Cloudways Review 2026: Managed Cloud Hosting for Developers, Tested
Most managed hosting asks you to pick a side: a locked-down WordPress platform that runs one thing beautifully, or a bare VPS you have to keep alive yourself. Cloudways sells the space in between — a real cloud server, on a provider you choose, with someone else running the stack on top of it.
I've spent twenty years building Laravel and PHP applications, and the question I get most often is where to put an app that's outgrown shared hosting but doesn't justify a DevOps hire. Cloudways is usually my answer, and this is the honest version of why — including the parts that would annoy you if nobody warned you first.
By Tuan Nguyen · Updated July 28, 2026
Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. If you buy through them I may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend what I'd use myself.
The verdict on Cloudways
The sweet spot between a raw VPS and locked-down managed hosting — managed cloud you can actually build apps on, from $11/mo.
- Best for
- Laravel and PHP developers, agencies, growing WooCommerce and WordPress sites, and anyone who wants to pick their own cloud and pay for what they use.
- Not for
- Anyone who needs root access, a non-PHP stack like Node, Python or Ruby, or the absolute cheapest possible hosting bill.
Price from
$11/mo
Billed hourly, no annual lock-in
3-day free trial, no credit card
What is Cloudways?
Cloudways is managed cloud hosting. You choose a cloud provider — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode/Akamai, AWS or Google Cloud — and a server size, and Cloudways runs everything above the metal: Nginx and Apache, MySQL, PHP, the caching stack, SSL, backups, firewalls and monitoring, all through its own dashboard. You get a real VM's performance without a sysadmin's workload.
It's been owned by DigitalOcean since 2022, which matters less than people assume: you can still deploy onto Vultr, Linode, AWS or GCP, and the DigitalOcean plans remain the cheapest way in. What did change is the support experience, which I'll get to.
There are two hosting tiers worth knowing about. Flexible is the classic product — you pick the provider and the size, and you pay by the hour for what's running. Autonomous is the newer managed tier that scales resources with your traffic automatically. Most developers reading this want Flexible: it's cheaper, it's predictable, and you stay in control of the server size.
So the honest framing: Cloudways is for people who want to ship a PHP application, keep SSH and Git, and never think about patching a kernel. That's a genuinely useful product, and there isn't much else occupying that exact spot.
Cloudways pricing: what you actually pay
| Cloud provider | From / mo | Entry specs | Data centers | Sign up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | $11 | 2 GB RAM · 1 vCPU · 50 GB · 2 TB | 9 | See plan |
| Vultr (Standard) | $11 | 2 GB RAM · 1 vCPU · 50 GB · 2 TB | 30 | See plan |
| Linode / Akamai | $11 | 2 GB RAM · 1 vCPU · 50 GB · 2 TB | 25 | See plan |
- DigitalOcean$11
- Entry specs
- 2 GB RAM · 1 vCPU · 50 GB · 2 TB
- Data centers
- 9
- Vultr (Standard)$11
- Entry specs
- 2 GB RAM · 1 vCPU · 50 GB · 2 TB
- Data centers
- 30
- Linode / Akamai$11
- Entry specs
- 2 GB RAM · 1 vCPU · 50 GB · 2 TB
- Data centers
- 25
You pay by the hour — about $0.0357/hr on the entry plan — and get invoiced monthly for what you actually used. Scale a server up for a launch, scale it back down after, no annual contract.
The three cheap providers share identical entry specs, so the real choice is regions and preference, not price. Hourly billing is the underrated part: a staging server you run for two days costs you two days, not a month.
- AWS and Google Cloud are available too, on higher-priced custom tiers with 28 data centers each. Pick DigitalOcean or Vultr to start cheap — only go to AWS or GCP if you need a specific region or service they uniquely offer.
- Bigger servers cost more per hour on every provider: you scale RAM and vCPU on the same dashboard and the rate moves with it, which is how the bill grows as you grow.
- Add-ons bill separately — Cloudways email, the Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, extra backup frequency, DNS and premium support are all on top of the server price.
Speed and performance
You're on a real cloud VM here, not a shared box with 200 neighbours — dedicated vCPU and RAM, SSD storage, and your pick of provider and region. That alone puts Cloudways in a different performance class than the $3/mo tier, and it's why a WooCommerce store that's started timing out usually feels fixed the day it moves.
The caching stack is the other half. Varnish sits in front, with Redis, Memcached and Object Cache Pro available underneath, plus the Breeze plugin for WordPress and an optional Cloudflare Enterprise CDN add-on. For a Laravel app that means Redis for sessions, cache and queues is already there rather than something you install and configure at 11pm.
Monitoring is built in: real-time CPU, RAM, disk and bandwidth graphs, plus application-level performance monitoring for finding the slow query or the plugin that's eating your response time. Servers are auto-healing, so a service that falls over usually comes back without you.
What I won't do is quote someone else's benchmark at you. Hosting speed numbers depend on the app, the framework, the database, and where the tester is sitting — a Laravel API and a plugin-heavy WordPress site on the same server will give you completely different graphs.
