Cloudways Review: Is It The Best Cloud Hosting For WordPress?

Cloudways is a systems integrator that helps people implement their solutions on a variety of cloud platforms. In other words, it is a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) provider. As we will see on this Cloudways review the company offers users a fair selection of various cloud platforms from the most affordable like Digital Ocean to the most expensive like Amazon’s Web Service.

The platform is packed with developer and creator-specific features (staging environments, Git, collaboration tools, and more), beginners will also enjoy a minimalist, easy-to-use interface. You can briefly test the platform with a three-day free trial period, but keep in mind that there is no money-back guarantee.

Cloudways also offers basic features like firewalls, other host website migration service, automatic backups, and more. It does not offer domain registration or SSL certificates, but you can configure the free Let’s Encrypt certificate through the administration panel. Founded in Malta in 2011, Cloudways specializes in managed cloud hosting and can be tailored to a wide variety of hosting needs such as Magento, Laravel, WordPress, and custom PHP applications.

Below you will find all the information you need to know if the Cloudways web hosting service is the most suitable for your project.

Cloudways Review: Step by Step Guide in 2023

In this Cloudways review, we will talk in depth and in detail about the best web server for your website.

What is Cloudways?

Cloudways is a very experienced company that has been created for developers and advanced website owners who demand full power over their applications.

Cloudways offers a single console to integrate many cloud services and allows PHP developers to deploy containerized applications. This means that you can deploy and run PHP applications without launching a full virtual machine for each app.

Cloudways was founded in 2011 and offers servers located in more than 42 data centers in more than 25 locations around the world. It stands out for being a safe, fast and reliable hosting company with very competitive plans that cover the needs of all types of projects.

Pros and Cons of Cloudways

As with any hosting provider, there are pros and cons to consider before making a decision.

Pros of Cloudways

• Cloud infrastructure from Linode, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Computing Engine (GCE)
• SSD hosting, Varnish / Memcached caching, Nginx / Apache servers, HTTP / 2, PHP7, Redis support
• Free automated backups, SSL certificate, free site migration service, CDN and dedicated IP
• Unlimited 1-click WordPress installs and pre-installed WP-CLI, Git integration and staging sites.
• Quick and easy installation
• Large storage space
• High transfer
• Very easy to use administration panel
• Cloud hosting is pay-as-you-go so you only pay for what you need
• 3-day free trial period
• Expert support team is available 24/7

Cons of Cloudways

• Does not offer domain name registration to clients
• There is no cPanel / Plesk control panel

Why Choose Cloudways in 2023?

Cloudways is one of the companies in 2023 that offers a lot of stability to its users between good functionality and profitable strategies when it comes to managing Cloudways WordPress hosting. This hosting helps its clients to configure their websites and has resources to grow their websites.

It is especially focused on WordPress websites, Cloudways also has plans for Laravel, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, PHP and PrestaShop.

It works in such a way that it manages the server services will be done easily and simply, Cloudways will connect and join your organization so it will be easy to administer it.

It offers a managed hosting platform for e-commerce stores, startups, digital agencies, freelancers, developers, and bloggers among others. Its platform is a leader in the industry worldwide.

It gives your users an amazing experience and eliminates all hosting hassles. Its servers reside in more than 25 locations around the world, including Singapore, Canada, Brazil, France, and Australia among others.

What makes Cloudways unique in the market?

Cloudways differs from other providers consists of hosting in the cloud and stands out above all for:

• Easy to chlorinate and install: With just 1 click you can install WordPress and clone or backup or restore everything. You can manage the number of e-commerce or WP sites using this server.
• Scalability: Cloudways allows you to add resources based on traffic spikes and needs as your website grows.
• Ease of migration: They allow you to migrate your website to different servers in various data centers around the world.
• Faster loading times: Its incredible CDN ensures higher speed.
• Server security: All your servers are independent of each other. This means that if one of the servers goes down, the rest keep running.
• Pay-as-you-go model: You will only pay for the resources you will need.

Cloudways Hosting Features

Before hiring a hosting service, in this Cloudways review we have to take into account the different characteristics and functionalities they offer to see if it meets the needs of your project. For this reason, we will take a deep look in this Cloudways review at the features that Cloudways offers.

1. Easy to use

Creating an account on Cloudways is quite easy as seen on this Cloudways review, due to the user interface and amazing web design. The platform is aimed at large websites and expert developers, yet beginners find it easy to use.

