Cloudways is a Malta-based web hosting company that has been in operation since 2011. The company focuses on providing quality web hosting services to agencies, developers and individuals below the core value of shared hosting, made simple, fast and convenient.
Cloudway's cloud-based hosting solutions focus on managed cloud hosting, managed WordPress hosting, and PHP application hosting (Drupal, Magento, Laravel, Prestashop, etc.). Cloudways does not provide shared web hosting.
An obviously strong point at Cloudways, in addition to a promising cloud hosting environment, is certainly the price. From $ 10 / month, the business is cheaper than most Cloudways alternatives like a2 Hosting or WP Engine.
In this Cloudways hosting review, we'll take a look at its features and pricing to help you decide if it's the right option for you, based on your own managed hosting needs.
Cloudway's web hosting features
Before we discuss Cloudway's features in detail, it's important to note that we ran a real test of their web hosting platform.
Since Cloudways offers a free trial, let's create a test site/app. To do so, you just need your name and a valid email. Once your email is verified, you can create your server.
The process is intuitive and very easy. I decided to follow Cloudways Bots recommendations and set up a server with 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD and 1 core processor. It allows you to choose your server location, so I chose New York.
When you create a new server, you can choose to automatically install an app like WordPress, Joomla or Magento. For this review, I chose to have WordPress installed.
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Clicking the "Start Now" button creates the server. It took less than 5 minutes for the server to be ready. I was then able to access my new test page. I installed the Astra WordPress theme but no caching plugin as I wanted to check the server speed.
Let's see how fast the test site is. Let's first see what Google PageSpeed Insights has to say:
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A score of 100 on both mobile and desktop is really very nice. What about Pingdom?
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The screenshots above certainly show that Cloudways are fast. Really fast, actually. While a non-traffic test page can not be compared to a real live page, it certainly provides a good overview of the speed and performance you can expect from them, as Cloudway's hosting reviews confirm.
Ease of use
Cloudways is easy to use, even for a non-tech savvy customer. When I tested Cloudways plans, I was pleasantly surprised at how the company makes it quick and easy for users to sign up for a plan or their free trial.
As a customer, setting up your own dedicated server is easy and takes less than 10 minutes. You basically only need to select the amount of resources needed and your server location. If you need a specific application installed on your web hosting plan, you can do so with just a few clicks from your user panel.
Cloudways supports 1-click application installation of WordPress, WooCommerce, Joomla, etc. The same goes for CMS and PHP frameworks: Laravel, Symfony, Cake PHP can all be implemented with one click and less than five minutes. These applications and frameworks are not particularly difficult to install for a developer, but saving time is always welcome.
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As you can see from the screenshot above, Cloudways' user panel is clean and you can easily find what you are looking for. The customer control panel is divided into 8 sections:
- Master Credentials – Contains the dedicated IP address of your server as well as SFTP and SSH access details for all applications.
- Monitoring – Allows you to monitor your server resources and bandwidth usage.
- Manage Services – This section allows you to monitor services such as Apache, MySQL, and Memcached.
- Settings and packages: Allows you to select your version of PHP and define PHP settings.
- Security: Manage security settings, whitelist your IP and/or IP subnets for SSH/SFTP and MySQL connections.
- Vertical scaling: This option allows you to increase or decrease the size of your server depending on how many resources you need.
- Backups: Schedule backup time, define backup frequency, and perform an on-demand backup of your server.
- SMTP: Configure the SMTP service to configure outgoing e-mail delivery on your server.
- With the control panel, Cloudways users can easily manage the most vital aspects of their website / web application. Cloudways also offers SSH and FTP access to more complex tasks you may want to perform on your server.
On a less positive note, Cloudways does not offer access to CPanel. Some users may find this a drawback, as CPanel has been so prevalent over the last two decades, with an overwhelming number of hosting companies using it to offer users an easy way to manage their site, app, and domain.
Performance and speed
As a cloud-based web hosting provider, Cloudways' uptime is 99.99% and loading speeds are around 400-600 milliseconds. The main reason for this is that the company collaborates with Digital Ocean, Google Cloud, Vultr, Linode and AWS, which are among the best cloud providers in the industry.
As mentioned above, I personally tested the server speed for this review. Google PageSpeed Insights rated my test site 100/100 on both mobile and desktop, while Pingdom rated it an A with a speed score of 96/100.
Cloudways has servers in the following countries:
- United States
- The United Kingdom
- Australia
- France
- Japan
- Germany
- Netherlands
For many of the countries listed above, it is also possible to select a city so that you can have your server geographically closer to your visitors. In the United States, Cloudways has data centers in San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Newark, Atlanta, and Miami.
Cloudways' vertical scaling allows you to scale your server according to your website / application needs. For example, if your application is experiencing an increase in traffic, you can easily allocate more RAM to your server to handle the increase in popularity.
All of these features combined enable Cloudways to deliver unparalleled performance and site speed. Their load times are 40% to 50% better than those offered by shared web hosting, as user reviews confirm.
Cloudways CDN
A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of servers and data centers that are geographically located between the origin server of some web content and the user requesting it. The goal of a CDN is to deliver content faster by reducing latency.
