If you’d rather spare yourself the trouble of managing your servers, the best thing you can do is to utilize a managed WordPress hosting provider. So instead of worrying about the finer details, you can focus on building the best possible WordPress site instead. Two reputable hosting providers you can look into are Cloudways and Bluehost although it’s important that you choose wisely because they come with some notable differences. If you’d like to learn more about them, here’s an in-depth comparison of the two, taking their speed and performance, security, additional features, and pricing into consideration.
Cloudways vs Bluehost Comparison Chart
| Model | Cloudways | Bluehost |
 |  | |
| Price | Check Price at Cloudways | Check Price at Bluehost |
| Storage | Solid-state drives | Solid-state drives |
| PHP | Yes | Yes |
| CDN | CloudwaysCDN | Cloudfare |
| Caching System | Multi-layered | Multi-layered |
| Free SSL Certificate | Yes | Yes |
| Backups | Scheduled or on-demand | Scheduled or on-demand |
| Regular Security Patches | Yes | Yes |
| Free Site Migration | Yes | No |
| Staging | Yes | Yes |
Speed and Performance
Both Cloudways and Bluehost have measures in place to enhance speed and performance.
Slow page load times is one of the biggest things you should avoid for your site. Fortunately, both Cloudways and Bluehost have measures in place to make sure connection speeds are kept fast and that your visitors are always satisfied. These two providers store your site on solid-state drives (SSD) which are way more reliable than mechanical drives, plus their servers are of top-notch quality, high-powered, and PHP-ready. And because Cloudways and Bluehost have virtual servers stored within the bigger hardware, you can have multiple CPU cores to further boost your site’s speed.
As for content delivery networks (CDN), both Cloudways and Bluehost make use of reputable ones as a way to further cut down your site’s loading time. Cloudways has their own CDN called CloudwaysCDN which you can access with just a couple of clicks, while Bluehost utilizes a globally-trusted CDN called Cloudfare. It’s not, however, included in all of Bluehost’s packages so you have to double check if it’s something you want to avail of. Lastly, these two providers are equipped with advanced caching systems as a way to enhance your site’s performance even more. As for Cloudways, they have a caching stack that’s made up of NGINX, Redis, Varnish, and Memcached. Similarly, Bluehost has a multi-layered caching system.
Security
Both Cloudways and Bluehost make use of SSL certificates, backups, and security patches.
Because malicious attacks, viruses, and malware are a constant threat in the cyber world, it’s crucial that your site’s protected from these things. The good news is that both Cloudways and Bluehost take security very seriously. For starters, they both offer a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, ensuring a safe environment for both site owners and visitors. Not only does an SSL certificate protect against data breaches, phishing scams, and other external threats, but it will also boost your site’s reputation. Without one, browsers will typically display a warning whenever a visitor tries to access your site and you definitely don’t want that.
For even tighter security, both Cloudways and Bluehost are equipped with automatic backups. If you’re using Cloudways, you can either schedule your backups or activate them on-demand. Accessing your backups is a simple process that involves just a couple of clicks. It’s pretty much the same for Bluehost. Their most affordable plan comes with daily backups while purchasing their larger packages will let you create as many backups as you need to. Finally, these two providers have routine security patches, automatically updating WordPress so that your site is protected against the latest threats.
Additional Features
Cloudways has the upper hand when it comes to collaborative tools and site migration.
If you have a bigger team and you’re in need of collaborative tools, Cloudways can help you with that. They have everything you need including customizable SSH and SFTP access and Git integration, plus you can make groups, restrict certain areas of your site, and make use of a two-factor authentication system to keep things extra secure. While Bluehost has collaborative tools as well, they’re not nearly as flexible or robust so Cloudways takes this one.
As for those who already have an existing site and would like to transfer all data to a new hosting provider, Cloudways makes that easy as well. You can either do it yourself by installing Cloudways’ free and easy-to-use WordPress Migrator plugin or you can get one of their migration experts to help you out. If you want to move to Bluehost, however, the process isn’t free and you will unfortunately have to fork over quite a hefty sum to complete the transfer. Differences in migration aside, you can enjoy staging features on both hosting providers.
Pricing
Cloudways’ pay-as-you-go billing scheme allows for more flexibility.
The great thing about Cloudways is that they don’t lock you in with a plan and instead uses a pay-as-you-go billing scheme. This means that they’ll only charge you for whatever you’ve consumed the previous month and you can choose to stay with them for however long you want to. As for rates, they vary depending on which cloud hosting platform you’ve chosen, with DigitalOcean as the most affordable option at $10 per month and Google Cloud as the most expensive at $80 per month.
While Cloudways allows for more flexibility, Bluehost is the more traditional type and sticks to plans. There are three to choose from, namely the Build ($29.99 per month; $19.95 with promo), Grow ($39.99 per month; $29.95 with promo) and Scale ($59.99 per month; $49.95 with promo) plans. Because their prices are fixed and not based on usage, it might be a little bit harder to save on costs with Bluehost.
Verdict
Cloudways is our winner because you get to enjoy more features for less.
Given that both Cloudways and Bluehost are able to guarantee the performance and security of your site through various measures, it’s safe to say that they’re both excellent managed WordPress hosting providers. If we’re going to nitpick, however, Cloudways would have to be the winner for a couple of reasons. First off, their rates are much more budget-friendly and their pay-as-you-go pricing scheme means there’s more room for savings. To boot, you get to take advantage of more additional features such as collaborative tools and free site migration despite the more affordable rates.
FAQs
Both Cloudways and Bluehost have measures in place to enhance speed and performance. They make use of SSDs for storage, their servers are PHP-ready, and their CDNs are top-notch.
Both Cloudways and Bluehost make use of SSL certificates, backups, and security patches and so they’re able to protect your site from external threats.
Cloudways has more budget-friendly rates and their pay-as-you-go billing scheme creates more room for savings.
Cloudways is the winner when it comes to additional features. Not only do they offer free site migration but they also provide more robust and flexible collaborative tools.
