Undoubtedly we just cannot picture this world without the internet. With the advent of technology, almost every aspect of our lives is dependent on the internet, from banking to business.
With over 7.98 billion internet users worldwide, a fully hosted website is essential for providing services to the public. Since every website requires some kind of hosting service, this sector of the Internet has expanded at a phenomenal rate.
We couldn't imagine today's digital revolution without these Webhosting platforms acting as their backbone. Owing to the fact that there are around 330,000 web hosting providers, it is difficult to find a fast, affordable yet reliable solution for your business.
DONT FRET Cloudways has got you covered. With over 75+ customers Cloudways has earned the number one spot on G2 in the Web Hosting, Managed Hosting, and WebOps categories.
If you are interested to learn more then have a look at our detailed Cloudways web hosting review:
Cloudways Web Hosting Review: Overview
First off, What is Cloudways? Cloudways is a hassle-free managed hosting platform hosted over 570K+ websites to date. Managed hosting is a kind of IT hosting strategy in which a third party(server provider)is in charge of managing a client's website.
It was established in 2012, and since then it has specialized in SaaS solutions, including cloud hosting and administration, web hosting, and cloud computing (SaaS). The firm strives to provide highly accessible and easily scalable services, and it makes great efforts to ensure that even small and medium-sized enterprises have access to these advanced features.
Moreover, this Malta-based collaborates with five leading cloud service providers including DigitalOcean, Vultr, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linode, and Google Cloud for infrastructure. As a managed hosting platform, Cloudways can assist you in quickly and easily deploying your website for just $12 /mo. Isn't that great? Yes it is
What's more, Along with WordPress, it also supports open-source software including Joomla, Drupal, PHP, Magento, and Larvel.
So if you are looking for multiple web hosting platforms then Cloudways will never disappoint you.
What Makes Cloudways Different - Key Features!
If you're looking for a WordPress host, Cloudways is your best bet. Cloudways can handle every WordPress-related job, even the more advanced ones like HTTPS redirection, SSL installs, backups, and more, which might be challenging for inexperienced users.
The following is a list of the features that Cloudways offers. So without further ado Let's go deep into Cloudways's most salient characteristics:
Speed Performance - Boosts Your Page Loading!
Speed is one of the primary factors when looking for web hosting services. Depending on the specifics of your setup, Cloudways' speed might fluctuate since it uses the servers of a third-party cloud hosting company.
To maintain speed performance, Cloudways relies upon SSD-Based Hosting, Advanced Caches, and Auto-Healing Managed Cloud Servers including Digital Ocean, Google Cloud, Vultr, Linode, and AWS.
But as I've previously said, the speed performance fluctuates depending upon the server, so the nearer you are to the cloud, the faster the page will load for you. To get a better understanding did some speed testing on my own and got the following results.
- Speed performance tests with Pingdom
After launching my website, I used Pingdom to do a series of load time tests from different geographical locations:
- Washington D.C.: 0.38 seconds
- San Francisco: 0.63 seconds
- London: 0.61 seconds
- Sydney: 1.33 seconds
Considering the size of my test page (6.5 MB), these are outstanding results.
When I tested the webpage using an Australian server, saw a very little delay in page loading, which is justifiable due to distance.
- Speed performance tests BlazeMeter
In terms of performance, the results of a single page load test are insufficient. How your website performs under heavy loads is another important consideration. By using BlazeMeter, I was able to generate 30 simulated visitors to my site in about three minutes. What the end product looks like is as follows:
My website's server responded in an average of 0.25 seconds, even while under little load. This indicates that even with the most basic Cloudways configuration, your site is ready to manage little traffic.
In this way, Cloudways's optimized server configurations get praise for their speed and efficiency.