The process of connecting a domain and installing WordPress is also quite simple as shown on this Cloudways review. You also have the option to easily find tutorials online and also, Cloudways has its own supporting documentation.

2. Domain Names

Since Cloudways does not offer domain registration services, you will need to purchase a domain from a reputable registrar and then map it back to Cloudways. This is not complicated, you just have to follow a few steps that may be difficult for beginners.

It also does not offer SSL certificates, although you can configure the free Let’s Encrypt certificate through the administration panel.

3. Mail

Cloudways is a Cloud hosting services which usually this type of companies do not offer email hosting like for example happens with Kinsta but, Cloudways has made their own solution by creating the Rackspace Email Hosting add-on. Thanks to this addon you can create as many email addresses you might need on your server.

4. Cloud-based integrations

Cloudways is popular for being an “integrating cloud-based” hosting. For this reason it is popular with developers and owners of large websites who require high performance. What this means is that you can create a hosted server with one of six large cloud providers without having to create an account with a company other than Cloudways.

5. Storage

Storage space is one of the main points that must be highlighted about Cloudways, it has plans that reach up to 340GB of storage.

6. Transfer

The monthly transfer level of Cloudways is also quite high, in its most basic plans it offers a minimum of 1TB, and in advanced plans it can reach up to 20TB.

7. Testing sites and URLs

Cloudways offers unlimited URLs and staging areas, this will allow you to use new elements and make changes to your code without affecting your published website. It has a tool that allows you to clone the entire server with just one click.

8. Features that improve performance

This premium hosting provider has a variety of built-in tools to optimize your page load needs, especially when you have higher traffic. These include built-in caches (Varnish, Memcached, and Redis), SSD storage, and CloudwaysCDN.

9. WordPress automatic migration tool

Cloudways offers the possibility to migrate your already created WordPress website in an easy way with its automatic migration tool. It also offers an expert website migration for free.

10. One-click software installer

Cloudways offers more than ten apps that you can install with just one click and without complications. Next on this Cloudways review the selection that includes Laravel, Drupal, WordPress, Magento, and much more. The Cloudways installer allows you to deploy programs to multiple websites on the same server, unlike the basic auto-installers on the market.

11. Performance

Cloudways can boast upload speeds that are 40 to 50% faster than regular hosting services because Cloudways has partnered with highly regarded providers such as Amazon Web Services, DigitalOcean, and Google Cloud. The uptime of Cloudways is higher than 99%, which guarantees the maximum stability of the webs.

12. Developer tools

Cloudways has a wide variety of workflow tools to make working on your website easier. For example, Git’s automatic deployment will help you so that changes you make to remote repositories are published immediately. It also has very useful functions like SFTP and SSH access.

13. Team collaboration

With Cloudways, you can easily assign tasks to coworkers and assign each member the appropriate permission levels to access their app, server, or website. It is recommended to choose a hosting with these permission functions, this is essential for the security of your website.

Services Offered by Cloudways

The services offered by Cloudways are extremely incredible as seen on this Cloudways review when compared to other hosting providers. Next in this Cloudways review we are going to talk about the most outstanding services that it offers:

• Dedicated servers: this implies that everything you pay is only for you, and you share it only in the different sites you have on the server.
• Cache systems included: it has implemented quite advanced and useful cache systems such as memcached, Varnigh, Redis and Ngnix.
• PHP 7.x and HTTP / 2: Cloudways uses the latest versions of PHP 7 to ensure optimal performance. They are also enabled to make use of HTTP / 2, this means a higher speed of information exchange between visitors and servers.
• Staging system included: It is perfect to make changes to your website without affecting the site “in real time”, you can create a copy of your website and modify everything you need.
• Free and optimized Caché plugin for your server: Cloudways includes its own called “Breeze”, it comes pre-configured to work perfectly with your servers when using WordPress.
• Firewalls included: All your servers have firewalls that help filter malicious traffic and avoid future problems.
• Free SSL Certificates with Let’s Encrypt: The platform offers free installations of Let’s Encrypt certificates with one click.
• Two-step authentication: the Cloudways platform allows you to activate two-step authentication, in this way if your access to your control panel is stolen, they will not be able to do anything until they authenticate a second time.
• Self-healing systems: Cloudways also offers self-healing systems for servers, this means that problems will be solved automatically.
• Expert technical support: you will have experts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for any questions or problems such as migrations, installation, configuration, etc.