The features that actually matter
Developer tooling
- SSH and SFTP access on every plan
- Git deployment, Composer, and WP-CLI
- Staging environments with one-click clone and push to live
- Per-application PHP version switching
- Cron job management from the dashboard
- Team accounts with scoped permissions for agencies
Managed for you
- Automated daily backups, plus on-demand snapshots
- Free SSL certificates via Let's Encrypt
- Auto-healing servers and 24/7 server monitoring
- Dedicated firewalls on every server
- Free migration to get your first site across
- OS, stack, and security patching handled
Stacks it runs
- Laravel and other PHP frameworks
- WordPress and WooCommerce
- Magento and Drupal
- Custom PHP applications
- MySQL / MariaDB databases
Performance stack
- Varnish, Redis, Memcached, and Object Cache Pro
- Breeze caching plugin for WordPress
- Optional Cloudflare Enterprise CDN add-on
- Application performance monitoring built in
- Choice of provider and region for latency
Support & extras
- 24/7 live chat and ticket support
- Premium support available as a paid add-on
- Knowledge base and community forum
- Email hosting as a paid add-on (not included)
Cloudways pros and cons
What I like
- You choose the cloud — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or GCP — instead of taking whatever the host runs
- Runs real applications: Laravel, PHP frameworks, Magento and Drupal, not WordPress alone
- Managed stack means no sysadmin work, but you keep SSH, Git, Composer and WP-CLI
- Pay-as-you-go hourly billing with no annual lock-in — scale up for a launch, scale back after
- Serious caching out of the box: Varnish, Redis, Memcached, Object Cache Pro
- Free SSL, daily backups, staging and a free migration are included, not upsold
- 3-day free trial with no credit card, so evaluating it costs you nothing
What I don't
- No root or sudo access — it's managed, and that's the trade you're making
- PHP applications only: no Node, Python, Ruby or Go, which rules out a lot of modern stacks
- Support quality has been more variable since the DigitalOcean acquisition; the good tier is a paid add-on
- Email hosting isn't included — that's a separate paid add-on or a Google Workspace bill
- Costs climb as you scale servers, and add-ons stack on top of the advertised price
- The dashboard is its own thing to learn — less trivial than a one-click WordPress host
Cloudways vs the alternatives
- CloudwaysManaged cloud, flexible
Your pick of cloud, runs Laravel and PHP apps as well as WordPress. The middle ground.
- KinstaPremium managed WordPress
Faster to set up and more hands-off, but WordPress-only as of 2026 and priced accordingly.
- HostingerBudget WordPress
The price-first pick. Fine for small sites; not where you put an application.
Read reviewReview coming soon
The fourth option nobody sells you is Laravel Forge on a raw VPS: total control, root access, any stack you want — and every kernel update, every failed service and every 3am page is yours. That's the work Cloudways is charging you to not do. If you enjoy that work, do it yourself and save the margin. If you don't, this is what the margin buys. The whole spectrum is laid out in the cloud hosting for developers roundup.
Who should use Cloudways — and who shouldn't
Use Cloudways if…
- You're shipping a Laravel or PHP application and don't want to be its sysadmin
- You're an agency running client sites and want staging, backups and team accounts handled
- Your WooCommerce or WordPress site has outgrown shared hosting and started to feel slow
- You want to pick your own cloud provider and region rather than accept the host's
- You want hourly billing so a project server can be spun up and killed without a contract
Skip Cloudways if…
- You need root access or a stack Cloudways doesn't run — Node, Python, Ruby, Go
- You want the cheapest possible bill for a small site — a budget host is the honest answer
- You want zero-config premium WordPress and will pay for it — that's Kinsta
- You genuinely enjoy server administration, in which case Forge on a raw VPS costs less
- You need bundled email hosting as part of the plan
Cloudways FAQ
Is Cloudways good for Laravel and PHP apps?
Yes. Cloudways runs Laravel, other PHP frameworks, Magento, Drupal and WordPress, with SSH, Git deployment, Composer, staging environments and per-app PHP version switching. It's a strong middle ground between a raw VPS and locked-down managed hosting.
How much does Cloudways cost?
From $11/mo on DigitalOcean, Vultr or Linode, which gets you 2 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 50 GB storage and 2 TB bandwidth. Billing is hourly — roughly $0.0357/hr on that entry plan — and invoiced monthly for what you used. AWS and Google Cloud tiers cost more.
Does Cloudways have a free trial?
Yes. Cloudways offers a 3-day free trial with no credit card required, which is long enough to deploy an app and see how it behaves before you pay anything.
Does Cloudways give root access?
No. Cloudways is fully managed, so there's no root or sudo access by design. You get SSH and SFTP at the application level instead. That's the trade-off for not having to run and patch the server yourself.
Is Cloudways owned by DigitalOcean?
Yes, DigitalOcean acquired Cloudways in 2022. You can still choose Vultr, Linode/Akamai, AWS or Google Cloud as the provider underneath your server — the acquisition didn't lock the platform to DigitalOcean.
Which cloud provider should I choose on Cloudways?
Start with DigitalOcean or Vultr. Both are $11/mo at the entry tier with identical specs, and Vultr has the widest data center coverage at 30 locations. Move to AWS or Google Cloud only if you need a region or service those platforms uniquely provide.
Does Cloudways include email hosting?
No, email is a paid add-on rather than part of the plan. Most people pair Cloudways with Google Workspace or another dedicated email provider for their domain mail.
Cloudways vs Kinsta — which is better?
Kinsta is premium managed WordPress and nothing else, with a higher price and a more hands-off experience. Cloudways is flexible managed cloud that also runs Laravel and PHP applications, lets you pick your provider, and starts cheaper. If it's a WordPress site and budget isn't the constraint, Kinsta. If it's an application, Cloudways.
Final verdict
Cloudways earns its place by occupying a gap nobody else fills well: managed cloud that still lets you build. You keep SSH, Git and Composer, you pick the provider and the region, you pay by the hour, and you never touch a package manager on a production box. For a Laravel developer or an agency, that's a very good trade at $11/mo to start.
Be clear-eyed about the limits, though. No root access, PHP only, email costs extra, and support has been less consistent since DigitalOcean took over. None of those are dealbreakers for the audience this is built for — they're just the shape of the product, and you should know it before you migrate.
If you're on the fence, the 3-day trial with no card is the cheapest way to settle it. Deploy the app, run your own load test, and decide with your numbers instead of mine.
Try Cloudways free — $11/mo
3-day free trial, no credit card