Many users love Cloudways because of its flexibility and fast performance. It has five cloud partners in total: DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. You can then choose among them at differing rates, be it monthly or hourly, and Cloudways will set everything up and allow you to manage your WordPress websites on an easy-to-use dashboard. That sounds simple enough, but it’s not for everybody. Some find it too complicated to use and others find it too expensive to maintain.
That’s where Cloudways alternatives come in. Some of the most popular ones that have a more traditional approach include Kinsta, Bluehost, Flywheel and SiteGround, all of which have options for managed WordPress hosting. RunCloud is also another choice that offers a similar experience as Cloudways with some key differences. Here we take a look at these other options and why you might want to make the switch from Cloudways.
Cloudways Alternative Comparison Chart
| Name | Cloudways | Kinsta | Bluehost | Flywheel | SiteGround | RunCloud |
| Â |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Price | Check Price at Cloudways.com | Check Price at Kinsta.com | Check Price at Bluehost.com | Check Price at GetFlywheel.com | Check Price at SiteGround.com | Check Price at RunCloud.io |
| SSD Storage | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Caching | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CDN | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Supported |
| Firewall | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WordPress Installer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (via Local) | Yes | Yes |
| Free Migration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Staging Environment | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Backup | Automated backups | Automatic daily backups | Daily scheduled backups | Nightly backups | Daily backups | Yes (paid add-on) |
| n/a | n/a | 30-day free trial Microsoft email | No | Yes | n/a | |
| Money-Back Guarantee | n/a | 30 days | 30 days | 72 hours for monthly plans, 30 days for annual plans | 30 days | 14 days |
Kinsta
You’ll always get the help you need from Kinsta.
Kinsta is known for its excellent 24/7 support and running on Google Cloud, but that’s not all it’s got going for it. Performance-wise, you can expect server-level caching and free CDN. On the security front, it provides a hack fix guarantee, SSL, firewall and malware scans. In addition, Kinsta has uptime monitoring, daily backups, staging and WordPress updates.
All in all, Kinsta makes everything simple and covers all your bases, so you can dedicate all your time and effort on building your website.
Bluehost
An officially recommended WordPress host, Bluehost delivers where it counts.
Bluehost has been around for years, and it’s more or less become a household name in the industry. It has everything new or migrating users need, including multi-layer caching, CDN, SSL, spam and malware protection, a staging environment and more.Â
On top of that, it provides WP-CLI and SSH access for advanced WordPress users and the Jetpack plugin that easily lets users monetize their sites by creating ads with only one click.
Flywheel
Flywheel isn’t just an alternative to Cloudways but also to Kinsta.
Flywheel is often compared to Kinsta because of how similar they are when it comes to features and performance. It also uses Google Cloud, as well as server-level caching and CDN, delivering speed on par with Cloudways. Additionally, it offers automated daily backups, SSL, firewall and malware scans. It even cleans up your site in the event it gets hacked and gives suggestions to improve its security moving forward.
SiteGround
Another officially recommended WordPress host, SiteGround can provide excellent managed WordPress hosting.
There are many reasons why SiteGround is one of the most popular managed WordPress hosts. For starters, it has a Site Tools dashboard that makes managing websites a whole deal easier, and its SG Optimizer plugin is a huge plus that ensures your site is running as fast and efficiently as it could. For the record, it also runs on Google Cloud.Â
It has all the usual features you’d expect, including automatic daily backups, CDN and SSL. As a cherry on top, it offers free email hosting as well, which is something that Cloudways doesn’t provide.
RunCloud
RunCloud and Cloudways have a lot of similarities.
If you don’t want to break away from the same approach as Cloudways, RunCloud might be your best bet. It’s a PHP cloud server management panel, and it also has WordPress-specific features, including a WordPress installer and staging environment. Moreover, it provides server-level caching, backups, SSL and firewall to boot.
Similar to Cloudways, it can run on a hybrid of Nginx and Apache stack, but it can also be used solely on Nginx. One difference worth mentioning here is users will have to pay their cloud infrastructure provider separately, which is something you don’t have to worry about with Cloudways.
Verdict
If Cloudways just doesn’t do it for you, then SiteGround and RunCloud are two of the best alternatives around.
To sum things up, Cloudways isn’t exactly the easiest to use, and in some cases, it’s the pricier option. For those who know how to make the most out of its services, it’s the solution that’s hard to beat. However, for those who don’t, it might be a better idea to look for an alternative.
SiteGround and Kinsta are arguably the best to go with, but Bluehost and Flywheel are also worth considering. Last but not least, RunCloud is a decent option for those looking for something like Cloudways but want a change of pace.
FAQs
Cloudways is by all means an excellent WordPress host, but for some users, it’s not the easiest to use or the most affordable option. Others may also want a different technology stack to Cloudways’ Apache and Nginx hybrid.
In the list above, SiteGround and Bluehost are two of the web hosts that WordPress recommends, which says a lot about the experience users can expect from them.
Kinsta, Flywheel and SiteGround are considered to be among the fastest WordPress web hosts available, boasting a stable 99.9 percent uptime as well.
Yes, Cloudways is hard to beat with its unique approach to web hosting and performance. However, it takes some know-how to make the most of its services.
