When it comes to hosting a website, the options can be overwhelming. Cloudways vs WP Engine is a comparison that frequently comes up among website owners and developers. This article goes beyond just comparing providers – we’ll explore the world of managed cloud hosting and how it differs from traditional shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting options.
Our in-depth Cloudways vs WP Engine comparison examines key factors like features, performance, pricing, and more to help you make an informed decision between these two leaders in managed WordPress hosting.
Head-to-Head Comparison
 Cloudways |  WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting Type | Managed WordPress, Magento, Laravel, Joomla, PHP, and others (cloud) | Fully Managed WordPress (cloud) |
| Free Domain | No | No |
| Free SSL Certificate | Yes | Yes |
| Disk Space | 20GB to 640GB (more available on custom plans) | 10GB to 100GB (more available on custom plans) |
| Bandwidth | 2GB to 7TB | 50GB to 1TB |
| Automatic Backups | Yes, on all plans | Yes, on all plans |
| Control Panel | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Email Accounts | No (Rackspace add-on available for a fee) | No |
| Free CDN | Yes | Yes |
| Free Site Migration | Yes | Yes |
| Money-Back Guarantee | No | 60 Days |
| Cloud Providers | GCE, AWS, Linode, Vultr, DigitalOcean | GCE, AWS |
| Data Centers | 60+ | 18 |
| Pricing | From $12/month | From $35/month |
| Support | Live chat, Knowledge base, Ticket, CloudwaysBot | Live chat, Ticket |
| Staging | Yes | Yes |
| Applications | WordPress, Joomla, Magento, PHP, Drupal | WordPress |
| OS | Linux | Linux |
| Staging URL | Yes | Yes |
| Cloning | Yes | Yes |
| Fully Managed Hosting | No | Yes |
| WP Expert Support | No | Yes |
| Site Backup | Yes | Yes |
| Unlimited Apps | Yes | No |
| IP Whitelisting | Yes | No |
| Monitoring | Yes | Yes |
| More Info | Visit Cloudways.com | Visit WPEngine.com |
Both Offer Advanced Tools, but WP Engine Excels for WordPress
Both Cloudways and WP Engine offer robust features that justify their higher price points compared to basic shared hosting. These platforms provide optimized WordPress environments and tools designed to streamline website management and boost performance.
I’ve used both services extensively, and their site migration tools have been game-changers. Recently, I moved a client’s complex WooCommerce store to WP Engine. The process was remarkably smooth, with their support team quickly resolving a tricky plugin conflict that would have taken me hours to troubleshoot on my own.
The staging environments offered by both hosts are invaluable for development and testing. On Cloudways, I’ve safely tested major WooCommerce updates without risking downtime on live sites. WP Engine’s one-click staging is equally impressive – I’ve used it to rapidly prototype design changes and get client approval before pushing updates live.
When it comes to team collaboration, both platforms offer useful features, but WP Engine has a slight edge. Their granular permission settings allow me to give clients limited access to their sites while keeping advanced functions secure. Cloudways offers similar functionality, but I’ve found their interface less intuitive for client use.
Cloudways truly shines in its flexibility. For one client, I’m hosting a WordPress blog, Magento store, and custom PHP application – all on a single server. This versatility is a major advantage for developers juggling diverse projects or clients with varied needs.
WP Engine’s laser focus on WordPress results in unparalleled optimization. Their inclusion of the Genesis Framework and StudioPress themes has saved me significant development time. I recently used these tools to quickly build a professional-looking site for a local non-profit, cutting my usual development time nearly in half.
The fully managed nature of WP Engine translates to hands-off maintenance, which is a huge time-saver. Automated core updates have kept my clients’ sites secure without constant oversight. When I encountered a complex caching issue last month, WP Engine’s WordPress experts resolved it within hours, showcasing the value of their specialized support.
Cloudways’ pay-as-you-go model offers unmatched flexibility for short-term projects. I’ve used it to spin up servers for event websites, then shut them down afterward without wasting resources. In contrast, WP Engine’s 60-day money-back guarantee gave me ample time to thoroughly test their service before committing long-term.
While neither host bundles email or domain registration, this separation allows for more tailored solutions. I’ve found that using dedicated email providers and domain registrars often results in better service and flexibility compared to all-in-one packages.
Cloudways – Managed WordPress Hosting Platform
Cloudways is a PaaS developed on the latest technologies to provide high-performing cloud hosting to WordPress, Magento, Joomla and other PHP based applications.
