What Makes Cloudways Stand Out?
With Cloudways, you can do away with the old and outdated hosting processes and enjoy the latest that technology has to offer. It’s hard to let go of creature comforts, but sometimes change can be good!
For example: Worried that cloud hosting is the only option with Cloudways? If you are looking specifically for VPS or non-cloud dedicated hosting, there’s no wiggle room whatsoever, sure; but if you’re just looking for more power as you grow, simply look at what this company offers. Your choice of cloud architecture and the assurance that you only pay for what you need is a pretty great deal, on top of seamless and almost instant scalability. Optimized packages for platforms like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, and more also offer an added layer of comfort and control.
Another example: Is no cPanel or Plesk a deal breaker for you? We understand completely—which is why it’s listed as a con in this review. For a development-centric system and environment like Cloudways to not offer these industry standards is surprising, to say the least. However, we invite you to consider the the Click & Go Console for a moment. With this custom-built interface, you don’t to need to contact a support rep to implement every little change to your server parameters. Or, if you’re not a veteran developer, let’s put it this way: You don’t need to be! Just let the console run, set the values, and you are good to go. This way, you can focus on your project or business itself, instead of worrying about the small details.
We’ll discuss Cloudways features in length later on in this review, but for now, know this: Cloudways offers total control over the servers, and employs several security protocols to protect your data, so the risk of being infiltrated by hackers is very minimal. Plus, since you have the latest technology at your disposal, you can bet that you are always a step ahead.
Plans and Pricing
Cloudways differs from many hosting providers by giving you fully managed and fully configurable dedicated server resources using your choice of cloud architecture. This means they can give you the full control of dedicated hosting, coupled with the speed and agility of cloud servers—all at an affordable price. In fact, Cloudways uses a Pay-As-You-Go billing scheme that only charges you for the resources you need and consume. You can set both your cloud architecture provider and plan of choice during registration.
Note that all of these plans come inclusive of hosting provider charges; meaning, for example, that you don’t need to create a separate DigitalOcean account or subscribe to a separate DigitalOcean plan in order to use a Cloudways plan effectively. Also: Pay-As-You-Go means that you’re actually charged hourly; so changing plans in the middle of the month is no problem as it will be immediately implemented, with the price difference reflected in your invoice and post-month billing.
Let’s take a look at the cloud architecture choices—DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon, Google, and Kyup—and the tiered baseline plans offered with each.
DigitalOcean
| Monthly Price: | $10 | $22 | $42 | $80 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAM | 1 GB | 2 GB | 4 GB | 8 GB |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Storage | 25 GB | 50 GB | 80 GB | 160 GB |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB | 5 TB |
Linode
| Monthly Price: | $12 | $24 | $50 | $90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAM | 1 GB | 2 GB | 4 GB | 8 GB |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Storage | 20 GB | 30 GB | 48 GB | 96 GB |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB | 2 TB | 3 TB | 4 TB |
Vultr
| Monthly Price: | $11 | $23 | $44 | $84 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAM | 1 GB | 2 GB | 4 GB | 8 GB |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Storage | 25 GB | 40 GB | 60 GB | 100 GB |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB | 2 TB | 3 TB | 4 TB |
Amazon (AWS)
| Monthly Price: | $85.17 | $34.91 | $174.66 | $272.73 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAM | 3.75 GB | 1.75 GB | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| CPU Cores | 1 vCPU | 1 vCPU | 2 vCPU | 4 vCPU |
| Storage | 4 GB | 4 GB | 4 GB | 4 GB |
| Bandwidth | 2 GB | 2 GB | 2 GB | 2 GB |
Google Cloud Platform
| Monthly Price: | $73.62 | $33.30 | $138.64 | $226.05 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAM | 3.75 GB | 1.70 GB | 7.5 GB | 15 GB |
| CPU Cores | 1 vCPU | 1 vCPU | 2 | 4 |
| Storage | 20 GB | 20 GB | 20 GB | 20 GB |
| Bandwidth | 2 GB | 2 GB | 2 GB | 2 GB |
Kyup
| Monthly Price: | $75.61 | $21.16 | $129.34 | $260.85 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RAM | 2 GB | 1 GB | 4 GB | 8 GB |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Storage | 40 GB | 20 GB | 60 GB | 80 GB |
| Bandwidth | 2 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB |
These plans are foundations, which you can then modify with more precise feature specifications through Cloudways’ Pay-As-You-Go system. The advantage in having a selection of providers is the wide range of server locations and mix of specifications at your disposal; you need only to invest a bit of time in studying the many choices get the optimal plan for your needs.
Features and Guarantees
The choice of provider affects the range of starting price points available to you, but each Cloudways plan does come with with one free website migration, free SSL certificates, and the capacity to host unlimited apps.
