You found this article because you are interested about the Cloudways managed cloud hosting review 2017. I’m not going to disappoint you, you’ve come to the right place.
I promised to make this article as detailed and informative as possible. Therefore, I’ll be covering a wide range of topics related to Cloudways such as:
- What is managed cloud hosting?
- Introduction to Cloudways
- Cloudways managed cloud hosting review for the year 2017
- Advantages and disadvantages of Cloudways
- How to migrate a website to Cloudways?
I hope you find this article useful and I will appreciate it if you can share this on social media.
What is managed cloud hosting?
According to Techopedia, managed cloud hosting is a process in which organizations share and access resources, including databases, hardware and software tools, across a remote network via multiple servers in another location. In managed cloud hosting, servers are purchased in slices or as a virtual server.
If the above sounds geeky for you, don’t worry. Here’s a simplified version for the meaning of managed cloud hosting.
Managed cloud hosting is not like your average shared hosting service (example, Bluehost). In shared hosting service, you will most probably share the same hosting environment with over a thousand or other users.
Compared to cloud hosting, you can utilize the entire server allocation for your usage. The server is also hosted on a virtual server where accessing it would require a remote network connection.
The term ‘managed’ simply means that the server or servers are maintained by one or more support team. Thus you don’t have to worry about server maintenance.
I’m a huge fan of managed cloud hosting and to be extremely honest with you, cloud hosting services aren’t the cheapest in the market. However, they are probably one of the best especially when it comes to server performance.
Searching for the cheapest managed cloud hosting platform? You don’t have to look far as Cloudways is the best (and cheapest) managed cloud hosting platform you can find in today’s market. 
Introduction to Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform
Cloudways has long been in the industry of virtual servers. I’ve used them several years back, and they are affordable.
Back in those days, Cloudways only have Digital Ocean and Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their provider. Now, Cloudways is working with several other partners such as Vultr, Google Cloud Platform Live, and Kyup.
Here are some reviews on Cloudways:
“Cloudways is an interesting company because it is in the process of moving from a service offering, where every deployment is essentially a custom one, to a far more productized approach.” – Ben Kepes, Forbes
‘Cloudways takes care of the management of open-source tools for hosting websites, like Magento, WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.’ – Jordan Novet, Venture Beat
“Cloudways indicates the emphasis is on simplicity, targeting SMBs that have little to no desire to operate or administer the infrastructure themselves.” – Liam Eagle, 451 Research
“There’s a lot to like about Cloudways. The Web host has flexible plans, killer Web-based customer support, and excellent uptime. It’s a company that you can count on to keep your site up and running.” – Jeffrey L. Wilson, PCMag.com
“Cloudways is always a fun company to test. It showed major performance improvements in this round (2015) and earned an honorable mention. It was by far the most improved provider between tests.” – Kevin Ohashi, Review Signal
Cloudways managed cloud hosting review for the year 2017
In all my reviews, I am always very strict about performance, scalability, cost and support. Coming from the customer service industry, these are just values that I cannot overlook and are often considered the core of any business.
1. Cloudways managed cloud hosting server performance review (rating 9 out of 10)
For starters, I want to be straightforward to say that I am not testing on their smallest package, 512 MB server. Instead, I’m using two servers of 1 GB and 2 GB respectively. Therefore, my review will be based on both of them.
Of course, 512 MB server would probably be enough to host a brand new website or smaller ones. With the websites that I manage, I need more firepower of course.
Regarding performance, Cloudways exceeds my expectations by miles apart. Due to traffic and security concerns, I always use managed WordPress hosting as my go-to web hosting service. If you are wondering, I’m using WP Engine, and the package was Professional.
Here are the stats when I was still using WP Engine:
Here are the stats when I am using Cloudways managed cloud hosting:
Now, take a look at the top. The stats are very clear and straight forward.
It certainly looks like Cloudways is really good and could easily consider as overperforming since I’m comparing it head-on with one of the world’s best WordPress hosting, WP Engine.
Cloudways comes with Varnish feature as well, therefore, works like a charm and allows your website to load faster than most web hosting services could.
Plus, being a managed cloud hosting platform, there are more allocated resources for your website which will directly affect the loading speed.
Bear in mind that I’m using Cloudways 2 GB ram on Digital Ocean that costs me $34 a month compared to WP Engine Professional plan at $99 per month.