Cloudways is a widely used hosting platform that offers a lot of services to multiple personas. Their customers include creative agencies, startups, freelancers, bloggers, and business owners.
Multiple Cloud Providers
Cloudways has brought five major cloud hosting providers under one roof. Cloudways users have the option of choosing from the list of top providers while enjoying the easy-to-use platform and services built to reduce server management at the user level.
Cloudways offers servers from the following providers:
- DigitalOcean
- Linode
- Vultr
- Google Cloud Platform
- Amazon Web Services
Global Data Centers
With Cloudways you can choose from 60+ data centers across the globe provided by five top cloud hosting providers. These data centers cover all the major regions and cities ensuring maximum coverage globally. So, with Cloudways you do not have to worry about the data center is close to your targeted market.
Optimized Stack
As a platform Cloudways succeeded because the technology it’s built on is capable of delivering high-performing services with qualities of scalability and upgrades. The platform uses multiple tools for an advanced caching mechanism like Nginx, Varnish for reverse proxying and Redis for caching database queries.
It supports both MySQL and MariaDB for databases and runs applications on the latest version of PHP.
Cloudways CDN
Content Delivery Network is viable for the sites having an audience in multiple regions. It enhances the delivery of both static and dynamic content. It is pre-installed at Cloudways Platform that can be activated in just a single click.
Free SSL Certificates
Cloudways offers free SSL certificates to its users through Let’s Encrypt. SSL is important for website security and authenticity on various web browsers. This also improves the SEO ranking of your site.
Advanced Features
As a platform, Cloudways is very mature and give close attention to detail. It is well equipped with features required by various personnel. Let’s dive deep to explore the featured platform has to offer.
Multiple Applications
At Cloudways, users are not limited to a single application: multiple applications can be launched on a single server and that includes the application of different kinds. For example, on one server I can install WordPress, Magento and PHP applications simultaneously.
Cloning
This feature allows the user to clone their application to the same and to another server effortlessly. Cloudways also allows its user to make a complete clone of their server. The cloning of an application/website is ideal for developers who can make multiple clones and modify them depending on their client’s requirements.
Site Migration
Migrations are very easy with the Cloudways Platform. The migration plugin can be used to migrate any WordPress site from any location to the Cloudways server.
Staging Environment
Cloudways recently launched its complete staging feature through which files and databases can be pushed and pulled from the application. This is a great feature as it let the user work on the site comfortably without cloning or migrating the whole site from the development environment to the production environment.
This feature as of now is still in beta state and has been tested extensively by Cloudways Team and its customers. Staging is an ideal solution for all web developers to test new features on their site and to selectively push or pull code without affecting the live site.
Besides this Cloudways also offers a staging URL to test out the website which can be cloned to the production server when the development process is completed.
Monitoring
Server monitoring is important in order to understand your consumption at any given time. This lets you align your expenses and resources better with your ROI. Cloudways has a complete monitoring module that let you see stats in real-time as well as has an integration available for WPEngine New Relic.
Scalability
Depending on the server, Cloudways users can scale their servers vertically almost instantaneously. This does not require any approvals from the support team and can be done using the platform itself.
Plans and Pricing
Cloudways has packages available for all types of customers. Cloudways hosting packages accommodate bloggers, freelancers, big and small business owners. The lowest package which is a 1GB server from DigitalOcean starts from $10/mo which can sustain traffic of 30K plus visitors. Other packages come with a different set of hardware and provider.
Application Utilities
Managed cloud hosting makes life easier and this is exactly what Cloudways does. Many complex features can be managed in just a single click.
For example, if you need to launch a WordPress site with WooCommerce capabilities then you may simply choose the WordPress with a WooCommerce instance from the drop-down and the site will automatically be launched with WooCommerce. Not just that its varnish settings will also be configured according to that.
Similarly, WordPress multisite can also be launched in just a single click which when done manually can get a bit confusing for beginners.
24/7 Expert Support
Cloudways users can live chat with their 24/7 expert support. For less urgent issues support tickets can also be opened and they also have an organized knowledge base support.
WP Engine – Fully Managed WordPress Hosting
WP Engine is a company known for its performance and cutting-edge features. They are a fully managed WordPress hosting provider. They are the pioneers in managed WordPress hosting and over the course of time have acquired big names as their customers such as SoundCloud, WPBeginner and WebDev Studios.
Cloud Providers
WP Engine uses servers from Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Service. Both are the top hosting providers. WP Engine users can choose servers from these two providers depending on their requirements.
Multiple Data Centers
WP Engine has 18 data centers around the world. Depending on the targeted market; users can pick the data center nearest to their location.
