Looking for the best Cloudways alternative for hosting your WordPress site?
Cloudways’ popularity has increased as a result of their unique cloud hosting technique. Unlike traditional WordPress hosting, Cloudways allows you to select from five different cloud hosting providers for your hosting infrastructure, after which they configure everything for you and allow you to administer your WordPress blogs through a simple dashboard.
While there is plenty to enjoy about this method, Cloudways are not for everyone. They may be too difficult for some individuals, while others may find them excessively pricey for what they provide.
In this post, I’ve compiled a list of five options, each of which has a distinct benefit over Cloudways. However, these benefits vary – some are easier, while others are slightly more difficult but cheaper and faster.
So, before I get to the alternatives, I’d want to explore some of Cloudways’ drawbacks, since this conversation will allow me to point you to the best choices for your individual circumstance.
Why Look For Cloudwaya Alternatives?
There are a few reasons why you could be looking for an alternative to Cloudways, and it’s crucial to go through these reasons since the path you choose will be determined by the issue you’re dealing with.
1. Simplicity
One of the most significant issues for casual users with Cloudways is their relative complexity in comparison to ‘conventional’ WordPress servers.
Cloudways is obviously more complicated than many other WordPress providers because they only supply a control panel to handle your own cloud hosting. Cloudways does an admirable job of attempting to simplify cloud hosting. However, if you’re a beginner, you can feel overwhelmed by having to configure everything.
If you are puzzled and overwhelmed by attempting to figure out Cloudways, you may undoubtedly discover options that make hosting a WordPress site much easier.
If this is the case, you should consider the options in the first section.
2. Better Support
Another difficulty with Cloudways, related to simplicity, is support. It’s not so much that Cloudways’ support is awful as it is that Cloudways’ support is intrinsically more limited than that of a regular WordPress server.
Cloudways’ support scope is limited to your hosting server and does not include WordPress assistance (though they do have a knowledge base with articles). If you need WordPress assistance, you’ll need to upgrade to the Advanced SLA, which starts at $100 per month.
This is a significant contrast from a managed WordPress server, where the support team are all WordPress professionals that can step in and assist you with WordPress difficulties.
If this is your problem, you should also consider the options in the first section.
3. Lower Prices
Cloudways are actually incredibly inexpensive if you only need a single low-resource server. For example, if you use the most basic DigitalOcean plan, you’re unlikely to find anything cheaper than Cloudways for the same resources. However, if you want several servers and/or high-resource servers, Cloudways might be prohibitively costly.
The reason for this is because Cloudways charges almost twice what a ‘bare’ VPS would cost if purchased directly from the supplier. This is extremely low-cost for a low-resource server. You’d only be paying $5 for the Cloudways service (plus $5 to DigitalOcean — a total of $10) for that DigitalOcean box.
But suppose you want an 8 GB DigitalOcean droplet, which costs $40 from DigitalOcean. You’d spend $80 overall at Cloudways, which means you’d be paying $40 per month for the same Cloudways service you were paying $5 for before when utilising the lowest DigitalOcean droplet.
This is my main complaint about Cloudways – it just doesn’t make sense to me to handle billing with a percentage calculation. You can discover considerably less expensive options that charge a fixed amount regardless of the server you choose. These flat-rate options typically cost $10 to $30 per month regardless of how many servers you have, making them a considerably less expensive choice for managing several servers and/or high-resource servers.
If this is the case, you should consider the options in the second section.
4. Better Technology
Another widespread issue from expert users about Cloudways is that their tech stack isn’t as quick as it might be. Don’t get me wrong: Cloudways can really speed up your site, however they employ a hybrid Apache/Nginx stack that some people dislike.
Some customers would like a pure Nginx stack or the option of using a LiteSpeed server, since both are more performant than Cloudways’ hybrid stack.
Again, if you’re a casual user, this isn’t an issue – but if you’re a WordPress speed fanatic, this is one of the most common complaints I get.
If this is the case, you should also consider the options in the second section, which both allow you to utilise a pure Nginx stack.
1) Kinsta
Kinsta is a managed WordPress provider that uses Google Cloud infrastructure for all of its hosting services. They are more easier to use than Cloudways and provide more complete assistance because they provide managed WordPress hosting.
Instead of worrying about your hosting infrastructure, you can concentrate entirely on building your site. You’ll also get access to help 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Aside from that, you receive a slew of handy features:
- WordPress updates automatically.
- Daily backups are performed automatically.
- Sites for staging
- Free one-click SSL certificates
- Firewalls and virus scanning are examples of
- proactive security measures. If something goes wrong with your site, there is also a free hack fix guarantee.
- Monitoring of uptime.
Kinsta also provides amazing performance that rivals/exceeds that of Cloudways. They employ a pure Nginx stack with server-level caching, a built-in content delivery network (CDN), and other modifications.
Kinsta’s most basic plan is $30 per month and includes the following resources:
- One WordPress site.
- 25,000 visitors each month
- 10 GB storage.
2) SiteGround
SiteGround is a well-known shared WordPress server that provides exceptional performance for a shared host. However, you will pay a little bit more for that fantastic performance than you would for other popular shared WordPress sites.
SiteGround uses Google Cloud infrastructure for all of their plans as of 2020, and they also provide their own unique Site Tools panel, which makes it simple to administer your site (s).
Overall, I’d say SiteGround doesn’t perform as well as Cloudways. They will, however, provide you near to Cloudways’ performance in a much simpler packaging. They also provide useful performance features like server-level caching and a companion SG Optimizer plugin that assists you in implementing nearly all WordPress speed best practises.
Other non-performance aspects that are useful include:
- automatic daily backups
- free one-click SSL certificates
- free email hosting (which Cloudways don’t offer).
