Cloudways vs. Flywheel

Last verified 35 days ago · 35 sources · Updated automatically

Cloudways and Flywheel compared across Company facts, Pricing, Performance & infrastructure, WordPress management, Support & security and Platform & integrations — every fact sourced and re-verified from each vendor's public material.

Cloudways

Managed cloud hosting that runs WordPress on your choice of DigitalOcean, AWS, or Google Cloud. Owned by DigitalOcean.

HQ St. Julian's, Malta

Visit Cloudways Full profile

Flywheel

Managed WordPress hosting built for designers and creative agencies; now part of WP Engine.

HQ Austin, TX

Visit Flywheel Full profile

Attribute

Cloudways

Flywheel

Company facts

Headquarters

St. Julian's, Malta

Austin, TX Flywheel is a WP Engine product; WP Engine is headquartered in Austin, TX

Employees

264 Cloudways team (brand); owned by DigitalOcean since 2022

1.1k Headcount of parent company WP Engine (~1,100 globally)

Pricing

Starting Monthly Price (USD)

$11 DigitalOcean 1GB/2GB entry plan; unlimited websites and unmetered visits

$25 Starter plan billed monthly; $300/yr (2 months free) if annual

Entry Plan WordPress Sites

—

1 sites 1 WordPress site on the Starter plan

Entry Plan Monthly Visits

—

25k 25,000 monthly visits on the Starter plan

Entry Plan Storage (GB)

50 GB

10 GB 10 GB disk on the Starter plan

Free Trial Length (Days)

3 days 3-day free trial, no credit card required

0 days No free trial; free demo sites and a 60-day money-back guarantee instead

Money-Back Guarantee (Days)

0 days No money-back guarantee (pay-as-you-go); 3-day free trial instead

60 days 60-day money-back guarantee (excludes Agency and Custom plans)

Performance & infrastructure

Underlying Cloud

DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud, Linode, Vultr Customer chooses the cloud provider per server; DigitalOcean is the cheapest entry option

Google Cloud Runs on the Google Cloud Platform

Datacenter Locations

150 150+ data centers in 50+ countries across all five cloud providers

5 5 data center regions worldwide

Free CDN

Free global CDN powered by Fastly on all plans

Web Server

NGINX

NGINX NGINX serving static files and reverse-proxying PHP-FPM

Built-in Object Cache

Redis persistent object cache available at no extra cost

Page caching only (FlyCache); no persistent object cache

Latest PHP Version

8.4 Up to PHP 8.4 (Debian 11/12 servers); 8.2 default

8.2 PHP 8.2 (default for new sites); 7.4 also selectable

Free SSL Certificate

Free 1-click Let's Encrypt SSL

Free Let's Encrypt SSL (Simple SSL) with any plan

WordPress management

Automatic WordPress Updates

Automatic major and minor WordPress core updates

Staging Environments

Free 1-click staging and cloning

One-click staging sites included on all plans

Automatic Daily Backups

Automated daily by default (adjustable to hourly); off-site storage metered

Automatic nightly backups with one-click restore

Backup Retention (Days)

7 days Default 7-day retention; configurable from 1 to 4 weeks

30 days 30 days of nightly backups retained

Free Site Migration

Free WordPress Migrator plugin (unlimited) plus one free expert-handled migration per account

Free site migrations included

SSH & WP-CLI Access

SSH + pre-installed WP-CLI on all servers; SFTP and Git too

SSH gateway with WP-CLI on all Cloud Platform sites

WordPress Multisite Support

Cloudways Flexible only (not Autonomous)

Multisite requires Freelance, Agency, or Custom plan; not on the entry Starter plan

Support & security

Uptime SLA (%)

99.99% 99.99% uptime SLA (covers the Cloudways platform/console, not partner cloud providers)

99.9% 99.9% uptime

24/7 Support

24/7/365 live chat and ticket support on all plans

24/7/365 chat support on all plans

Malware Removal / Hack Fix

Free malware cleanup / hack fix if your site is infected on-platform

WAF / DDoS Protection

Built-in WAF included free on all Flexible servers (OWASP rules, IP/country blocking, bot + DoS protection)

Fastly-based WAF and DDoS protection at the edge, included on all plans

Platform & integrations

Control Panel

custom Cloudways Platform (custom dashboard; no cPanel)

custom Custom Flywheel dashboard (replaces cPanel)

White-Label / Agency Features

Team roles, project organization, client access control, and automated white-label invoices

Billing transfer to clients, collaborators, and multi-site management for agencies

Email Hosting Included

No bundled email; optional Rackspace email add-on at $1/mailbox/mo

No email hosting; Flywheel recommends a dedicated provider like Google Workspace

The verdict

Cloudways

Best for cost, cloud choice, and developer control

Starts at $11/mo with 50 GB storage versus Flywheel's $25 and 10 GB, and lets you pick among five clouds across 150+ data centers (Flywheel runs only on Google Cloud, 5 regions). Adds a Redis object cache, PHP 8.4, multisite, a 99.99% SLA, and a 3-day free trial Flywheel lacks.

Full profile

Flywheel

Best for hands-off managed hosting and risk-free trial

Handles automatic WordPress core updates and free malware cleanup that Cloudways leaves to you, and bundles a free Fastly CDN. Backups are kept 30 days versus Cloudways' 7, and a 60-day money-back guarantee replaces Cloudways' pay-as-you-go. Backed by WP Engine (~1,100 staff vs 264).

Full profile

Sources · 35 verified references

cbinsights.com wpengine.com linkedin.com cloudways.com getflywheel.com support.cloudways.com

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