Cloudways vs. Kinsta

Last verified 35 days ago · 42 sources · Updated automatically

Cloudways and Kinsta 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

Kinsta

Premium managed WordPress hosting on Google Cloud's Premium Tier, focused on speed and developer tooling.

HQ West Hollywood, CA

Visit Kinsta Full profile

Attribute

Cloudways

Kinsta

Company facts

Headquarters

St. Julian's, Malta

West Hollywood, CA Remote-first company; West Hollywood, CA is the registered US address

Employees

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

225 ~220-230 employees (distributed across 6 continents)

Pricing

Starting Monthly Price (USD)

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

$35 Single 20GB plan; $30/mo when billed annually ($350/yr)

Entry Plan WordPress Sites

—

1 sites 1 WordPress install on the Single 20GB entry plan

Entry Plan Storage (GB)

50 GB

10 GB 10 GB disk; entry plan meters bandwidth (20 GB server bandwidth), not visits

Free Trial Length (Days)

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

0 days No standard free trial; new accounts get a first-month-free promo and a 30-day money-back guarantee

Money-Back Guarantee (Days)

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

30 days 30-day money-back guarantee (first-time customers; excludes one-time fees, overages, dedicated-server fees)

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 Google Cloud Platform, Premium Tier network

Datacenter Locations

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

27 27 Google Cloud data center locations available for site placement

Free CDN

Cloudflare-powered CDN + edge caching, free on all plans (125 GB CDN bandwidth on entry plan)

Web Server

NGINX

NGINX NGINX-based stack

Built-in Object Cache

Redis persistent object cache available at no extra cost

Redis object cache is a paid add-on ($100/mo per site)

Latest PHP Version

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

8.5 PHP 8.5 generally available (selectable in MyKinsta); 7.4 through 8.5 supported

Free SSL Certificate

Free 1-click Let's Encrypt SSL

Free Cloudflare/Let's Encrypt SSL, auto-provisioned and renewed; wildcard supported

WordPress management

Automatic WordPress Updates

Kinsta does not auto-update WordPress core; automatic plugin/theme updates are a paid add-on ($3/site/mo)

Staging Environments

Free 1-click staging and cloning

One free standard staging environment on all plans, with push-to-live (selective file/DB push); premium staging is a paid add-on

Automatic Daily Backups

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

Automatic daily backups with one-click restore; 6-hour/hourly backups are paid add-ons

Backup Retention (Days)

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

14 days 14 days of daily backups on the entry plan; higher tiers retain 30 days

Free Site Migration

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

Unlimited free expert-handled migrations on all plans

SSH & WP-CLI Access

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

SSH access on all plans; WP-CLI v2 pre-installed on every server. Git supported.

WordPress Multisite Support

Cloudways Flexible only (not Autonomous)

Officially supported, but not on the entry plan: requires Single 40GB / Single 65k or higher

Support & security

Uptime SLA (%)

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

99.9% 99.9% SLA-backed uptime guarantee (up to 99.99% on custom plans)

24/7 Support

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

24/7/365 human expert support via live chat on all plans

Malware Removal / Hack Fix

Free hack-fix / malware removal under the Security Pledge (excludes nulled plugins/themes)

WAF / DDoS Protection

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

Cloudflare-based managed WAF + L3/4/7 DDoS protection, free on all plans

Platform & integrations

Control Panel

custom Cloudways Platform (custom dashboard; no cPanel)

custom MyKinsta custom dashboard (no cPanel)

White-Label / Agency Features

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

White-label WP admin, agency partner program, MyKinsta multi-client/team management

Email Hosting Included

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

No email hosting; Kinsta recommends Google Workspace / Microsoft 365 and helps add MX records

The verdict

Cloudways

Best for low cost, scale, and multiple sites

Entry plans start at $11/mo with unlimited websites, unmetered visits, and 50 GB storage versus Kinsta's $35 single-site, 10 GB plan. You pick from five clouds across 150+ datacenters, get free Redis object cache (a $100/mo add-on at Kinsta), entry-plan multisite, and a 99.99% SLA. A 3-day free trial lets you test first.

Full profile

Kinsta

Best for managed CDN, security, and risk-free buy

Kinsta bundles a free Cloudflare CDN and free malware removal under its Security Pledge, both absent at Cloudways. Backups retain 14 days versus 7, expert migrations are unlimited (Cloudways offers one), and PHP 8.5 is available. No free trial, but a 30-day money-back guarantee covers first-time buyers where Cloudways offers none.

Full profile

Sources · 42 verified references

cbinsights.com pitchbook.com linkedin.com cloudways.com kinsta.com support.cloudways.com

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