Easy To Use - One Click User Control Panel
Cloudways, in my opinion, is intended to simplify your life in every manner. When I say it I mean it. From simple WordPress installations with a single click to customizing your server's storage capacity and RAM, you can manage everything from the centralized control panel. Let's examine the finer points a little more closely:
- Cost-Free WordPress Site Migration:
Although Cloudways is not entirely user-friendly for newcomers, it is still far simpler than doing everything manually. For instance, if you're too busy to learn website migration, you can have the Cloudways engineering team handle it for you.
Even though they will only undertake it for free once, it's a fantastic asset to have. After your first free migration is complete, Cloudways offers a plugin that makes it easy to transfer additional sites.
- Up-to-date Control Panel
While most hosting companies provide basic monitoring tools, Cloudways' control panel gives you access to more than a dozen real-time monitoring options, making it ideal for keeping tabs on your server.
In comparison to other hosting platforms, its control panel has additional capabilities such as vertical scalability, powerful app management, server cloning, cache controls, and much more.
Choice of Service (Cloud) Providers
Cloudways provides access to a variety of web servers, notably AWS, GC, Vultr, DigitalOcean, and Linode, each of which is configured specifically for a customer's requirements. The base-level server has a single-core CPU, 1 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of bandwidth. Contrarily, the higher levels provide access to resources that are eight times greater than that.
When it comes to data storage, the SSD drives used in Cloudways' web hosting servers are four times as fast as standard hard disks when it comes to both writing and reading. Which results in Quick action on your requests.
Furthermore, The servers are powered by a number of different technologies, notably Apache, Nginx, and speed boosters like Memcached, FastCGI, Redis, and Varnish.
On top of that, Cloudways servers are renowned for their ability to immediately correct any issues that may arise (auto-healing).
They play a vital role to detect and fix server setup issues at all times thanks to smart monitoring software.
Security - Protects Your Website from Unauthorised Access.
Cloudways places a high priority on the protection of their servers, which is why their newly released WordPress Managed Hosting Click and Go platform has highly advanced firewalls to prevent unauthorized access.
Experts at Cloudways use security hardening methods" to protect servers against intrusion Whatsmore, Automatic site backups are available with Cloudways, and the backup frequency is completely up to you.
Cloudways provides many safety options across all of their pricing tiers, such as:
- Cost-free Secure Sockets Layer(SSL) Certificates
- Possibility to construct a trusted list of IP addresses
- Updating software and fixing bugs on a regular basis to stop security flaws
- A built-in safety mechanism that protects against flaws and illegal access to sensitive information.
Customer Support - Talk to the Representative Anytime
Since Cloudways offer 24/7 customer service, you can easily get in touch with a representative. One condition, though: if you want to talk to a real person, you'll have to pay. If you want to schedule a Skype call, you'll need to submit a form.
However, a customer support agent is available for online chat if that is more convenient for you. In this manner, one will get a quick response to their questions.
When I was chatting with a Cloudways representative, I seldom had to wait more than a few seconds for them to respond to my inquiries.
As a group, they have a lot of experience and expertise. A few of the members helped explain to me the advantages of cloud hosting over conventional hosting, as well as the pricing model of the service.
Unlike other web providers, Cloudways does not offer the standard 30-, 60-, or 90-day money-back guarantee.
Powerful integrations - Get a Holistic View of Internal Workflow:
Even though Cloudways doesn't provide email hosting services, it does provide a wide variety of integrations that may help you manage your website.
In particular, Cloudways supports the following integrations:
- Website Migration Plugin: Using these advanced plugins you can easily transfer your site from another server to Cloudways with this handy plugin. The benefit of this migration is that your website will remain operational constantly.
- Cloudways bots Channels: In case your servers go down, this program will send you an alert using services like Slack and HipChat.
- Backups: Whenever possible, Cloudways makes copies of your site's data to use for restoration in the case of an emergency.
- Collaboration Tools: Using their collaboration tools, you can collaborate with your team even when you're not in the same physical location. Regardless of where your team members are located, you are allowed to give them responsibilities and exchange files with them.
- Server monitoring using New Relic. The program provides real-time statistics on the bandwidth transfer, the consumption of CPU and RAM, memory size, and other metrics.
