Amazon Web Services (AWS) is dominating the cloud computing industry, boasting around 1 million users and accounting for more than 40% of the cloud computing infrastructure. However, like most cloud hosting services, setting up your website on AWS requires a steeper learning curve. This is why PaaS (Platform as a Service) companies like Cloudways offer managed cloud hosting that lets you set-up your servers quickly. Cloudways offers AWS cloud hosting plans, as well as DigitalOcean, Vultr, Google Cloud, and Linode.
To help you identify how you should host your websites, we delve into the pricing, features, ease of use, and reliability of Cloudways and AWS.
Cloudways vs AWS Cloud Hosting Comparison Chart
| Model | Cloudways | AWS |
| Â |  |  |
| Price | Check Price at Cloudways | Check Price at aws.amazon.com |
| Payment Options | Pay-As-You-Go (Monthly/Hourly) | Pay-As-You-Go Save when you reserve Storage volume-based pricing |
| Cloud Web Hosting Services | DigitalOcean Linode Vultr AWS Google Cloud | Amazon S3: Simple static website hosting Amazon EC2: Enterprise web hosting Amazon Lightsail: Simple website hosting Amazon Amplify: Sing-page web app hosting |
| CDN | CloudwaysCDN | Available |
| Free SSL Certificates | Yes | Yes |
| PHP-Ready Servers | Yes | Yes |
| SSD Storage | Yes | Yes |
| Managed Security & Backups | Yes | No |
| Free Site Migration | Yes | No |
| Collaborative Tools | Yes | Yes |
| Free Trial | 3 days (but not available on AWS) | One year |
| 24/7 Chat and Ticket Support | Yes | No |
Pricing
Cloudways has a straightforward pricing structure while AWS’s is a lot more complex and confusing, albeit overall more affordable
It’s not easy comparing the pricing tiers of Cloudways and AWS as they have vastly different pricing and plans. Cloudways offers managed cloud hosting for top cloud hosting providers: AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr. Among Cloudways’ plans, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud are the most expensive.
Since we’re comparing Cloudways and AWS in this article, we’re focusing on the different pricing AWS tiers available on Cloudways:
- $36.51/month ($.0507/hour): includes 1.75GB RAM, 2GB bandwidth, 20GB storage, and 1 vCPU
- $86.77/month ($.1205/hour): includes 3.75GB RAM, 2GB bandwidth, 20GB storage, and 1 vCPU
- $176.26/month ($.2448/hour): includes 8GB RAM, 2GB bandwidth, 20GB storage, and 2 vCPU
- $274.33/month ($.3810/hour): includes 16GB RAM, 2GB bandwidth, 20GB storage, and 4 vCPU
Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a wide range of hosting services. Its Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) is what’s available on Cloudways’ managed cloud hosting services. Amazon provides different payment options:
- Free tier: 750 hours of Linux and Windows t2.micro instances
- On-Demand: Pay-as-you-go without having to pay anything upfront
- Spot instances: Can be 30% to 90% cheaper than on-demand prices
- Reserved instances: Can be up to 72% cheaper than on-demand rates
AWS has way too many hourly rate variations to list in this article, but in a nutshell, the hourly rates depend on your vCPU, bandwidth, storage, and RAM requirements. The hourly prices for AWS EC2 can range from $0.0042/hour to up to $26.688/hour. AWS also offers Simple Storage Service (S3) for websites that require long-term cloud storage service.
Ease Of Use & Reliability
Cloudways lets you deploy your site more quickly and conveniently
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a powerful cloud hosting platform, thus it’s the cloud hosting provider of choice for some of the biggest companies in the world. However, you’ll have to know your way around setting up and maintaining servers for your site to go live and continue to run smoothly. Setting up one WordPress website on AWS will take a lot longer than doing so on Cloudways or regular web hosting platforms.
Cloudways makes it easy for users who need the speed and cost-effectiveness of cloud hosting, sans the complex set-up and maintenance process. If you find Cloudways with AWS too expensive for your business, you can always opt for more affordable cloud hosting options such as DigitalOcean, Linode, or Vultr. The process will still be easier and Cloudways will take care of backups and security for you. You also won’t have to worry about SSL certificates, built-in CDN, advanced-cache, and dedicated firewalls.
Hosting & Storage
AWS has a wealth of hosting and computing services that will suit different businesses’ varying needs
The RAM for Cloudways’ managed AWS hosting tiers ranges from 1.75GB to 8GB, while their storage and bandwidth capacity are around 20GB and 2GB respectively. You can configure your settings as well to suit your requirements. If you set up directly on AWS, you’re given more options, starting from .5GB to a whopping 3,904GB of RAM. AWS provides different storage options as well, such as EBS (Elastic Block Store), SSD, and HDD.
Meanwhile, if you opt for Cloudways’ managed cloud hosting from other providers, here’s the range of storage and bandwidth available on Cloudways:
- Digital Ocean: 1GB to 8GB RAM, 25GB to 160GB of storage, and 1TB to 5TB of bandwidth allocation
- Linode: 1GB to 8GB RAM, 25GB to 160GB of storage, and 1TB to 5TB of bandwidth allocation
- Vultr: 1GB to 8GB RAM, 25GB to 160GB of storage, and 1TB to 4TB of bandwidth allocation
- Google Cloud: 1.7GB to 15GB RAM, 20GB of storage, and 2GB of bandwidth allocation
Additional Features
Cloudways provides free migration and a wide range of collaborative tools
If you’re moving your existing website to Cloudways, you can take advantage of their free migration service. Unlike hosting directly on AWS, you’ll get free SSL certificate, unlimited staging areas, one-click server cloning, dedicated firewalls, and one-click app installation, and one-click advanced server management if you opt for managed cloud hosting with Cloudways.
In addition, Cloudways makes it easy for you to add team members, generate individual SFTP credentials for your assigned users, and create projects. Customer support is also available 24/7 with Cloudways should you encounter any issues with your AWS cloud hosting.
Verdict
Cloudways is worth it if you’re not experienced or are too busy to learn how to set up your website with AWS cloud hosting
If you don’t have a team of web developers at your disposal, opting for Cloudways‘ managed AWS hosting is worth it. Setting up your website alone on Cloudways can save you hours compared to doing it directly on AWS, thanks to its one-click install features. Cloudways also takes care of SSL certificates, firewall, backups, updates, and it comes with built-in CDN, MySQL manager, and advanced-cache so you won’t have to worry about your site breaking or slowing down.
FAQs
Yes, it’s worth paying for managed cloud hosting if you don’t want the hassle of setting up security, backups, and maintenance on your own.
AWS, Google Cloud, Vultr, Linode, and DigitalOcean are also available on Cloudways.
Yes, you can choose from Cloudways’ 60+ data centers to optimize your websites’ performance.
Yes, Cloudways offers a one-click WordPress install, saving you time setting up your WordPress site compared to doing it directly on AWS cloud hosting.
