Cloudways for WordPress Agencies: Honest Review

Cloudways occupies an unusual position in the WordPress hosting market: managed-hosting convenience layered on top of raw VPS infrastructure from DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, or Google Cloud. You pick the underlying cloud provider, you pick the server size, Cloudways handles the WordPress optimization and the support layer. The result is per-site pricing much closer to shared hosting than to Kinsta, with most of the operational benefits of managed WordPress. The honest take: this hybrid model is excellent for the right agency profile and quietly wrong for a different agency profile. Here is which is which.

Jump to:

• What Cloudways actually is
• The pricing model and what it means at scale
• What Cloudways is good at
• Where the model has friction
• The DigitalOcean acquisition implications
• Vultr High Frequency vs DigitalOcean for WordPress
• What client sites belong on Cloudways
• What client sites do not belong on Cloudways

What Cloudways actually is

Cloudways provisions a Linux server (your choice of cloud provider and region), installs their Nginx + Apache + PHP-FPM + MySQL/MariaDB + Redis stack on it, configures it for WordPress, and gives you a dashboard to manage WordPress applications on that server. You can host multiple WordPress sites on one server (multi-tenant); you can also host other applications (Laravel, Magento, plain PHP) on the same server if you want.

The model is "managed VPS" rather than "managed WordPress." Cloudways manages the server stack and the WordPress optimization; you manage the WordPress sites themselves. The agency-side mental model: rent a VPS, get the WordPress stack pre-built, never touch the OS.

The pricing model and what it means at scale

Cloudways pricing is server-based, not per-site:

• DigitalOcean 2GB/1CPU starts around $11/month (the 1GB tier was retired; 2GB is now the entry-level DO size).
• Vultr High Frequency entry tier sits in a similar price band; check current pricing on the Cloudways page since Vultr SKUs shift periodically.
• Larger servers scale up linearly.

On a single server, you can host multiple WordPress sites. The per-site cost effectively divides the server cost across the number of sites.

For agencies, the math:

This is dramatically cheaper than Kinsta or WP Engine per site once you have multiple sites on a server. The savings scale.

The flip side: you do the multi-tenancy yourself. Cloudways gives you the tools (separate WordPress installs in the dashboard) but you decide how to size the server and when to upgrade.

What Cloudways is good at

Cost efficiency at agency scale. For agencies with 10+ client sites, Cloudways is meaningfully cheaper per site than Kinsta or WP Engine. The savings compound across the portfolio.

Choice of underlying cloud provider. DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, GCP. Pick by price, region availability, or compliance requirements. The flexibility is real.

Vertical scaling is straightforward. Need more resources? Resize the server in the dashboard. Brief downtime; no migration headache.

Built-in tools that you would otherwise install. Object cache (Redis), CDN integration, automated backups, free SSL (Let's Encrypt), staging environments. Comparable to managed WordPress; not as polished as Kinsta but functional.

WP-CLI access on every plan. SSH access on every plan. The Cloudways agency workflow composes with everything in Using AI with WP-CLI for Faster WordPress Operations.

Application clone for staging. One-click clone of any WordPress install on the server to a staging variant. Push changes back to production through the dashboard.

Per-application separation. Each WordPress site has its own user account on the server. Reasonable isolation between client sites without going full container.

Where the model has friction

You decide when to upgrade the server. Managed WordPress hosts auto-scale resources (or just charge you more for the higher tier). With Cloudways, when traffic spikes on one site exceed the server's capacity, every site on that server slows down. You have to monitor and upgrade.

Multi-tenancy means noisy-neighbor across your own clients. A client site with a runaway plugin can affect every other site on the same server. Not the host's fault; the multi-tenancy model.

Support is good but more generic than Kinsta or WP Engine. Cloudways support knows WordPress and the Cloudways stack well. They do not have the same per-host engineering specialization Kinsta or WP Engine support has. For unusual WordPress issues, the resolution time can be longer.

The dashboard is functional but feels older. Kinsta and WP Engine have invested heavily in dashboard UX. Cloudways is more utilitarian. Not bad; just not as polished.

No included CDN by default. Cloudflare integration is one-click but Cloudflare Enterprise (which Kinsta and WP Engine include) is an extra paid layer.

The DigitalOcean acquisition implications

Cloudways was acquired by DigitalOcean in 2022. For agencies, the implications:

• DigitalOcean as a host provider option has become more prominent. New features and pricing often favor the DO tier.
• The company is now part of a larger cloud infrastructure operation. Less independent; more stable financially.
• Pricing and feature roadmap have remained consistent post-acquisition. No major changes that hurt agency users.
• Integration with other DigitalOcean services is improving (managed databases, spaces for object storage).

For day-to-day agency use, the acquisition has been mostly invisible. The product still works the same way. The long-term direction (more DO-integrated features) makes sense for the platform.

Vultr High Frequency vs DigitalOcean for WordPress

When picking the underlying provider on Cloudways, the most common choice for WordPress workloads:

• Vultr High Frequency: NVMe storage, 3+ GHz CPUs, generally faster per dollar for WordPress workloads (which are write-heavy on database and benefit from fast disk). Slight premium over standard DO.
• DigitalOcean Premium Intel: comparable to Vultr HF in performance.
• DigitalOcean basic droplets: cheaper but slower. Fine for tiny brochure sites; underwhelming for anything else.

The agency default I have settled on: Vultr High Frequency for any WordPress workload that matters. The price difference vs basic DO is small; the performance difference is real.

What client sites belong on Cloudways

• Agency with 10+ client sites that wants cost-efficient hosting. The multi-tenant VPS economy is the whole point.
• Sites with moderate traffic and standard WordPress workloads. Cloudways handles them well.
• Sites where the agency wants more control than Kinsta/WP Engine provides but does not want full self-hosting.
• WooCommerce mid-tier stores. Vultr HF on Cloudways handles 100-500 orders/day workloads well.
• Internal agency sites and experimental projects. Cheap, flexible, fast.
• Sites where the client is cost-conscious but the agency wants real performance, not shared hosting.

What client sites do not belong on Cloudways

• Single brochure sites with no other sites on the same server. The per-site math is worse than managed WordPress at that scale.
• Sites where the client expects "WP Engine-tier" support quality. Cloudways is good; not as specialized.
• Compliance-heavy workloads (HIPAA, PCI Level 1). WP Engine has compliance offerings; Cloudways generally does not.
• Very high traffic sites where one noisy neighbor can affect everything. Single-tenant managed plans are safer.
• Sites where the client team needs a very polished dashboard. Send them to Kinsta if dashboard UX matters at the client level.

For the broader hosting framework, see A WordPress Hosting Decision Tree for Agencies and Managed WordPress Hosting vs VPS for Agencies. For the alternatives, see Kinsta for WordPress Agencies, WP Engine for WordPress Agencies, and Rocket.net Honest Review. For the agency stack reasoning, see The Exact Stack I would Use to Run a Small WordPress Agency Today.

Final summary: Cloudways is the agency-budget pick for multi-tenant managed hosting. Pair with Vultr High Frequency for performance, accept the slightly less polished support and dashboard relative to Kinsta and WP Engine, host 10+ client sites to amortize the per-server cost, and the math works very well. For agencies hosting fewer than 5 sites or prioritizing premium support, Kinsta or WP Engine is the better pick.