- Cloudways API: Cloudways provides an application programming interface(API) to assist you in the creation of bespoke software.
Once you have successfully subscribed to Cloudways, you'll have access to these integrations and many more.
Server Monitoring - Keep a Track
Cloudways' server monitoring is among the most outstanding aspects of their web hosting services. More than 15 metrics, such as inbound traffic, Idle CPU, and Reads per Second, are easy to track with a single click of the menu bar.
After creating an application, you can now concentrate on operating the regular parts of your webpage under Servers.
In Server Management, you may double-check your login information.
You can see how much your computer is using its processor on a dedicated website. It's crucial to keep this in mind since excessive traffic levels might slow down a website over time
When you click on Manage Services, all of the services that are currently active on your server will appear. Here you may toggle the status of individual services or restart the whole system.
Additional Features - You Must Know!
Apart from the above-mentioned features, Cloudway's web hosting platform offers a few additional amazing features to keep your website up to date. A few of them are discussed below:
- Cloudways CDN
Using CloudwaysCDN, you can bless your Magento app with a speed boost and improve the user experience. To guarantee high-quality content delivery network service, Cloudways have teamed up with Cloudflare.
- SSL Certificates
The primary use of Cloudways SSL Certificate is to secure data between a server and a client. As soon as SSL is set up, all data is encrypted. For a better description, the information is encrypted so that it can be accessed only by the browser of the recipient
- Excellent Uptime
Excellent uptime feature guarantees the dependability and reliability of the website. Therefore, excellent uptime is crucial since the consequences of its absence include:
- Reduces clients
- A decrease in output
- Loss of credibility and trust in your website
- Additional charges to restore your website
No one is interested in any of it. Therefore Clouudways maximize your chances of achieving and keeping a nearly flawless uptime.
- Scalability
When I compared Cloudways with other options, one of the key benefits of this cloud-based platform is its scalability. Scalability basically allows to.
Add more space, RAM, bandwidth, or CPU cores with one-click solutions. Within minutes, you'll have extra storage space, RAM, and computing power at your disposal.
- Auto-Healing Feature
By using the Cloudways Auto Healing feature, you can lessen the impact of HTTP server failures, resource scarcity, etc. on your applications. It quickly identifies error copies and immediately recreates them to resume serving customers.
- One-Click Installation for Apps:
Using their One Click Installer, you may swiftly launch multiple widely used programs, such as WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, or Coppermine, to your web server. You can easily access the service directly from the control panel.
- Server Management
On the menu bar, you can server management option which helps your server function dependably and at optimal efficiency, and performs regular monitoring and maintenance.
In order to maintain the IT environment functional and effective, Cloudways server management also includes managing the hardware, software, security, and backups.
- Free Migration
Upon selecting a package, you'll have the option to request a free website migration by giving information about your existing web server. After that, you won't have to do a thing as the specialized staff handles the site migration for you. In addition, it offers a cost-free domain name transfer service.
- E-Commerce Platforms (Supported)
CMS, eCommerce, and other PHP-based web apps are all supported on Cloudways. You can set up any of these with only a single click. The following are examples of available software:
- WordPress including WooCommerce and WordPress Multisite
- Magento
- PHP including Laravel
In addition to Cloudways' pre-installed apps, the PHP stack on your server allows you to easily run a wide range of other apps and frameworks. These include:
- OpenCart
- Drupal
- Joomla
- PrestaShop
- Yii
- Yii 2
- osCommerce
- Third-Generation Symfony
- Codeigniter
- CakePHP
- ProcessWire
- Zen Cart
- X-Cart
What Are The Types of Hosting Cloudways Offers?
When it comes to hosting, Cloudways is the expert, giving completely managed services so that you can concentrate on expanding your business while they handle the technical aspects of your site.
