Cloudways Review (2021): Speed, Uptime, Load Test
No doubt, Cloudways is the #1 managed cloud hosting platform to host websites. Here is an honest Cloudways review.
Cloudways is a platform that makes hosting websites easy for beginners. For people who don’t know how to create a website on traditional cloud hosting platforms, Cloudways is for them.
With Cloudways, you can create a WordPress, Drupal, or other PHP scripts seamlessly on –
- DigitalOcean
- Linode
- Vultr
- AWS
- Google Cloud
Cloudways Review
So I created an account on Cloudways to test their performance (thanks to their 3 days free trial). The results are excellent compared to other normal web hosting companies.
I deployed a server in Singapore on DigitalOcean’s $10 plan for this review. Firstly let’s take a look at the pricing & server locations of Cloudways.
Digital Ocean Pricing
| RAM | Processor | Storage | Bandwidth | Pricing |
| 1 GB | 1 Core | 25 GB | 1 TB | $12/mo |
| 2 GB | 1 Core | 50 GB | 2 TB | $26/mo |
| 4 GB | 2 Core | 80 GB | 4 TB | $50/mo |
| 8 GB | 4 Core | 160 GB | 5 TB | $96/mo |
Locations –
- London
- San Francisco
- Singapore
- New York
- Amsterdam
- Frankfurt
- Toronto
- Bangalore
Linode Pricing
| RAM | Processor | Storage | Bandwidth | Pricing |
| 1 GB | 1 Core | 25 GB | 1 TB | $12/mo |
| 2 GB | 1 Core | 50 GB | 2 TB | $24/mo |
| 4 GB | 2 Core | 80 GB | 4 TB | $50/mo |
| 8 GB | 4 Core | 160 GB | 5 TB | $90/mo |
Locations –
- Newark
- Dallas
- Fremont
- Atlanta
- London
- Frankfurt
- Singapore
- Tokyo
- Toronto
- Mumbai
- Sydney
Vultr Pricing
| RAM | Processor | Storage | Bandwidth | Pricing |
| 1 GB | 1 Core | 25 GB | 1 TB | $11/mo |
| 2 GB | 1 Core | 55 GB | 2 TB | $23/mo |
| 4 GB | 2 Core | 80 GB | 3 TB | $44/mo |
| 8 GB | 4 Core | 160 GB | 4 TB | $84/mo |
Locations –
- Seattle
- Silicon Valley
- Los Angeles
- Dallas
- Chicago
- Atlanta
- Miami
- New York (NJ)
- London
- Amsterdam
- Paris
- Frankfurt
- Tokyo
- Seoul
- Sydney
- Singapore
- Toronto
AWS Pricing
| RAM | vCPU | Storage | Bandwidth | Pricing |
| 2 GB | 2 | 20GB | 2GB | $36.51/mo |
| 4 GB | 2 | 20GB | 2GB | $86.77/mo |
| 8 GB | 2 | 20GB | 2GB | $176.26/mo |
| 16 GB | 4 | 20GB | 2GB | $274.33/mo |
Locations –
- US N.Virginia
- California
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Montreal
- Ireland
- Frankfurt
- London
- Milan
- Paris
- Stockholm
- Singapore
- Sydney
- Tokyo
- Seoul
- Mumbai
- Hong Kong
- Bahrain
- Sao Paulo
- Cape Town
Google Cloud Pricing
| RAM | vCPU | Storage | Bandwidth | Pricing |
| 1.70GB | 1 | 20GB | 2GB | $33.18/mo |
| 3.75GB | 1 | 20GB | 2GB | $73.50/mo |
| 7.5GB | 2 | 20GB | 2GB | $138.52/mo |
| 15GB | 4 | 20GB | 2GB | $225.93/mo |
Locations –
- Iowa
- S.Carolina
- Oregon
- N.Virginia
- Las Vegas
- Belgium
- Netherlands
- London
- Finland
- Frankfurt
- Montreal
- Mumbai
- Hong kong
- Taiwan
- Singapore
- Tokyo
- Sydney
- Sao Paulo
Uptime
This was expected from Cloudways. I got 100% uptime. Cloudways guarantees 99.99% uptime & I am sure you will rarely get uptime below 100%.
Speed
Because of various caching techniques & the Breeze plugin, a simple WordPress website loads in just few seconds which is blazing fast. If you want a fast-loading website, just go with Cloudways. Don’t think more.
