Cloudways starts at fourteen dollars a month, while normal shared hosting starts around three. So is it worth almost five times the price? In this review, I'll show you every plan, what you really get, the honest downsides, and exactly who should buy it. Hey, I'm Adam, and welcome to Build and Earn AI. Here's my verdict first.
Cloudways is managed cloud hosting. You get your own server, you pay monthly, and there's no big renewal jump. It's great for agencies, online stores, and growing websites. But if you're on a tight budget with one small site, it's probably not for you. Let me show you why. So what is Cloudways? It's owned by DigitalOcean.
Instead of sharing a server with hundreds of other websites, you get a cloud server, and Cloudways manages it for you. Updates, security, caching, and backups are all handled from one simple dashboard. There are two products. Flexible lets you pick the cloud and the server size, for WordPress, WooCommerce, Laravel, or any PHP app.
Autonomous is fully managed WordPress that scales automatically, for big stores and course sites with lots of traffic. Most people start with Flexible. With Flexible, you choose one of five clouds: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud. DigitalOcean is the cheapest, and it's the one I recommend for most people. Now the plans.
Micro is fourteen dollars a month, with one gig of RAM, one CPU, and twenty five gigs of NVMe storage. That's enough for a blog, a portfolio, or a few small client sites. Small is twenty eight dollars, with two gigs of RAM. Medium is fifty four dollars, with four gigs of RAM and two CPUs, and it's the most popular.
Large is ninety nine dollars, with eight gigs of RAM, for busy online stores. And here's something shared hosting doesn't give you. Every plan has unlimited websites and unlimited visits. You're only limited by the power of your server. If your traffic grows, you can scale up in a few clicks. If you pick Amazon Web Services, prices go up.
Micro is twenty dollars and fifty six cents, and extra storage and bandwidth cost more. AWS also has no free trial. So unless a client asks for AWS, stay with DigitalOcean. One more important thing. Cloudways bills monthly, or even hourly. There's no three year contract, and no cheap first year that doubles on renewal.
Fourteen dollars today is fourteen dollars next year. Just remember, prices exclude tax, and offsite backups cost about three cents per gig. Now, what's included in every plan? Twenty four seven support from real engineers, unlimited apps, and a free staging environment, so you can test changes before they go live. Free SSL, a server level firewall, and automated backups that you can restore in one click.
Object Cache Pro is also free on servers with four gigs or more, and it normally costs ninety five dollars a month. You also get free migration of your existing site, Redis cache, and a WordPress vulnerability scanner. And the best part: you can try Flexible free for three days, without a credit card. Quick question before we go on.
Would you pay more for a faster managed cloud server, or keep cheap shared hosting? Comment one for cloud, or two for shared. Now let's be honest about the pros and cons. The pros: real cloud performance, no renewal price jump, pay as you go, unlimited sites on one server, and a free trial with no card.
The cons: there's no free domain, and no free email. Email is a paid add on. The cheapest plan is fourteen dollars, so it costs more than shared hosting at the start. And there's no cPanel. You use their own dashboard, which takes a little time to learn. So who is it for? Freelancers and agencies who host client sites, WooCommerce stores, and anyone whose shared hosting is getting slow.
And who is it not for? A complete beginner with one small site and a tiny budget. For that, cheap shared hosting is enough. Ready to try it? Step one, open the Cloudways link in the description. Click Start your three day trial. It's free, and no credit card is needed. Sign up with Google, GitHub, or your email.
Answer two quick questions, accept the terms, and click Sign up. I'll skip my details for privacy. After you sign up, you launch your first server. Pick WordPress as the application, choose DigitalOcean, the server size, and the location closest to your visitors. In a few minutes, your site is live. Tip: before you pay, ask their live chat about current discounts.
When I visited, their chat offered forty percent off for four months. My verdict: if your website makes you money, Cloudways is worth the extra cost. You get speed, control, and a price that doesn't jump on renewal. If you're just starting out, begin with shared hosting, and move to Cloudways when you grow. The Cloudways link is in the description.
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