Cloud hosting has become a popular choice for many businesses due to its scalability and reliability. It allows for growth without the hassle, providing a level of flexibility that you just don’t get with standard hosting options. One such provider of cloud hosting is Cloudways. In this article, we’ll review the platform’s advantages, disadvantages and features to help you decide if Cloudways is the best fit for your your business.
What is Cloudways?
Cloudways is a cloud hosting platform that simplifies the process of hosting websites and applications in the cloud. It provides managed hosting services for popular cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, Vultr, and Linode. It’s essentially designed to provide businesses with a comprehensive hosting solution, including auto-scaling, managed backups, and auto healing, to make the whole process of running a website as easy as possible.
Cloudways features at a glance
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Cloud Providers | Multiple cloud infrastructure providers including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode. |
| Server Management | Easy-to-use control panel that allows users to manage servers, applications, and services without the need for technical expertise. |
| Server Customization | Add or remove resources such as CPU, RAM, and storage on-the-fly. |
| Vertical Scaling | Scale servers vertically by adding more resources to servers as and when needed. |
| Horizontal Scaling | Scale applications horizontally by adding more servers to infrastructure. |
| 24/7 Support | Round-the-clock support via live chat, email, a wide-ranging knowledge base, and a helpful online community. There is phone and private slack if you want to pay for premium support. |
| Security | Multiple layers of security including firewalls, regular security patches, two-factor authentication, and more. |
| One-Click Applications | One-click installation of popular applications such as WordPress, Magento, Drupal, Joomla, and more. |
| CDN Integration | Integrates with popular Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) such as Cloudflare, to ensure faster content delivery. |
| Collaborative workflows | Access to Git integration, SSH and SFTP access, application and server cloning, staging areas and URLs, as well as Cloudway’s WP Migrator plugin. |
| Staging Environment | Provides a staging environment where users can test their applications before pushing them to production. |
| Automated Backups | Automatically backs up servers and applications on a regular basis, allowing users to easily restore their data if needed. |
Is Cloudways expensive?
It depends on how much resource you require. For a small blog or static website, no Cloudways is not expensive when you consider the upgrade in performance over other hosting providers. Naturally, the price increases somewhat if you have a resource-hungry website or application. Cloudways does offer a free trial period, so you can try out their services before committing to a plan. It does only last three days though, but it is possible to get a feel for the platform in that time. Even if you do commit, Cloudways says there is no lock-in so you can cancel at any time.
Is Cloudways a good hosting company?
Yes, Cloudways is a good hosting company, in our opinion. It provides businesses with a reliable and scalable hosting environment, allowing them to easily manage their websites. Additionally, Cloudways offers a suite of security features and 24/7 customer support. When we tested them out in the three day trial period, we had a response to our chat within approximately 15 minutes and the person was patient and helpful in helping to solve our problem.
Cloudways has a 4.5 rating and 1,605 reviews on Trustpilot at the time of writing this article.
Is Cloudways easy to use?
Yes, Cloudways is easy to use and provides a simple interface for users to manage their websites without the need for a huge amount of technical expertise. Additionally, Cloudways offers a range of tutorials and guides to help users get started. In fact, the written documentation is really helpful and very straightforward to follow. There are also tooltips within the dashboard/portal itself – and if you get stuck you can ask for help on chat.
Does Cloudways use CPanel or Plesk?
It uses neither. It has it’s own server and application management dashboard/portal. This has an easy to use interface and is arguable less overwhelming to use than cPanel and Plesk (and we’ve used both).
How many websites can you have on Cloudways?
Cloudways allows you to host an unlimited number of websites on its platform, without worrying about running out of space. You can always scale up too with more CPU, memory and storage, i.e. compute power, as the website(s) grows. It means in the early days you can keep your costs down.
What servers does Cloudways use?
Cloudways uses servers from leading cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Vultr, Linode and DigitalOcean. This allows Cloudways to provide a reliable, secure, and scalable hosting environment for businesses of all sizes. You can choose your prefered region for your hosting such as UK, Europe and USA.
Does Cloudways offer email hosting?
No, Cloudways does not offer email hosting. However, Cloudways does offer other options via its Cloudways Email add on such as the Rackspace Email hosting addon. Another option is to use the Gmail/ Google Workspace SMTP addon.
Where is the support based for Cloudways?
Cloudways is based in Malta, Europe and also in Pakistan.
What support do Cloudways offer?
Cloudways offer 24/7 human support. Here are some of the options:
- Get managed migration of unlimited applications with one free migration.
- Expert support team is always available via Live Chat and Ticketing System.
- Cloudways has a Customer Success Team which occasionally contacts you to make sure you’re on the right path.
- Community Experts are available to discuss any issues you might have.
- Browse the Support Center for extensive Knowledge Base articles.
- Provision of personalised priority support (via paid Advanced and Premium Support options).
So far, the support has been good, and quick too. (We’re just on the standard plan which is free with our hosting.)
What are the advantages of Cloudways?
So, what are the overall advantages of Cloudways?
- Cost-effective: affordable pricing plans make it suitable for small businesses and startups. It’s a good transition into cloud hosting from shared environments.
- Easy to use: the user-friendly interface allows users to easily manage their servers, applications, and websites. It provides the features that the average business needs, without all the technical hassle.
- Easy migration: if you have a WordPress site, you can use Cloudway’s migration plugin. In our own experience, the process was very simple. Over time, as our plans with other hosting providers expire, we’ll move the rest of our sites across (including this one).
- Fast loading times: Cloudways offers fast loading times due to its hardware, advanced caching and optimization features. This is a big plus for SEO, and most importantly your visitors.
- Scalability: Cloudways offers the ability to scale servers up or down as per the user’s needs. This allows users to handle traffic spikes.
- Flexibility: Cloudways supports multiple cloud providers, which allows users to choose the option that best suits their business requirements.
- 24/7 customer support: this is accessed through live chat and online ticketing and has been pretty quick in terms of response time to date.
What are the disadvantages of Cloudways?
- Can get expensive: for high resource sites, the costs can mount so its worth weighing up how this compares to other providers.
- Lack of domain registration: Cloudways does not offer domain registration services so you will need to register domains separately.
- Lack of email hosting: you will need to find a separate email host such as Rackspace or Gmail/Google Workspace.
- Limited control: you don’t have full control over servers e.g. there is no root access and limited database access. This may or may not be an issue for some businesses, depending on how much control you want over your hosting evironment.
Overall verdict
Cloudways hosting services are a good alternative to traditional hosting companies. With Cloudways, you have access to a user-friendly interface, multiple cloud providers, managed hosting, scalability, and good security features. These alone can make it an attractive option for small businesses and startups. However, its lack of domain registration, limited root control, and limited database access may be drawbacks for some users.
Ultimately though, it comes down to individual use case and testing out the three-day trial. The increase in performance in itself may make the transition worth it. For us, while there are some limitations to the platform, the benefits far outweigh any potential drawbacks. When it comes to hosting solutions for small businesses, Cloudways stands out as one of the best options available.