A critical Cloudways managed cloud hosting review is not complete without sharing the information of Let’s Encrypt and RackSpace’s email feature. According to Google, websites that have SSL would rank higher than most websites that don’t. When you use Cloudways, it is easy to apply for an SSL certificate (for free). The entire process takes around 5 minutes and can be done only when you have the domain pointing directly to the allocated IP address on Cloudways.
As for RackSpace email feature, it is chargeable at $1 per email (per month) and trusts me; this is an awesome feature compared to others. Bear in mind that you can easily have this service by clicking on the “Addon” button to purchase the service.
2. Cloudways managed cloud hosting scalability (rating 10 out of 10)
Need to scale your website because you are growing? No problem!
With Cloudways, scalability is never an issue. As a matter of fact, you can easily do so by just dragging the scale up to the designated value, and the billing will automatically be reflected.
Managed cloud hosting such as Cloudways allows you to scale down your website as well easily. This can be done by creating a clone server and selecting a lower tier cloud hosting package that fits your need.
Noticed the ease of upgrading and downgrading on Cloudways?
When it comes to scalability, I would give Cloudways scalability of 10/10 because it is just that simple and can usually be completed in 10 minutes.
3. Cloudways managed cloud hosting pricing/cost (rating 10 out of 10)
At this point of writing, I’m residing in Malaysia, and my exchange rate for USD is approx 4.46. So, let’s take the instance that I’m using WP Engine $99 per month.
USD 99 x 4.46 = RM 441.54
This means that I should be paying approximately RM 441.54 every month just for web hosting!
Now, when I use Cloudways, I’m being charged at $32 per month.
USD 32 x 4.46 = RM 142.72
That’s approximately 67% saving every month!
Let’s do us all a favor and think hard on this. We all talk about web hosting speed, security, performance and probably a dozen more features but at the end of the day, the price matters the most.
When you use Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform, you are doing yourself a favor by getting the best performance as well as easy on your wallet.
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Oh by the way, do you know that Cloudways doesn’t tie you down with prepayment? All subscriptions are based on month to month basis.
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4. Cloudways managed cloud hosting support (rating 8.5 out of 10)
When it comes to supporting, Cloudways go a long way in making their customers feeling happy and satisfied.
For starters, you will receive a telephone call from their support team a few days after signing up for their service. And on top of that, you have the ability to hop onto their ‘live chat’ sessions for any help. Until date, the waiting queue for live chat is always fast and usually, the wait time is under 30 seconds.
Typically, their support team is very well trained in most scenarios, but from time to time, you will meet up with a few who are less experienced. While they will try to help out as much as they could, it would be a little annoying when you have to repeat yourself a couple of times!
Now, when it comes to rating the level of support provided by Cloudways, I would give them a nice 8.5 out of 10. If they could have more experienced staffs working throughout the clock, it will probably further increase the satisfaction level of the customers.
5. Simplicity in managed cloud hosting (rating 9.5 out of 10)
Simplicity and user experience are two vital components for any web hosting service. As most beginners or webmasters don’t want to spend the entire day getting the server up and running, both of these are more important than ever.
Here’s a screenshot of my dashboard:
As you can see, it is very straightforward and pretty for the eyes.
Managing a cloud hosting server is not an easy task. It often requires experience and certain knowledge before you can have a fully running service. With Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform, it is extremely easy to create and manage your cloud servers.
Cloudways allows you to:
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- Create managed cloud servers quickly
- Manage servers easily
- Scale up or down the server
- Turn on and off Varnish
- Reboot the server
- Purge the cache
- Clone the server
- Install SSL certificate under 5 minutes
- Change PHP settings
- And much more
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The above can be done on all Cloudways managed cloud hosting servers without any coding. You can either turn on or off specific services with just a few clicks.
It is so easy that you can even migrate your website using Cloudways’s migrator tool!
In the scale of 1 to 10, I would give Cloudways simplicity and user experience at the score of 9.5.
Yes, Cloudways managed cloud hosting is seriously that good!
How to migrate to Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform?
Do you remember paying hundred of dollars just to migrate your website from one web host to another? Yes, those days.
With today’s technology, you are no longer bound for that. Instead, you can use migration tools provided by some hosting companies to ease the job. Currently, Cloudways is the only managed cloud hosting platform that offers such service.