Response Time
As the server I bought was in Singapore, the response time is less in Singapore. It is quite decent in other regions too. You can use CDN to reduce this as well.
Load Test
Cloudways can handle a lot of users at a time. This load test was with Breeze plugin installed.
Cloudways Features
Various great features make Cloudways the best-managed cloud hosting provider.
24/7/365 Live Chat
Cloudways provides all-time chat support. In the beginning, the bot tries to solve your problem & if it is unable, a real person becomes available to help you over live chat.
Dedicated Environment
All servers launched on Cloudways have dedicated resources. Contrary to the limitations of shared hosting, their dedicated environment allows you to maximize server and app performance.
Built-in Advanced Caches
Cloudways provide an optimized stack with ready-to-use caches including Memcached, Varnish, Nginx, and Redis to deliver expedited responses.
Breeze Cache Plugin
Breeze is engineered in-house to offer better WordPress performance than any other plugin in the industry. With simplicity at zero cost, Breeze comes pre-installed on Cloudways.
Dedicated Firewalls
All Cloudways hosted servers are protected by OS-level firewalls that filter out malicious traffic and keep out the intruders.
Free SSL Installation
Theor built-in Let’s Encrypt SSL improves website security with a trusted certificate that fulfills all your HTTPS requirements for free.
IP Whitelisting
It lets you create a whitelist of IPs, making it easy to collaborate with networks or regions with unrestricted access to SSH and SFTP.
Staging Area & URLs
Cloudways offers a dedicated Staging environment where you can test application changes and push them in just 1-Click without breaking the live version.
Integrations & Addons
Cloudways offers various add-ons that will make your work easy.
SMTP Add-on
A reliable and easy way to configure an external SMTP service to be used as a gateway to deliver emails from your server.
Rackspace Email Add-on
Get cloud-based email inboxes powered by Rackspace for just $1 for guaranteed uptime, supreme protection, and around-the-clock support.
DNS Made Easy Add-on
A premium DNS service so you never have to face DNS errors. If your site goes down all traffic is redirected to a preconfigured secondary IP.
Cloudways Support Add-on
Get better support with Advanced or Premium add-ons. You’ll get extended app-level support, priority resolution, and much more.
CloudwaysCDN
No need to signup with other CDN providers. Cloudways has its CDN service that runs on the StackPath network. It starts at $1 per 25 GB bandwidth.
Cloudways Alternatives
Hostinger Cloud hosting is a good alternative to Cloudways. This blog is also hosted on Hostinger cloud. Their plan starts at $9.99/mo. My experience with them is great.
HostGator also offers cloud hosting plans starting at $4.95/mo which is cheaper than Cloudways & Hostinger. You also get a free domain name.
Do I Recommend Cloudways?
Yes! Cloudways is the best cloud hosting out there. It is worth the cost because it offers a lot of features & add-ons that help you to host a website with ease.
I have been with Cloudways before & my blog loaded in a few seconds, got 100% uptime always & whatnot. I had a really good experience with Cloudways.
Conclusion
So, this was a genuine review of Cloudways. Other managed WordPress hosting costs not less than $20/mo whereas you can get the same performance at just $10/mo with Cloudways.
If you take a look at reviews on different websites, Cloudways scored 9.3/10 on Hostadvice & 4.8/5 on Trustpilot. This means users are having an excellent experience with them.
Cloudways
Summary
Cloudways is the best Managed Cloud hosting where you can host your WordPress website that will load within seconds with high speed servers.
FAQs
Is Cloudways good hosting?
No doubt, Cloudways is the best-managed cloud hosting you will ever find. With high performance & other features, Cloudways stands out among other hosting providers.
How fast is Cloudways?
Cloudways combines different caching levels with the Breeze plugin to load a website within seconds. Your website is hosted on a cloud platform & they are high-performance cloud servers.
Does Cloudways have cPanel?
No, Cloudways doesn’t provide cPanel. It has its own user interface which is great for beginners. Creating a website, changing settings is easy with their simple interface.
How does the payment system work?
Cloudways is a Pay-as-You-Go service; you only pay for the resources you consume. You will be invoiced for the services used in any given month at the start of the following month.
What are the payment methods available?
The following payment methods are supported at Cloudways –
- Credit card or Debit card (Visa, MasterCard, and American Express) and
- PayPal (only available to customers who have upgraded the account).
