourly billing — no annual contracts, no promotional-to-renewal price hike, no cancellation fees. The price you see is the price you pay consistently. This transparency is a meaningful differentiator from SiteGround, Bluehost, and Hostinger, which all use promotional rates that increase dramatically at renewal. Cloudways is slower performance per dollar than Kinsta’s container-based Google Cloud isolation, but significantly cheaper. At $28 per month versus Kinsta’s $35 per month entry point, Cloudways provides comparable managed features on less optimized infrastructure. The primary limitation is support coverage. Standard 24/7 live chat covers platform questions, but application-level WordPress troubleshooting costs $100 per month for the Advanced Support add-on. Cloudways is the right host for developers and agencies that want managed cloud infrastructure without server administration at a price between shared hosting and premium managed WordPress hosts.
Cloudways
Kinsta's container-based Google Cloud isolation delivers better performance consistency and includes Cloudflare Enterprise CDN — worth the modest premium for high-traffic or revenue-critical sites
Hosting Specs
- Pay-as-you-go billing — no annual contracts, no promotional-to-renewal price increases
- Staging, automated backups, SSL, caching, and CDN included on all plans at no extra charge
- Multi-cloud provider flexibility — switch between DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, and Google Cloud
- Application-level WordPress troubleshooting requires Advanced Support add-on at $100/month extra
- No email hosting included — requires third-party email solution (Google Workspace, Rackspace)
- Shared server architecture — multiple Cloudways customers may run on the same underlying cloud server
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Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudways bills hourly for actual server usage. Monthly invoices reflect the total hourly charges for the period. There are no annual contracts, no setup fees, and no cancellation penalties. You can scale up, scale down, or cancel at any time. The advertised monthly price is the consistent price — there are no promotional-to-renewal increases.
DigitalOcean is the most popular choice — best price-to-performance ratio and the most straightforward support experience. Vultr is comparable and sometimes cheaper. AWS and Google Cloud cost more but offer better global reach and scalability for demanding applications. For most WordPress and WooCommerce sites, DigitalOcean is the recommended starting point.
Yes. Staging environments are included on all Cloudways plans at no extra charge. You can clone a live site to a staging environment, test changes, and push to production with a single click. This is a standard feature on all plans regardless of server size.
Kinsta uses container-based Google Cloud isolation — dedicated resources per site with Cloudflare Enterprise CDN included. Cloudways uses shared cloud infrastructure from your chosen provider with server-level caching. Kinsta starts at $35/month for 1 site. Cloudways' best comparable plan is approximately $28/month for 2GB DigitalOcean. Kinsta delivers better performance consistency; Cloudways is cheaper and more flexible for multi-site agencies.
Yes. Cloudways allows unlimited WordPress installations on a single server, limited only by the server's available resources. An agency hosting 10-15 small client sites on a 4GB DigitalOcean server at $54/month can reduce per-site hosting costs dramatically versus individual shared hosting accounts for each client.
Advertiser Disclosure: Pricing verified April 2026 from Cloudways' official pricing page.. We may receive compensation for clicks or purchases on this site.