With promotional pricing, SiteGround’s lowest StartUp plan starts at $6.99 per month. However, I’d recommend that most individuals choose for at least the $9.99-per-month (promo) GrowBig plan, which includes the following benefits:
- Support for unlimited websites.
- Server-level page caching.
- Staging sites.
- Backups on demand.
Take great note to SiteGround’s promotional vs. renewal costs. The low price you see is only for the first year; after that, you’ll have to pay a higher amount
Two Best Cloudways Alternatives That Use the Same Approach (Cheaper/Faster)
In this part, I’ll discuss two providers/tools that employ the same fundamental strategy as Cloudways, but at a lower cost and/or with a quicker tech stack.
That is, you may still choose your own cloud hosting from providers like DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Google Cloud, and others. They then make it simple to setup and maintain WordPress sites.
Both of these solutions, however, offer three unique benefits over Cloudways:
- They can be significantly less expensive than Cloudways if you want several servers and/or high-resource servers. However, for a single low-resource server, neither is less expensive than Cloudways.
- They provide a pure Nginx stack, which will run somewhat better than Cloudways’ Nginx/Apache hybrid.
- Advanced users will enjoy the fact that you still have root access to your server.
There is one significant distinction between these tools and Cloudways. Cloudways ‘bundles’ everything, so you only need to sign up and never contact with the real cloud infrastructure provider. These services do not combine services. You will instead have two accounts:
- One account with a cloud hosting provider (e.g. DigitalOcean or Vultr). You will directly pay the cloud hosting provider for the resources you want to utilise.
- One Cloudways alternative service account — this is what allows you to control the server and your WordPress blogs.
Apart from that, the methodology of these tools is nearly comparable to that of Cloudways. They’re a little more technical, but if you’re comfortable with Cloudways, you should be able to manage these tools as well.
Runcloud
RunCloud is a popular server management panel that allows you to run any PHP application on any cloud hosting provider. It does, however, include several WordPress-specific capabilities, including the following:
- WordPress installation with one click.
- WordPress staging areas
- Server-level caching and a WordPress plugin to go with it. You have the option of using Nginx Fast CGI caching or Redis caching.
- Backups.
- WordPress 6G/7G firewall or ModSecurity web application firewall.
- Free one-click SSL certificates and automatic renewals are available.
RunCloud is compatible with virtually any Linux-based cloud VPS. It does, however, have specific API connections with DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, UpCloud, and Amazon Lightsail. These connections make it extremely simple to launch a new server for your WordPress blogs.
When installing WordPress, you may also pick between a pure Nginx stack and a hybrid Nginx/Apache stack, such as the one provided by Cloudways. The development team is also working on making LiteSpeed server available as an additional option, which should be available shortly.
After carefully analysing all of the Cloudways alternatives, I decided on RunCloud. As a non-developer, I find it just as straightforward as Cloudways, plus it’s far less expensive due to a better streamlined tech stack. I’ve had a good experience with RunCloud and the Vultr High-Frequency servers.
RunCloud costs $8 per month for a single server (resources included) or $15 per month for unlimited servers. Both options allow you an unlimited number of WordPress sites. Remember that, unlike Cloudways, you must pay your cloud infrastructure provider directly.
Overall, RunCloud is more expensive than Cloudways for a single low-resource server, but less expensive in almost every other case.
Gridpane
GridPane is another another well-known server control interface. GridPane, on the other hand, is entirely focused on WordPress sites, as opposed to RunCloud.
GridPane, like RunCloud, allows you to utilise any cloud hosting provider, although it includes specialised connectors for prominent providers such as DigitalOcean, Vultr, Amazon Lightsail, and others.
GridPane is built on a pure Nginx stack that is optimised for WordPress and provides a variety of server-level caching options, including Nginx Fast CGI and Redis.
You’ll also get a slew of useful WordPress features, such as:
- One-click WordPress installer.
- Staging sites.
- Backups.
- Free one-click SSL certificates and automatic renewals.
- Companion cache plugin to manage the cache from inside your WordPress site.
- Firewalls — 6G or ModSec 3+ depending on your plan.
- Easy SMTP configuration.
The one disadvantage of GridPane is that its price is clearly oriented at individuals who have a lot of sites. Plans begin at $30 per month and allow you to manage an unlimited number of servers/sites. However, if you only have a few sites/servers, RunCloud will definitely provide greater value.
Remember that you must also pay the cloud provider directly for the server(s) you use.
Which Is the Best Cloudways Alternative for You?
Now comes the crucial question: which choice is best for you?
Again, I believe it is largely dependent on why you are searching for an alternative.
If you prefer Cloudways’ cloud hosting concept but not their costs or technology stack, I recommend RunCloud. RunCloud is quite similar to Cloudways, except it is significantly less expensive if you want several and/or high-resource servers. You may also select an all-Nginx stack using RunCloud (with LiteSpeed server on the way).
RunCloud is maybe a little more technical than Cloudways. However, if you can figure out Cloudways, you should be able to work out RunCloud as well. Even though I’m not a developer, I’ve been able to host my WordPress sites on RunCloud with no problems.
GridPane is another wonderful alternative if you’re an agency/freelancer with client sites, or if you just have a lot of sites in general. It’s a fantastic product — it’s just a little more expensive than RunCloud, which is why I picked RunCloud as my preferred alternative.
On the other side, if your concern is that you want something simpler than Cloudways, you should avoid the solutions listed above. Again, although I don’t believe they’re any more difficult than Cloudways, they’re also not any easier.
I’d propose the following as a simpler alternative:
- If you’re on a tight budget, consider SiteGround.
- If you want the best/easiest hosting, choose Kinsta or Flywheel.