Install WordPress and Connect a Domain

The process of connecting a domain and installing WordPress is straight forward as we will show you below on this Cloudways review. Cloudways also offers its own extensive supporting documentation or you can easily find tutorials online.

Install WordPress

1. When you have created your Cloudways account, you must log in and access the control panel.

2. In this step you must change from Server to “Applications” in the upper left part of the screen.

3. In the Applications tab you will see a list of applications already installed. If you are new to Cloudways this list will be empty. You have to click on the “Add application” button in the upper right corner and again click “Add application”.

4. You will be asked about the version of WordPress you want to install. Always select the latest version of WordPress and then you must name your blog. When you do this, you must click “Add application” again.

5. In this step you will have to wait a couple of minutes while WordPress installs.

After your application has been created, click on the orange number to access your WordPress URL and then click on the credentials.

You can create a WordPress website through the Cloudways control panel with just a few clicks and a couple of minutes. The next step is to connect your domain which could be slightly more complicated.

Connect a domain to Cloudways

As you well know, you cannot buy a domain directly from Cloudways, as it does not offer domain registration services. You will have to buy one if you don’t already have your own domain.

1. Switch to the servers section of your website control panel and pay attention to the IP address of your server. Write down the IP address because you will need it later.

2. Go back to the “Applications” tab and then select the application you just created. Then select “Domain Management” from the menu on the left.

3. In the Main domain field, enter your full domain address without forgetting the prefix.

You will have to go to your domain registrar and add a record. The steps will depend on your domain registrar. Cloudways offers step-by-step guide for Dreamhost, GoDaddy, and Namecheap.

When you have added your record you will have to wait for the DNS changes to take place. This can take between 24 and 48 hours, although this process may be faster.

When the changes have been made, you will have added your domain to your new WordPress installation.

Cloudways Support and Customer Service

Cloudways customer service is available 24/7 with a real-time chat and online incident system. You also have the option of being attended by phone.

Cloudways has an extensive knowledge base that includes quite a few help documents and quite a few tutorials. You can post a question on the active Facebook Group if you want to chat with other developers or tech experts.

For more information on the support they offer check the links below:

• Support Page: https://www.cloudways.com/en/support.php
• Cloudways Status: https://status.cloudways.com/
• Knowledge Base: https://support.cloudways.com/en/
• Customer Voice: https://cloudways.uservoice.com/
• Resource Center: https://www.cloudways.com/en/resources.php
• Blog: https://www.cloudways.com/blog/
• Contact Cloudways: https://www.cloudways.com/en/contact_us.php
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CloudwaysUsers

Cloudways Tutorial

Cloudways is a high quality managed cloud hosting provider with very good functionalities. Here on this Cloudways review we leave below you a fairly complete and detailed tutorial so you can see step by step how this premium hosting works.

Cloudways FAQ

Cloudways Hosting Plan Pricing

Cloudways is not a cheap option if we compare it with the packages of other hosting providers as we seen on this Cloudways review. We have to emphasize in this Cloudways review that it is a premium managed solution aimed at website owners who need high performance hosting. The positive thing is that you can upgrade or downgrade and cancel it at any time, you can control the use and expenses from your control panel.

If you decide to choose a payment plan, the only payment options are American Express, Visa, and Mastercard.

All plans come with:

• 24/7/365 support
• Unlimited application installation
• Free SSL
• Free migration

Digital Ocean Standard

Digital Ocean Premium

Linode

VULTR Standard

VULTR High Frecuency

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Google Cloud

Conclusion

Cloudways offers an incredible balance and very good quality to the client. The best from our experience was in terms of performance on the cloud infrastructure. There are a ton of tools in place and it is easy to use.

Although the platform is packed with developer-specific features like Git, staging environments, collaboration tools, and much more, beginners will also enjoy a minimalist, easy-to-use interface.

This platform is perfect for certain companies, such as SaaS providers, start-ups, developers, or companies that need more than just a simple website. It has a customer service that is ready to offer solutions to any problem or question you may have.

The only problem is that if you are not sure about choosing Cloudways, there is only a short 3-day trial period and to test the CDN you require a paid plan. This means that you have no other option but to pay to test the service.

Ultimately, Cloudways offers a good balance between performance, functionality and price. It is a highly recommended option for users who manage multiple projects or have a website with a lot of traffic that needs extra resources during certain times of the year.

Click here to select your Cloudways hosting plan

What do you think of this Cloudways review? Have you used Cloudways for any of your website projects yet? Anything to add? Feel free to add a comment below.