Incredible Speed
All of Cloudways’ cloud infrastructure provider choices have multiple data centers in more than 25 different locations, so you don’t have to worry about latency anymore. Thunderstack-powered SSD servers, specially configured Apache and Nginx servers, and Varnish and Memcached caching layers all work together to give you page loading times that are as much as 50% faster than the competition.
Optimization for Various Platforms
Most providers have one or two specialty hosting offerings, but Cloudways goes the extra mile. There are optimized hosting plans for WordPress, WooCommerce, Drupal, Magento, Joomla, and more—all built on the foundations found in every Cloudways package.
What does “optimized” mean? It means that for Cloudways makes little tweaks and additions to raise your quality of life—this could be in the form of pre-installs, specific integrated tools, and even strategically built servers designed to deliver best performance and fastest page load times based on your platform of choice.
Fully Managed Hosting
Cloudways automates all the drudgery of website and server management, thanks to its sleek Cloudways Click & Go Console. Here are a few of the time-saving, built-in functions:
- 1-click cloning gives you quick and easy duplicates of your servers and applications.
- 1-click backup and restore lets you set automated backups at your chosen intervals, and restore any selected backup with one click on the console.
- 1-click scaling lets you adjust RAM and storage as needed, without any downtime or hassle for you.
- Automated server management tools eliminate the tech-staff middleman and let you implement any tweaks to your server parameters yourself.
- Real-time monitoring gives you constant data on several different metrics, viewable right from your console.
- The Cron Job Manager lets you set up automated server functions.
- Aside from the console, you get Cloudways Bot, a smart assistant that gives you real-time performance insights and tips for optimizing your servers.
To further your hosting experience a breeze, they also offer domain mapping, team user accounts, and staging areas for testing before deployment.
Great Development Tools
Speaking of teams: Cloudways integrates Git directly into their system, so you can have collaborative, version-controlled branch development directly from your account. Permission controls let you assign roles and authorizations to different members of your team. You also get a built-in staging platform, so you have a ready-made testing environment for all the code you’ve got in development.
Implementing apps is as easy as using any of the 10+ one-click installation platforms included with every Cloudways Console. Unfortunately, Cloudways only supports PHP, so you can’t implement custom applications written in other languages.
Serious Security
Cloudways takes the protection of your account and data seriously. The company uses platform-wide firewalls to secure its servers, and SSH and STFP features to protect any data you upload into the cloud. Security patching is automatic and immediate for all servers, so you’ll never have to worry about lingering vulnerabilities. Cloudways uses two-factor authentication on all accounts. SSL certificates can be installed with a single click, and Cloudways supports the HTTP/2 protocol so you never have to pick between speed and security again. And for securing your own IPs, Cloudways gives you an IP whitelisting tool, too.
Uptime Guarantee
Cloudways will give you 5% account credit for every hour of unexpected downtime you experience with the service. Bear in mind that the different third-party cloud providers also have separate SLAs, so be sure to check the appropriate one after you sign up.
Contract Terms
We’ve already covered the Pay-As-You-Go billing model that Cloudways implements; but the convenience doesn’t stop there. Unlike other companies that have long contract terms and tons of upselling, Cloudways doesn’t lock you into a contract for long periods; so you’re also only paying for the exact amount of time you use.
On top of this, Cloudways also gives you a 14-day free trial, so you can check out their services risk-free.
Customer Support
Cloudways has a sufficient support center containing articles on getting started, server and application management, security, billing, and many others. You can use the search toolbar to quickly scan results related to your keyword.
Want to speak to someone? Their support team is ready for your queries 24/7, so you need not to wait to be able to reach them. You can initiate an online chat session, send an email, or submit a ticket request. You can talk to the directly on the phone, but Cloudways doesn’t provide a phone number for you to call; instead, you’ll have to schedule a call from them.
They also have social media accounts in Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so you can go ahead and follow them for the latest news and updates.
What's the Verdict on Cloudways?
Cloudways Review 2020 – Conclusion
While Cloudways only offers cloud hosting, they’re certainly worth a try if you’re looking for flexible and highly configurable plans. The lack of domain name registration and email accounts, plus the resource limitations, put Cloudways behind some of the competition; but their blazing-fast speed, solid uptime, and affordability keep them at the top of their game. And with six different cloud infrastructure providers and a total of more than 40 different baseline plans to choose from, you’ll have a wide range of choices that ensures you’ll get the right specifications for your needs. Cloudways’ Pay-As-You-Go business model can potentially save you a lot of money, and their fully managed hosting services eliminate a lot of the hassle of maintaining a website. Plus, a two-week free trial period allows you to try all of this virtually risk-free! There really is no reason not to give Cloudways a shot. You never know; it just might be what you’re looking for.
5th Place9.1 out of 10
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