Cloudways hosting review (2021) – features, pricing and hosting plans
Last Updated on 13th February 2021 by Editorial Team (Victoria)
Are you thinking of hosting your site with Cloudways? This article on Cloudways hosting review should guide you.
Cloudways is a managed hosting provider you should consider hosting your site with.
It was founded in 2011 and has since then, made a quick wave in the market.
Their services are aimed at helping their customers utilize the power of cloud servers provided by Amazon, Google, and Digital ocean.
With its headquarters situated in Mosta, on the European Island of Malta, Cloudways has different branches in five countries; Barcelona, Spain, Dubai, and the United Arab Emirates.
Cloudways has over 100 staff that helps its over 80,000 users around the globe and presently, cloudways has over 250,000 sites hosted with them.
why choose cloud hosting?
Cloud hosting is valuable for a variety of reasons;
Firstly, its cloud-based structure permits site owners to host their sites on multiple servers. This feature is what distinguishes cloud hosting from traditional hosting.
one benefit of using multiple servers is that there is built-in redundancy, once one of the servers isn’t available, another server is available to take its place.
Secondly, The managed hosting provider offers scalability.
Once there is a rise in the normal traffic to your site, cloudways help to scale up easily. Hence, your site stays online irrespective of the traffic spike.
Finally, due to the cloud hosting features cloudways have set up, configuration, maintenance, and management of sites are easy.
Cloudways hosting review: Hosting plan
Cloudways offer a variety of hosting plans and each plan comes with a specific RAM, CPU cores, storage, and bandwidth.
You get to choose what cloud hosting provider infrastructure you want to use as well as whether you want to pay per hour or monthly.
Irrespective of what hosting plan you choose, you can host as many websites or applications as you want.
The hosting plan includes;
1. WordPress hosting
Cloudways offer hosting on SSD servers for WordPress users and features the following;
- Advanced caching to maximize speed
- Updated versions of PHP
- Apache or NGINX web servers
- MySQL / Maria DB database
It also features an automated migrator tool for easy migration from another hosting provider to cloudways and free migration by their specialist if you are switching to cloudways for the first time.
Magento hosting
Cloudways also provides hosting plans for those who built their online store with Magento.
All you need do is to sign up for the Magento hosting package.
It is similarly hosted with the SSD drive and has the following features;
- Updated versions of PHP
- Apache or NGINX web servers
- MySQL/Maria DB database
PHP and Laravel hosting plans
This hosting plan is majorly for websites and app owners who rely solely on PHP.
The Laravel users also have a plan that is designed specifically for them.
Presently, cloudways supports the following PHP framework (Yii, Slim, Cake PHP, Symfony, Laravel).
Their PHP servers are HTTP/2 enabled.
Drupal hosting
Cloudways provides a Drupal hosting package for Drupal site owners and its features;
- PHP migration support
- SSD – based hosting
- Advanced caching options
- HTTP/2 – enabled servers
- Updated infrastructure
PrestaShop hosting
Cloudways also offers a PrestaShop hosting option that similarly comes with a variety of great features that include:
- SSD storage
- Caching
- Updated versions of Apache, or NGINX web servers
- MySQL / Maria DB database
- HTTP/2 enabled servers.
They provide migration support for existing Prestashop hosted elsewhere.
Enterprise WordPress hosting
Cloudways offers another enterprise WordPress hosting option for those with a rapidly growing WordPress site.
This hosting platform utilizes the use of Google Cloud platform.
It is powered by multiple nodes such that if one server goes down, there is another that is available to serve a request.
This prevents downtime of your site.
You also get fast and easy scalability to handle traffic spikes with these options.
Finally, you will be provided with dedicated onboarding and priority support from the. support team.
Its pricing is based on the request from customer support.
Cloudways pricing and payment option
Cloudways pricing starts at $0.0139 per hour or $10 monthly.
However, the amount you are charged depends on the level of usage and what hosting cloud infrastructure provider you use (the prices with providers varies).
They have a total of 4 different hosting plans to choose from and they include:
- $10 per month
This offer gives a total of 1GB RAM, A core processor, 1TB bandwidth, and 25GB of storage
- $22 per month
This offer gives you a total of 2GB ram, a core processor, 2TB bandwidth, and a 50GB storage
- $42 per month
This hosting plan gives a total of 4GB RAM, 2 core processor, 4TB bandwidth, and 80GB storage
- $80 per month
This package comes with a total of 8GB RAM, 4 core processor, 5TB bandwidth, and 160GB storage.
They all come with the essential WordPress features such as;
- 24/7/365 Support
- CDN Add-on
- Free SSL
- Team Management
- Free Migration
- Unlimited Application Installation
- Dedicated Firewalls
- Automated Backups
- 24/7 Real-time Monitoring
- Staging Environment
- Optimized With Advanced Caches
- Regular Security Patching
- HTTP/2 Enabled Servers
- SSH and SFTP Access
They also give discount prices, so ensure you are on the watch for promo codes you can use for the purchase.
