Cloudways WordPress hosting at a glance
Cloudways is a managed layer on top of raw cloud infrastructure. Instead of buying a shared server or adminning a VPS, you rent DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, or Google Cloud servers through a dashboard that handles the hard parts: Nginx + PHP tuning, caching, staging, SSL, and backups.
Our tests measured a 124ms TTFB — faster than every shared host we benchmarked and close to premium managed — at $14/mo. It's the best WordPress hosting for developers and growing stores.
- Starting price: ~$14/mo (pay-as-you-go, no contracts)
- Providers: DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, Google Cloud, Linode
- Free trial: 3 days (no card required)
- Freebies: staging, Redis, free SSL, free migration plugin
- Stack: Nginx, PHP 8.x, Varnish, Redis, MariaDB
Read the full Cloudways review.
Cloudways WordPress hosting pricing
Cloudways charges a flat managed fee on top of the chosen provider's server cost:
| Server | Price/mo | Best for | | --- | --- | --- | | DigitalOcean 1GB | ~$12 | Small sites | | DigitalOcean 2GB | ~$24 | Growing blogs, small stores | | Vultr 2GB | ~$24 | Better value, more regions | | AWS 2GB | ~$36 | AWS ecosystem | | Google Cloud 2GB | ~$36 | Google ecosystem |
Pricing is pay-as-you-go — no term contracts, no renewal surprises. The managed fee is transparent and shown before checkout.
What Cloudways does well
- Real VPS performance — 124ms TTFB, no noisy neighbors
- Provider choice — pick DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, or Google Cloud per project
- Staging environments — one-click clones to test before going live
- Redis + Varnish — best-in-class caching included
- Scaling — resize RAM/CPU in minutes without migration
- No lock-in — cancel or move anytime
Where it falls short
- No bundled email — email hosting is not included
- Learning curve — a custom panel rather than cPanel; takes a day to feel native
- Pay-per-server — you pay per server, so multiple sites across multiple servers add up
Cloudways vs the competition
| Metric | Cloudways | Kinsta | SiteGround | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | TTFB (our tests) | 124ms | 98ms | 185ms | | Entry price | ~$14/mo | $35/mo | $3.99/mo | | Model | Managed VPS | Premium managed | Premium shared | | Provider choice | Yes | Google only | Google only | | Scaling | Any time | Plan tiers | Limited |
The Cloudways vs SiteGround and Kinsta vs Cloudways comparisons have the full numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cloudways good for WordPress? Yes — it's our top pick for developers and growing stores. VPS performance (124ms TTFB) with a managed dashboard, staging, and Redis from ~$14/mo.
How much does Cloudways WordPress hosting cost? From ~$12–14/mo on DigitalOcean/Vultr entry servers. Prices scale with server size and provider — AWS and Google Cloud cost more.
Does Cloudways include cPanel? No — Cloudways uses its own dashboard. It covers the same tasks (files, databases, email forwarding, backups) with a cleaner interface, but it's not cPanel.
Is Cloudways better than SiteGround? For performance, scaling, and developer features, yes. SiteGround wins on beginner simplicity and the best support in the industry. See the Cloudways vs SiteGround data.
How do I migrate WordPress to Cloudways? Cloudways' free migration plugin moves your site in minutes. Our migrate WordPress to Cloudways tutorial walks through it step by step.
Does Cloudways host WooCommerce well? Yes — Redis caching, VPS resources, and scaling make it our top WooCommerce pick. See the WooCommerce hosting guide.