# Cloudways

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/hosting/cloudways/

Managed hosting by DigitalOcean for PHP apps such as WordPress, Magento and Laravel, run on servers you choose from DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud.

## Who it suits

Managed hosting for PHP apps such as WordPress, Magento and Laravel on a cloud server you pick from five providers, from $11 a month billed hourly, with unlimited apps per server, backups kept a week by default and a 3-day trial with no card needed.

Consider something else if You want an uptime guarantee or compliance from the host itself: Cloudways' only SLA covers its support console, it says a hosting platform alone cannot be PCI-compliant, no SOC 2 or ISO claim appears on its sites, and the CDN is a paid Cloudflare add-on.

## iScore

60 / 100 (80% interval 53–68), rank 2 of 5 in hosting — interval overlaps the next rank, so this is an ordering, not a finding.

inetGeek's own reading, computed from sourced facts against category peers by disclosed rules. Not a provider claim. Intervals are 80%; a provider with few documented facts is pulled toward the category middle rather than scored on what little is known.
Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every hosting peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/hosting/cloudways/alternatives/

- Price: 25 (17–33), weight 24%, 4 of 4 criteria scored
- Capacity and limits: 67 (54–80), weight 24%, 3 of 6 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: monthly_visits_cap, regions, sites_included
- Capabilities: 89 (82–95), weight 14%, 3 of 6 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: containers, managed_databases, persistent_storage
- Trust and compliance: 73 (67–79), weight 14%, 5 of 10 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: encryption_at_rest, hipaa_eligible, iso27001, soc2, uptime_sla
- Evidence: 90 (90–90), weight 10%, 4 of 4 criteria scored
- Adoption: 47 (2–92), weight 14%, 0 of 2 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: No — The only free offer is a 3-day Flexible trial with no card. There is no ongoing free plan. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Kind of free offer: Free trial ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Credit card to start: No ([source](https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/10061830-how-to-subscribe-flexible-trial), read 2026-09-27)
- When the free offer ends: 3 days. ([source](https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/10061830-how-to-subscribe-flexible-trial), read 2026-09-27)
- Entry paid plan: $11/month for the cheapest Cloudways Flexible server, as the pricing page's FAQ states. The plan cards open on DigitalOcean Basic with the Premium (NVMe) option, where the 1 GB Micro server is $14/month ($0.0208/hour). Servers are billed hourly. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go per server: you pick a cloud provider and server size, are charged hourly for what you use, and are invoiced monthly in arrears. Each server lists a monthly and an hourly price. Bandwidth beyond the server's allowance is billed per GB, and AWS and Google Cloud prices vary by region. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- When you exceed a cap: Not cut off: bandwidth beyond the server's allowance is billed pay-as-you-go. The rate depends on the cloud: $0.02/GB on DigitalOcean, $0.12/GB on AWS, and $0.10 to $0.17/GB on Google Cloud depending on region. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)

### Limits

- Storage (entry plan): 25 GB NVMe on the 1 GB Micro server, the smallest DigitalOcean Basic size on the Premium (NVMe) option the pricing page opens on. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Sites or apps included: Unlimited applications per server, limited by what the server's resources can support. The plan cards list Unlimited Websites. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Monthly visits cap: No visits cap: every Flexible server card on the pricing page lists Unlimited Visits. Traffic is limited by the server's size and its bandwidth allowance. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Included bandwidth: 1 TB of transfer a month on the 1 GB DigitalOcean Micro server, rising to 5 TB on the 8 GB Large server. Extra transfer is billed per GB. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Max request duration: 300 seconds by default (the server's Execution Limit, which applies across the stack). It can be changed; Cloudways recommends staying under 900 seconds. ([source](https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5120689-how-to-manage-your-server-settings), read 2026-09-25)

### Deployment

- Git deployment: Supported — Console pulls a chosen branch from a Git repo over SSH; auto-deploy on push needs a webhook or third-party tool. ([source](https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5124087-how-to-deploy-code-to-your-application-using-git-on-cloudways-flexible), read 2026-09-27)
- Scheduled jobs: Supported — Server-side cron jobs set per application from the console. A one-click option also replaces WP-Cron with server cron. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/features.php), read 2026-09-27)

### Infrastructure

- Edge network: Limited — Cloudflare Enterprise CDN is a paid add-on, from $4.99 per domain a month. It is not included by default. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Regions: 50+ data centers, per the pricing page, across five underlying clouds: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud. The features page gives a different count (58 data centers, 43 locations, 'three cloud providers'). ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-27)
- Uptime SLA: No hosting uptime SLA from Cloudways. Its only SLA covers the availability of the support platform console and support response times, and it says so explicitly. For server uptime it links to the SLAs of the underlying clouds (DigitalOcean, AWS EC2, Google Compute Engine, Vultr, Linode). ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/support-sla.php), read 2026-09-27)

### Data

- Backup retention: Automated off-site server backups run daily and are kept for one week by default. Retention can be set from 1 to 4 weeks. Off-site backup storage is billed at $0.033/GB per server. ([source](https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5123324-how-to-configure-a-server-level-backup), read 2026-09-27)

### Support

- Support on entry paid plan: 24/7/365 live chat and ticketing on every plan. The Standard support SLA targets a 3-hour response on high-priority tickets and 12 hours on normal ones. Advanced support is a paid add-on at $100/month; Premium adds Slack and phone. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php), read 2026-09-25)

### Compliance

- GDPR / data residency: The customer picks the data center for each server, including EU locations such as Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Cloudways' own sites publish no data processing addendum or residency commitment. ([source](https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5120648-which-infrastructure-provider-do-i-have-to-choose), read 2026-09-27)
- PCI DSS: Not PCI-DSS compliant on its own. Cloudways says a hosting platform alone cannot be fully PCI-compliant and points to the PCI-DSS Level 1 infrastructure of AWS, Google Compute Engine and Linode. Application-level PCI duties stay with the customer. ([source](https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5134114-does-cloudways-provide-pci-compliance), read 2026-09-27)
- Role-based access control: Team members: the account owner grants Billing and Support access separately. Flexible console access is either Full (all servers and apps) or Limited (chosen servers and chosen actions such as start, stop, scale or viewing credentials). ([source](https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5119753-how-to-create-and-update-team-members), read 2026-09-27)
- Dedicated infrastructure: Each Flexible server is a cloud server the customer launches on the chosen provider. The features page describes these as dedicated environments with dedicated resources, not shared hosting. The pricing page describes only DigitalOcean's General Purpose and CPU Optimized types as coming with dedicated resources; Basic, the cheapest, is not. ([source](https://www.cloudways.com/en/features.php), read 2026-09-27)