Their major mode of payment is via credit card or Paypal.
Cloudways offers a Pay-As-You-Go system which means there is no contract, you pay as long as you are satisfied with their services.
However, you can deposit funds in your cloudways account for future bills, if later on, you are dissatisfied with their services, you can ask for a refund of the money left in your account.
Do you want to subscribe to the cloudways hosting provider? Kindly click here
Cloudways hosting features
Cloudways offers a variety of solutions to meet the needs of its users.
The features they offer include;
- Dedicated environment: Each of the servers hosted by cloudways has its own dedicated resource and dedicated IP address to boost performance and enhance the security of sites
- Solid states drive: All servers on cloudways feature a solid-state drive which allows the data of sites hosted with them to read faster.
- Advanced Caching: Cloudways adopt the use of recent technologies like Memcached and varnish to cache your site, hence improving your page load’s speed for a better user experience.
- HTTPS/2 – Enabled: Servers on cloudways are HTTPS/2 enabled which makes your site secured, faster, and increase in ranking on search engine results.
- Cloudways CDN: The cloudways CDN caches your site minimizing the distance of data travel on your site.
- Automated backup: with cloudways, you can set up an automated hourly backup on your site
- SSL Certificate: SSL Certificates ensure a secured connection to and from your website. However, cloudways offers free SSL certificates for all its plans.
Free website migration
Moving from a previous hosting provider is quite easy for WordPress users majorly, this is because cloudways offers free migration from another hosting provider to cloudways.
This is done via a free WP migrator plugin that aids the easy migration of your WordPress site from your previous hosting provider to cloudways.
You can also consult their customer support for the free manual migration they offer.
This method is considered safe because an expert does the job of moving your WordPress site from your previous hosting to cloudways without altering the set up of your site on the old web host.
Cloudways security
Cloudways provide iron-clad security to all sites hosted with them.
With cloudways be rest assured that your site is secured due to the features put in place to enhance security.
The features include;
- Dedicated Firewalls to shut out suspicious traffic and hijackers
- One-click installation of SSL certificate
- Two-factor authentication, that prevents unauthorized parties from having access to your cloudways account
CloudwaysBot
The Cloudways bot is a virtual assistant that gives you information about your web hosting environment.
It delivers information (about real-time alerts for servers, notification about an upgrade, or changes in the settings of an application).
Uptime and performance
Because cloudways is a cloud-based hosting provider, it has an uptime of about 99.99% and a loading speed of about 0.4 to 0.6 seconds.
This is because they partner with great parastatals and best cloud providers like Digital Ocean, Google Cloud, Vultr, Linode and AWS
Cloudways service and customer support
Cloudways have put several measures in place to ensure top-notch support for their customers.
They provide 24/7 customer support service to their customers, hence if you have got issues, you can speak with them around the clock.
You can reach out to their customer service via live chat, ticketing system, and phone calls alternatively.
With Live chat, you get a quick response while the ticketing system can take some minutes.
The phone calls might take up to an hour before an agent pick the call, this is due to the fact that they are extremely busy, so picking calls might just be out of the box.
For those who want additional assistance, cloudways offers advanced support that gives quick response and assistance to whatever query you have.
Cloudways also offer premium support, this grants you access to all the support that the advanced support receives, you also have access to a private slack channel and phone support with senior engineers.
Their customer services are very knowledgeable in cloud hosting due to the self-help resources cloudways have provided them with.
Have an issue? feel free to contact customer service.
Cloudways CDN
CDN functions in improving the speed of a site via caching and they store your files in a network of servers.
Cloudways CDN supports the HTTPS protocol, hence your site speed is not only improved, but it is also secured.
The Cloudways CDN comes with all its hosting options, however, if you have to host elsewhere, you can purchase CDN and connect with your site.
Prices start from $1 for 25GB of traffic data handled
Benefits of using cloudways
- It is very easy to set up and configure
- They offer a pay as you go pricing, no contract
- Free SSL certificate
- Offer a 3-day free trial without requesting for your bank details
- Automated backups
- They have 5 different cloud hosting you can choose from
Disadvantages of using cloudways
- Cloudways does not provide you with a domain like other hosting providers, you have to purchase your domain name from another domain name provider
- They do not offer email hosting services, you have to spend extra cash on this.
- No cPanel
CONCLUSION
Cloudways still stand as the best hosting provider company you can use to host your WordPress site.
They offer 5 different cloud platforms you can choose to host your site with.
I hope you have learned a lot from the cloudways hosting review, have any issues? kindly use the comment section.
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Victoria is a graduate of biochemistry from the prestigious Kogi state University, Nigeria. She has a passion for writing and has written multiple content for blogs within and outside Nigeria. While she is not writing, she is reading or traveling round the world
