Let’s talk about Cloudways.
I migrated my main site from WordPress.com to Cloudways in 2019 because I was trying to save a few bucks since I was paying like $50 dollars a month between a WordPress.com premium plan and Pressable.
I moved all my sites to one basic Digital Ocean server and put every single one of them behind Cloudflare and sites have been doing great in terms of speed and security.
I paid no more than $11 to $15 per month for hosting between 6 to 9 sites, which is a good deal if you ask me.
How can I host that many sites in one server?
You just have to place some edge caching in place and your server is like your home that you never spend your time it.
Table of Contents
Cloudways Security
The entire time only two of my sites have been hacked and it was due to some server level misconfiguration.
I installed and tested a few nulled plugins and a few days later, some posts were added to my website promoting some stupid internet scam.
I learned my lesson and I started taking WordPress security seriously
What I like about Cloudways is that you can block or Limit access to your WordPress Installation and Database.
If a hacker gets into your WordPress Dashboard, he could make a mess in them via file and database management plugins so it is not like using this feature will prevent anything.
If a hacker gets into your dashboard brute force attacking his way in, you are screwed.
That’s why I built my Cloudflare custom firewall to avoid potential problems introduced by vulnerabilities in plugins, theme or the WordPress core.
Cloudways has tried to implement security features.
Bot Traffic, which was Malcare in disguise, I never used it and I deactivated it for every installation.
Recently they introduce a free and premium version of Immunify360, a service that I hate because:
- It might blocks bots which might be good bots that you probably need.
- The reports you get are very limited, you can’t do much with them
- if you run into problems, you can’t do anything besides whitelisting an IP address.
- You don’t need two firewall services since they might have conflicting rules.
Cloudways isn’t that bad at security but you definitely need to have your site behind a firewall.
This is probably the most concerning thing I have read about Cloudways security
By the way, I haven’t used WordPress security plugins in a while so my sites have survived thanks to whatever Cloudways at the server level and the measures I have taken at the application level.
Cloudways and Site Speed
When it comes to speed, I think you will always be right when you choose Cloud hosting service over shared hosting services.
My sites are pretty much static sites so I have always used Cloudflare Full Page caching and I have optimized everything myself.
if you don’t want to mess with code, scripts and style, choose something like Perfmatters and a free caching plugin.
You can use Breeze since that’s the official caching plugin.
Sometimes I use a caching plugin and sometimes I don’t but Breeze has never been my first, my second or third choice when it comes to speed optimizations.
Scaling on Cloudways is not Affordable
I always paid for a basic server the entire time I used Cloudways so I can’t complain.
The server cost like $6 and the cost for using its panel was $5.
But if you’re looking to scale, the costs can quickly double compared to going directly with DigitalOcean. For example:
- A $14 Digital Ocean server costs $28 on Cloudways.
- An $85 Digital Ocean server jumps to $170 with Cloudways.
Here’s the kicker: the guy paying $14 a month gets access to the same Cloudways panel and features as the guy paying $170.
If you’re hosting multiple sites or need significant server resources, you’re far better off paying $19 for a service like RunCloud, which lets you manage up to 50 servers. You’ll need to pay for the servers separately, but at least you’ll have full control and only pay for the resources you actually need.
Cloudways Alternatives
I have checked several options out there but I have never had a real reason for moving from Cloudways to another hosting provider.
I don’t want to go back to cheap shared hosting services or use these hosting providers that place caps on page views.
I am currently paying $12 for hosting 7 sites in a basic Digital Ocean droplet and that’s kind of hard to beat.
These are some cloud hosting panels that you don’t need to create a dashboard to manage them.
- RunCloud is $9 a month or $90 a year (two months free) and I would have to pay around $6 in Digital Ocean Fees so that would be $15 in total
- Server Avatar has the a similar deal to RunCloud, you can use up to three servers but I don’t need three servers. That would be at least $15 in total.
- Server Pilot is $10 per server + $1 per app so that would be $22 per month in total.
- XCloud Managed Hosting seems like a good alternative but it is kind of new and last time I checked the panel was god damn slow but that’s just the panel. $5 per month beats Cloudways,
- XCloud Managed your own server deal also beats Cloudways. it is free for 10 sites or less so I’d pay $5 or $6 per month on Digital Ocean Fees.
- GridPane is not for me. Their free service only works with Vultr and that would probably $5 or $6 on hosting fees.
Left Cloudways, Moved to Digital Ocean
I wasn’t thinking about leaving Cloudways since I still had around $65 on my account.
But the issues I had with Immunify360 made me do it.
I moved all my sites to Digital Ocean with the help of CloudPanel, a free cloud hosting panel that provides with the necessary features to host your sites.
Then I learned so many things during the past four or five weeks so I made all my sites static with the help of some Python Scripts.
Paying $6 a month now for hosting.
Left Digital Ocean, Using CloudFlare Pages Now
Basically I use Docker to manage my WordPress sites.
Once I want to push an update to my server, I run a Python scripts that:
- Makes my site static
- Pushes Changes to my GitHub Repo
Then CloudFlare Pages takes care of the rest.
The whole process takes like two minutes.
I couldn’t be happier with the way things turn out.
Final Thoughts
I kept my Cloudways account I still have funds in it and I might need it for a future project or something.
But I don’t miss Cloudways at all.
That said, I’d still recommend Cloudways for beginners or anyone who values simplicity and doesn’t want to worry about managing servers. It’s a great platform, even if I’m not sure I’d personally use it again.