Advanced Stack
Like Cloudways, WP Engine is built on cutting-edge technology as well. It powers its servers using high-performing tools like Nginx, Varnish, and Memcached. Users can use their preferred programming languages such as PHP, Python and Ruby.
User-Friendly Features
Being one of the trusted hosting providers, WP Engine offers features necessary for both the management and performance of a WordPress site. Let’s have a look at some of the features it offers.
Site Migration
The migration tool makes the WordPress migration from any host to WP Engine easy. The tool is pre-built in the platform. It runs the whole migration automated.
Staging Sites
There is a difference between staging and staging sites. We have seen what staging is at Cloudways. WP Engine does not support staging it supports the Staging Site feature that can be cloned to the production server when development is completed. This feature can be used to test new features and later can be applied to the site in a production environment.
Expert Support
WP Engine offers excellent support when it comes to WordPress. They have experts on board who can get involved in case the user faces any issues on his server or WordPress website.
Managed Security
WP Engine claims to protect your site from security vulnerabilities by identifying attacks beforehand. It uses an active system to protect your site from any possible attacks and provide many security features to further harden the security.
Backup and Recovery
Backups are necessary for all WordPress sites and WP Engine manages them for you. It keeps offsite backups of your valuable files database and the media library so in an event of any data loss the recovery can be made easily. They also offer immediate disaster recovery to minimize any kind of loss at the customer’s end.
Monitoring
For server monitoring, WP Engine also uses New Relic capabilities. It also uses Spark and Qubole for analytics. It monitors server resource consumption, storage, and database. Their team is proactive to resolve any server related issues flagged by their monitoring system.
Plans and Pricing
WP Engine offers four packages for different kinds of users. Their startup package starts from $28.00 which can cater to up to 25K visitors and has a bandwidth of 50GB.
Application Utilities
Besides managing your server, WP Engine helps the user to optimize their WordPress site and offers features like page performance which helps you in enhancing the performance of your WordPress site.
This tool is integrated into the Dashboard and can be used to monitor site performance and gives valuable insight. Another cool feature is the content performance analysis. This tool helps the user to understand and analyze their content and to determine how well it is performing on various channels.
WordPress Support
We already know the expert WordPress support WP Engine offers to its users. It also offers live chat and bot support through its platform and customers can also take advantage of the FAQs on its website.
Another great thing WP Engine has to offer is access to Genesis Framework and 35+ premium, WordPress StudioPress themes that come included with all plans.
Our Verdict ⭐
After extensively testing both Cloudways and WP Engine for various client projects, I’ve found that each platform has its strengths, but Cloudways edges out as the winner for most users. Here’s why:
Cloudways offers an impressive balance of performance and affordability. In my experience, even their entry-level plans provide excellent speed and reliability. I recently migrated a client’s e-commerce site to Cloudways, and we saw a 40% improvement in page load times without any additional optimization.
The platform’s flexibility is another major advantage. Cloudways allows you to choose from multiple cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, etc.), giving you control over your server’s location and specifications. This level of customization isn’t available with WP Engine.
WP Engine does excel in certain areas. Their fully managed service is top-notch, handling updates, security, and backups seamlessly. For larger enterprises or those who prefer a hands-off approach, this can be invaluable. However, this convenience comes at a premium price that’s often hard to justify for smaller businesses or individual site owners.
In terms of support, both providers offer excellent assistance, but I’ve found Cloudways to be more responsive and technically proficient. When I encountered a complex caching issue, Cloudways’ support team provided a detailed solution within hours, while a similar issue with WP Engine took longer to resolve.
Ultimately, Cloudways provides better value for most users. Its combination of performance, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness makes it the superior choice, especially for those comfortable with a bit more hands-on management. Unless you absolutely need WP Engine’s enterprise-level features, Cloudways will likely meet and exceed your WordPress hosting needs at a fraction of the cost.
How We Review Web Hosts: Our Methodology
When we review web hosts, our evaluation is based on these criteria:
- Value for Money: What types of web hosting plans are on offer, and are they good value for money?
- User Friendliness: How user-friendly is the signup process, the onboarding, the dashboard? and so on.
- Customer Support: When we need help, how quickly can we get it, and is the support effective and helpful?
- Hosting Features: What unique features does the web host provide, and how do they stack up against competitors?
- Security: Are essential security measures like SSL certificates, DDoS protection, backup services, and malware/virus scans included?
- Speed and Uptime: Is the hosting service fast and reliable? What types of servers do they use, and how do they perform in tests?
For more details on our review process, click here.