The process of migrating to Cloudways is simple. Here are the steps:
[step_graphics style=”4″ color=””][step style=”4″ text=”1″ headline=”Create%20a%20new%20cloud%20server%20on%20Cloudways”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”2″ headline=”Install%20Cloudways%20Migration%20Plugin%20from%20the%20WordPress%20repository”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”3″ headline=”Complete%20the%20information%20required%20and%20click%20on%20the%20’Migrate’%20button”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”4″ headline=”Typically%2C%20the%20transfer%20would%20take%20at%20least%2030%20minutes%20to%20a%20few%20hours%20for%20completion”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”5″ headline=”Check%20your%20newly%20migrated%20website%20using%20the%20temporary%20URL”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”6″ headline=”If%20everything%20is%20ordered%20and%20you%20are%20satisfied%2C%20change%20the%20IP%20address%20to%20point%20back%20to%20Cloudways%20managed%20server”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”7″ headline=”In%20Cloudways%20domain%20tab%2C%20add%20your%20primary%20domain%20name%20to%20the%20server”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”8″ headline=”Install%20SSL%20certificate%20using%20Let’s%20Encrypt%20for%20free%20version%20or%20upload%20your%20custom%20one”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”9″ headline=”Setup%20W3%20Total%20Cache%20plugin%20for%20better%20performance”][/step][step style=”4″ text=”10″ headline=”If%20you%20are%20crazy%20for%20speed%2C%20consider%20enabling%20Redis%20for%20your%20Object%20Cache%20on%20W3TC%20(ensure%20that%20you%20install%20Redis%20on%20your%20server%20before%20enabling%20this%20option)”][/step][/step_graphics]
IP propagation takes time. Therefore, do not panic if your website doesn’t load or shows 404 error.
Advantages of using Cloudways managed cloud hosting
Cloudways is still one of the best managed cloud hosting platforms you can find on the market today. It is highly affordable, and the server performance is better than most web hosting services.
When you use Cloudways, you will get powerful servers all to yourself as well as excellent customer service. Another plus point is that Cloudways is a fully managed cloud hosting platform. This means that you don’t have to go all the way to learn how to manage a server. Cloudways teams will take care of the maintenance for you.
As Cloudways is very affordable, it makes all the sense that Cloudways is more popular than most VPS or cloud hosting platforms within the industry. While most VPS and cloud hosting services would cost above $50, it only costs as low as $10 with Cloudways.
Disadvantages using Cloudways managed cloud hosting
Cloudways is not created to fit everyone’s needs. After all, there is no product in this world that fit everyone in the market. One of the biggest disadvantages using Cloudways is the price.
Allow me to explain.
When you use Cloudways, you need to understand that Cloudways works as an intermediary between you and the cloud provider. Therefore, you are required to pay slightly more when using Cloudways.
Take a look at Digital Ocean pricing structure:
And here’s the pricing structure for Digital Ocean on Cloudways:
Do you see the differences?
I know for a fact that many people consider it as a huge cost disadvantage. Well, it depends on how you see it.
Creating a droplet on Digital Ocean is easy and price efficient. However, you are required to do all the server maintenance yourself. Compared to Cloudways, the dashboard and systems are setups for you. Instead of using command code to get the droplet in Digital Ocean running (which could take hours if you are inexperienced), you can opt to pay slightly more for a full-fledged service through Cloudways.
Now, can you consider this as a disadvantage for Cloudways? Go figure!
Summary: Cloudways managed cloud hosting review 2017
If you are looking for a good and affordable managed cloud hosting service, you should consider using Cloudways. After all, the entire operation system is set up to ease your burden, save you more time and ensuring that your website is up and running the short time possible.
On the other hand, Cloudways is less effective if you know about coding and server management as there are many Cloudways competitors such as Digital Ocean, Amazon Web Services and Linode to choose from. Of course, those are an unmanaged cloud hosting compared to Cloudways managed cloud hosting platform.
To end my Cloudways managed cloud hosting review for 2017, allow me to stress that I highly recommend Cloudways because it is highly scalable, user-friendly and a high-performance cloud hosting platform for both beginners and advanced users. With affordability in mind, there is absolutely no doubt that Cloudways is the best managed cloud hosting you can find in 2017.
Click here to try Cloudways for free and judge Cloudways by yourself!
