Up to 4 at once.
| Criteria | Cloudways | WordPress VIP |
|---|---|---|
| Weighted Score | 3.2/5 | 4.2/5 |
| Pricing | Plans from ~$14/mo; pricing tracks chosen cloud provider. | Custom enterprise pricing; typical contracts start in the low six figures annually. |
| Platform Type | Managed Cloud Hosting | Managed WordPress Hosting |
| Performance & delivery | 4.2/5 | 4.6/5 |
| Scale & traffic-spike resilience | 3.8/5 | 4.8/5 |
| Security & compliance | 3.2/5 | 4.8/5 |
| Platform & developer workflow | 3.9/5 | 3.8/5 |
| Uptime SLA & remedies | 3.0/5 | 4.2/5 |
| Support & migration | 3.3/5 | 3.2/5 |
| Strengths | ✓ Choice of 5 underlying cloud providers ✓ Very cost-efficient for the performance | ✓ Proven at news scale — 2.4T requests/yr, 99.99% uptime on election nights ✓ FedRAMP Moderate + SOC 2 Type II for regulated publishers |
| Limitations | ✗ Less hand-holding than fully-managed WP hosts ✗ Faster support SLAs need paid add-ons | ✗ Enterprise pricing excludes small and mid-market publishers ✗ Migration and onboarding require agency or VIP partner engagement |
Cloudways
3.2
Rating
★ 3.0/5
Pricing
Plans from ~$14/mo; pricing tracks chosen cloud provider.
Platform
Managed Cloud Hosting
Scores
Performance & delivery
4.2
Scale & traffic-spike resilience
3.8
Security & compliance
3.2
Platform & developer workflow
3.9
Uptime SLA & remedies
3.0
Support & migration
3.3
Strengths
✓ Choice of 5 underlying cloud providers
✓ Very cost-efficient for the performance
Limitations
✗ Less hand-holding than fully-managed WP hosts
✗ Faster support SLAs need paid add-ons
WordPress VIP
4.2
Rating
★ 4.2/5
Pricing
Custom enterprise pricing; typical contracts start in the low six figures annually.
Platform
Managed WordPress Hosting
Scores
Performance & delivery
4.6
Scale & traffic-spike resilience
4.8
Security & compliance
4.8
Platform & developer workflow
3.8
Uptime SLA & remedies
4.2
Support & migration
3.2
Strengths
✓ Proven at news scale — 2.4T requests/yr, 99.99% uptime on election nights
✓ FedRAMP Moderate + SOC 2 Type II for regulated publishers
Limitations
✗ Enterprise pricing excludes small and mid-market publishers
✗ Migration and onboarding require agency or VIP partner engagement