Plans from Cloudways range in price from $12 per month up to several thousand dollars. It's a considerable difference, but it makes sense when you consider the varying quantities of storage, transfer speed, processing power, and random access memory (RAM) provided by the various service providers.
First off, it's important to know that Cloudways supports five distinct data center service providers: DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud.
Each service provider offers at least ten different plans, but I'll just highlight four of the most notable ones here.
- DigitalOcean Data Centers
DigitalOcean is a one-of-a-kind cloud hosting platform that allows businesses to grow by installing apps that can operate in parallel across several cloud servers without sacrificing speed. The interface is attractive and easy to use, without any unnecessary features that may confuse a new user.
You can easily access all of the accessible functions thanks to the ample availability of links, buttons, and other similar mechanisms.
Here are the four pricing plans with added features:
- Entry Plan: this simple plan offers 1GB RAM, and 1 Cand ore Processor, for just $10 / per month. Apart from that, it comes with 25GB Storage, and 1TB Bandwidth making it a good option for beginners.
- Standard Plan: standard plan costs double the price of the entry plan i.e. $22 / month since it features 2GB RAM and 1 Core Processor. 50GB Storage and 2TB Bandwidth at this price are ideal for those looking for more affordable prices.
- Advanced Plan: as the name suggests, the advanced plan offers advanced features including 4GB RAM, 2 Core processors, 80GB Storage, and 4TB Bandwidth for $42 / month. If you have years of experience in cloud hosting then you must go for this plan.
- PRO plan: PRO plan costs a little bit more than expectations i.e $80 / month. Speaking of the features, you will get 8GB RAM and 4 Core processors. With 160GB Storage and 5TB Bandwidth, it becomes a package. However, If you have an established business and further goals then buy this plan otherwise advanced plan is available for you.
- Vultr Data Centers
Vultr offers public cloud, flash memory, and single-tenant bare metal with zero friction with its presence in 25 datacenters strategically placed throughout the world. To serve customers better, Vultr has committed to providing a consistent, highly dependable, and high-performance cloud computing environment in every city.
- Entry Plan: kick start your business for $11 / month with this entry plan. If you talk about the features then features are the same as the entry-level plan of the digital ocean discussed above.
- Standard Plan: get your hands-on 2GB RAM, 1 Core Processor, 55GB Storage, and 2TB Bandwidth for $23 / month. The standard plan is suitable for standard business.
- Advanced Plan: offering almost the same features as an advanced plan of the digital ocean, this plan costs $44 / month with less bandwidth i.e 3Bandwidth.
- PRO plan: giant organizations can buy this plan is $84 / month and profit their business with 8GB RAM, 160GB Storage, 4 Core processors, and 4TB Bandwidth.
- Linode Data Centers
Linode is a web host that specializes in Linux-powered virtual servers, which may be used for a broad variety of purposes. Due to its history, many experts believe it is not suitable for newcomers.
- Entry Plan: small businesses on their entry-level can benefit from 1GB RAM, 1 Core Processor, 25GB Storage, and 1TB Bandwidth for just $12 / month.
- Standard Plan: Standard plan's goal is to streamline and increase access to virtualized computing with 2GB RAM, 1 Core Processor, 50GB Storage, and 2TB Bandwidth for $24 / month and features
- Advanced Plan: It costs $50 / month and If you utilize the service continued throughout the month, your payment will be a fixed rate. This plan features 4GB RAM, 2 Core processors, 80GB Storage, and 4TB Bandwidth and simplifies everything. Moreover, Linux's centrality means you won't have to pay for Windows or other proprietary software licenses.
- PRO plan: The PRO Cloudways managed WordPress plan (hosted on Linode data center) is much less expensive than comparable plans from other providers. Their pro plan, which includes 4 vCPU, 8 GB of RAM, and 5TB Bandwidth with 160GB Storage is more than enough for any established business.
- AWS Data Centers
With over 200 fully functional services available from data centers all over the world, AWS Global Infrastructure is the most robust, comprehensive, secure, and dependable cloud platform available.
