Cloudways
Managed cloud hosting that puts DigitalOcean, Vultr and AWS power behind a simpler panel, for a flat monthly fee.
Cloudways sits between raw cloud servers and traditional managed hosting. You pick a cloud provider, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud, choose a server size, and Cloudways handles the stack: provisioning, caching, free SSL, staging, automated backups and a built in CDN add on. Billing is pay as you go and hourly, with no annual lock in, so you can scale a server up or down or switch it off when a project ends. The result is genuinely good performance for the money and a lot of control. The tradeoffs are real: there is no built in email hosting, the panel assumes more technical comfort than one click shared hosts, and support is chat based rather than phone. For developers, agencies and growing sites that have outgrown shared hosting, it is one of the best value paths to cloud performance.
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Cloud performance without the cloud headaches, if you can do without bundled email.
In its favour
Held against it
Cloud power, packaged sensibly.
Cloudways scores highest on performance and value, the reasons technical teams pick it over shared hosting. Ease of use is the soft spot, since the cloud model asks a little more of you than a one click host.
Scored against the same five weighted criteria we use across web hosting. See the rubric →
a developer, agency or growing site that wants real cloud performance and control without managing servers by hand.
a first time site owner who wants one click setup with bundled email, or anyone who needs phone support.
What it costs
Flat monthly fee per server, pay as you goPricing as of June 2026. Cloudways bills hourly with no contract; AWS and Google Cloud servers start higher near $38/mo, and email and managed DNS are paid add ons. Check the vendor for current pricing.