Using a dedicated CDN makes your website / application faster and provides a better user experience for your visitors. Cloudways' CDN starts at a low price of $ 1 per 25GB.
Improved security
Cloudways takes security seriously, which is certainly a strong point. The company offers free managed backups, which allow you to restore your site as it was in the past. The process is extremely fast and easy. Backups are a vital part of website security: Whatever happens, you always have a fresh copy of your entire site (files and database) that can be restored in minutes.
Cloudways also provides free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates. An SSL certificate adds an extra layer of security to your website or application, which uses the HTTPS protocol instead of the classic HTTP.
SSL certificates are a must-have feature for any website. Firstly, as the use of SSL is now widespread, the lack of use of SSL / HTTPS will make your site appear less credible and serious than your competitors. Second, Google has confirmed that sites that use an SSL certificate will get a boost in their rankings.
To improve account security, Cloudways has added Two Factor Authentication (TFA) as a secondary layer of protection to ensure that only you can log in to your Cloudways account.
Free website migration
Good news for site owners who already have their site hosted by another provider: Cloudways offers site migration, which means you do not have to go through the lengthy and sometimes painful process of migrating your site to your new host.
Cloudways' website migration is completely free, no matter which plan you choose. For those who use WordPress, the company has developed their own WordPress plugin, which ensures a smooth and hassle-free migration, as many reviews of Cloudways hosting point out.
Managed WordPress Hosting
Managed WordPress hosting is a service where the web hosting company manages the technical aspects of WordPress to provide a seamless customer experience. This includes WordPress updates, app speed and security, uptime, backups, etc.
Cloudways' offerings include managed WordPress hosting services, which is good news for small and medium businesses, high traffic blogs and e-commerce businesses.
Free trial
Trying a service yourself is the most effective way to make sure it suits your needs. Cloudways has understood this and offers a free 3-day trial period so you can review everything yourself before you buy.
Setting up your free trial is quick and easy: go to the Cloudways website and click the Start Free button at the top right of the screen. You must provide your name and a valid email address. No payment information required.
The free trial period is 3 days, which is enough to properly test Cloudway's features, speed and ease of use. During the trial period, you can choose to upgrade to a paid quote and have your existing site migrated to Cloudways.
24/7 support
For this review, I decided to contact Cloudways' pre-sales support using the live chat. One Saturday night I was not able to get in touch with an agent but was offered help from Cloudways Bot. Although the bot could not answer any technical questions I had, it did a good job of guiding me to find the best plan according to my website needs and offered me to get in touch with an agent by phone at a later date.
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After signing up for Cloudway's free trial, I got in touch with customer support and asked a few questions. After the bot failed to answer my questions, I was transferred to a support agent who gave me the help I needed.
Cloudway's customer support can be reached via live chat, email or phone.
Cloudways prices
One of Cloudway's strengths is their prices, which are cheaper than the competition. Cloudways' entry fee is $ 10 per month. Cloudways' prices depend on the resources you need, and the company offers various plans to suit all kinds of websites, from a simple WordPress blog to a great app, which is one of the many reasons for its amazing reviews.
Like other large shared hosting companies, Cloudways accepts credit card payments (Visa, MasterCard and American Express) as well as PayPal.
Cloudways offers 5 different cloud server providers to choose from.
- DigitalOcean - From $ 10 / month
- Linode - From $ 12 / month
- Vultr - From $ 11 / month
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - From $ 34.91 / month
- Google Cloud Platform - from $ 33.30 / month
Since Cloudways offers vertical scaling, you can configure your server to suit your needs. It is possible to start with the smallest plan (DigitalOcean cloud server, 1GB RAM, 1 Core processor) and upgrade when your website or application needs it due to traffic increase.
All subscriptions come with: 24/7 expert support, unlimited app installation, free SSL certificates and free migration.
Current Cloudways promotional codes
Cloudways delivers an exclusive promotional code to our readers. The promotional code is CATSWHOCODE and offers a 20% discount for 2 months on all plans, including managed WordPress hosting service.
Using the promotional code is very simple. Just go to Cloudways' website and choose a plan that suits your website or application needs. When asked to pay, simply enter CATSWHOCODE as the promotional code and you will receive a 20% discount on your Cloudways hosting order.
Cloudways Review Conclusion
I have been very pleasantly surprised by Cloudways and its cloud hosting plans. Setup is quick and easy, even for people with limited knowledge of managed cloud hosting service. The server speed is very fast: Google PageSpeed Insights rated my test site 100, and Pingdom gave it a 96.
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On top of that, Cloudways' prices are very affordable. Plans start at $ 10 / month, and cloud hosting of a site like CatsWhoCode has a monthly cost of $ 22, which is well below average.
Cloudways' free trial is the best way to ensure that their service fits your site / application needs. If you sign up for a free trial, you can easily upgrade and become a customer and see for yourself what all the great reviews are all about.
Advantage:
- Very good value for money. Even the entry fee provides high quality web hosting plans
- Free trial and free site migration. Cloudways make migrating fast and easy
- Many positive reviews
Disadvantages:
- Can get expensive depending on hosting platform provider
- No CPanel - some may feel this is a disadvantage
- No domain registration. You will need to get your own domain from a registrar like Namecheap or GoDaddy
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