Cloudways
Flexible managed cloud hosting where you pick the provider and control the cost.
Best for small and mid-market publishers.
Summary review · Last verified Oct 19, 2026 · Scored on 6 criteria · Vendors can't pay for scores
Research by Vahe Arabian · Scored and edited by the SODP team
Key facts
- Score
- 3.2 / 5
- Tier
- Marginal Fit
- Pricing model
- Plans from ~$14/mo; pricing tracks chos…
- Type
- Managed Cloud Hosting
- Hosting
- Multi-cloud
- Publishers using it
- 2
- Founded
- 2011
- HQ
- Broomfield, United States
- Headcount
- 130
At a glance
- Cloudways scores 3.2/5 (Marginal Fit) in Benchmark Grid's independent hosting benchmark, assessed on 6 published criteria.
- It is built for small and mid-market publishers.
- Strongest on Performance & delivery (4.2) and Platform & developer workflow (3.9); weakest on Uptime SLA & remedies (3.0).
- Pricing: Plans from ~$14/mo; pricing tracks chosen cloud provider.
- 2 publishers in our tracking use Cloudways, from ads.txt files, page code and public case studies.
- Scores last verified 19 Oct 2026. Vendors cannot pay for a score or a position.
Summary
Editor's update: 19 Oct 2026 accuracy audit: credited 99.99% SLA (Autonomous), Git auto-deploy and 24/7 live chat; CDN and email add-on costs corrected.
Managed hosting layer over five cloud providers (AWS, GCP, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode). Affordable, performant and tunable, with less hand-holding — best for teams with technical chops.
Score breakdown
3.2 = 0.45 × 3.64 capability + 0.40 × 2.50 publisher fit + 0.15 × 3.80 cost
Σ (criterion rating × weight) across 6 criteria · scale 1 (poor) → 5 (excellent)
The platform provides advanced caching stacks and integrated CDN features that support high-performance page delivery and Core Web Vitals optimization.
22% of capability · What we check: Server response times, CDN coverage and caching, and measured Core Web Vitals for media-heavy pages.
Users can handle traffic spikes through manual vertical scaling and the Kubernetes-based Autonomous tier, though full auto-scaling capabilities depend on the chosen infrastructure plan.
20% of capability · What we check: Autoscaling, bandwidth and storage headroom, and how sites hold up during breaking-news traffic spikes.
The service includes robust WAF and DDoS mitigation features along with flexible automated backups, but it lacks independent company-level compliance certifications.
17% of capability · What we check: DDoS protection and WAF, automated backups and restores, access controls and security certifications.
Offers a REST API, staging, one-click cloning and Git integration that auto-deploys from remote repositories.
17% of capability · What we check: CMS-optimised stacks, staging and deployment environments, Git and CLI workflow, and API access.
Advertises a 99.99% uptime SLA with high-availability environments on its Autonomous tier; credit terms are not set out on the homepage.
14% of capability · What we check: Written uptime guarantee, its measured record, and the service credits paid when it is missed.
24/7 live chat and ticketing on all plans, with faster response times and phone access through paid Advanced or Premium support add-ons.
10% of capability · What we check: Expert support availability and response times, and help moving an existing publication across.
Cloudways scores 3.2/5 in Benchmark Grid's independent Best Hosting for Media Publishers benchmark (benchmarkgrid.com/best-hosting-for-media-publishers/cloudways, verified Oct 19, 2026)
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Choice of 5 underlying cloud providers
- Very cost-efficient for the performance
- Easy vertical scaling
- Free migration; Cloudflare Enterprise CDN add-on from $4.99/mo
Limitations
- Less hand-holding than fully-managed WP hosts
- Faster support SLAs need paid add-ons
- Email is a paid add-on ($1/mailbox/mo)
Who uses it
Detected from site code, ads.txt records and published case studies — not from the vendor's own customer list. 1 confirmed, 1 seen in a single source.
By publisher size
By content vertical
Publishers running Cloudways2
- Spotlight MediaSMB· News
- Mint MediaSolo· Business· reported
Cost of ownership
Pricing
Plans from ~$14/mo; pricing tracks chosen cloud provider.
Pricing unclear for your setup? — we'll make the introduction. Free, and it never affects the score.
Cost data sourced from vendor pricing pages and community signals. Vendors may dispute any factor.
What users say
Users value the platform's high performance and uptime, though they frequently cite complex onboarding, limited native features, and price markups compared to managing raw cloud infrastructure directly.
Sources: Reddit 79% · G2 15% · Blog 4% · Capterra 1%
Most discussed
Recent quotes
"Adding team members requires everyone to have a unique email address."
Positive·G2·2mo ago
"we can’t neglect Cloudways as an excellent option."
Positive·Blog·1y ago·via 01net
"on cloudways the built in breeze setup is fine for a brochure site and i only reach for something else when there is a cart"
Positive·Reddit·1mo ago
"Currently, there's an ongoing UI glitch in Cloudways which prevents users from changing their email addresses, as well as phone numbers."
Positive·G2·2mo ago
"most of my stuff is on cloudways"
Positive·Reddit·1mo ago
67 mentions from 4 independent sources, each read and scored by our analyser. Mentions we could not tie to a real user, and those flagged as promotional, are excluded. Sentiment is opinion, and is independent of the verified publisher adoptions shown above.
The company behind Cloudways
Company facts come from an independent business-data record rather than the vendor's own site.
- Founded
- 2011
- Employees
- 130
- Headquarters
- Broomfield, United States
- Ownership
- Partnership
Who can implement it
Agencies and resellers that help publishers deploy Cloudways. A stronger ecosystem means lower implementation friction. Sourced from Cloudways's published partner directory.
- Bigfork LimitedPartner· not specified
- Coco and Jay LLCPartner· not specified
- cptcreativePartner· not specified
- Divine Development Group LtdPartner· not specified
- Emberly DigitalPartner· not specified
Compare Cloudways
The head-to-heads publishers look at most, then the closest contests in the same benchmark.
FAQ
How is Cloudways scored?
Cloudways scores 3.2 out of 5 in Benchmark Grid's independent Best Hosting for Media Publishers benchmark. The overall figure blends capability (45%), publisher fit (40%) and cost of ownership (15%). Capability is itself a weighted average of 6 criteria; the heaviest are performance & delivery (22%), scale & traffic-spike resilience (20%) and security & compliance (17%). Vendors cannot pay for a score.
What size publisher is Cloudways built for?
Cloudways is built for small and local publishers and mid-market publishers. That is the vendor's own stated target, and it is one of the inputs to our publisher-fit score — a platform that suits a national newsroom often carries more operational load than a small one can absorb.
What does Cloudways cost?
Plans from ~$14/mo; pricing tracks chosen cloud provider. Our cost-of-ownership score is 3.8/5, which weighs pricing transparency, entry cost, implementation cost, hidden-fee risk and ongoing cost. Ask the vendor for a written first-year figure that includes implementation before you commit.
Who uses Cloudways?
We have evidenced 2 publishers running Cloudways. Adoptions are detected from site code, ads.txt records and published case studies rather than taken from the vendor's own customer list, and each one is listed on this page.
Can Cloudways pay for a better score?
No. Scores come from our editorial review of the product's documentation, demos and public evidence. A vendor can claim this listing or request a re-review, but nothing they buy changes a score or a position.
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