AWS gives you the cloud services you need, so you can deploy your workloads around the world with a single click or create and deploy customized apps closer to your end-users with a single-digit millisecond delay.
- Entry Plan: Monthly hosting rates begin at $35.51 $10 for 1.75GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 2OGB Storage with 2GB Bandwidth.
- Standard Plan: It costs $86.77 / month and features 3.75GB RAM, 1 Core Processor, 20GB Storage, and 2TB Bandwidth
- Advanced Plan: get benefits from excellent company support staff and services by paying $176.26 / month. In this package you need will extra storage, RAM i.e. 8GB RAM, 2 Core processors, 20GB Storage, and 2GB Bandwidth
- PRO plan: Superior to even the most robust dedicated server plans provided by many web providers, this $274.33 / month premium package is a must-have for serious online businesses. This all-in-one package offers 16GB RAM, 4 Core processors, 20GB Storage, and 2GB Bandwidth
- Google Cloud Data Centers
The massive data center infrastructures known as "Google data centers" are used by the company to host its services. These centers include big drives, computer nodes arranged in dock aisles, both internal and external connectivity, environmental controls (primarily cooling and humidity control), and operational software.
- Entry Plan: this basic plan is equipped with basic entry-level features same as discussed above but the pricing varies. You can buy this simple plan for $33.18 / month. As you are getting the same features as other data centers at an extra price, you should prefer those plans over this.
- Standard Plan: Hardware, including 1 vCPU processing power, 3.75GB RAM data transport, 2GB Bandwidth, and 20GB memory, is all included at $73.50 / month. Add more Block Storage or Object Storage that is compatible with S3 if you need more space.
- Advanced Plan: Advanced plan featuring 7.5GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 20GB Storage, and 2GB Bandwidth is a fantastic option for small enterprises and individuals that are comfortable working with the Linux command line. You can get these benefits at $138.52 /month.
- PRO plan: Large businesses can show a preference for this PRO plan as it offers 15GB RAM, 4 vCPU, 20GB Storage, and 2GB Bandwidth for $225.93 / month and features
Pros & Cons Of Cloudways - Is It Worth Trying?
As you can see, Cloudways has many redeeming qualities. Speaking of versatility, the platform has exceptional cloud hosting options, rapid setup times, 24/7 customer assistance, and exceptional uptime.
Without a doubt, It's a reliable service that will maintain your business for as long as you need it to provide those services. Although, not everyone will like the unusual procedure required to speak with a staff member
However, if the aforementioned limitations aren't dealbreakers for you, Cloudways is worth a try. I must say it has everything you need to launch and maintain your website.
Let's have a look at other advantages and a few disadvantages of the platform:
Cloudways Web Hosting Review - PROS
- A fantastic variety of options are available.
- Multi-purpose application support
- Various levels of membership accounts
- Invoice-based payment structures (Pay-as-you-go)
- There's a free trial for 3 days!
- Possibilities for cloning sites can be found.
- Strong SUPPORT
Cloudways Web Hosting Review - CONS
- There are no cPanel setups.
- Not beginner friendly
- Needs some background knowledge to operate
- Complexity increases as compared to standard hosting
- There is no email hosting available.
Conclusion - Final Thoughts & My Recommendation!
In reality, cloud hosting isn't as scary as it seems. Cloudways' managed hosting services can let you harness the cloud-based services for your malicious ends i.e your own site.
Moreover, this exceptional platform comes in handy if you crave hosting services but don't want to mess with the technical aspects of building your site by yourself or paying a developer to do things for you.
Cloudways, like many similar services, offers all the benefits of the top cloud hosting companies through a more intuitive interface. However, there are other alternatives to think about if you are still unsure as to whether cloud hosting is the most appropriate choice for you.One option is low-cost managed WordPress hosting, which is even easier to use than Cloudways, especially if you're already familiar with WordPress. Alternatively, if you're tech competent, you may install WordPress straight on your preferred hosting service.
