Cloudways vs. WordPress.com

Last verified 35 days ago · 34 sources · Updated automatically

Cloudways and WordPress.com 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

WordPress.com

Automattic's hosted WordPress service, from a free tier up to managed, plugin-enabled business plans.

HQ San Francisco, CA

Visit WordPress.com Full profile

Attribute

Cloudways

WordPress.com

Company facts

Headquarters

St. Julian's, Malta

San Francisco, CA Automattic (WordPress.com's parent); a fully distributed company.

Employees

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

1.5k Automattic (parent company) headcount, ~1,450 across 80+ countries.

Pricing

Starting Monthly Price (USD)

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

$9 Personal plan, the cheapest paid tier; bandwidth is unmetered on all plans.

Entry Plan WordPress Sites

—

1 sites Personal plan hosts a single WordPress site.

Entry Plan Storage (GB)

50 GB

6 GB Personal plan includes 6 GB of storage.

Free Trial Length (Days)

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

0 days No free trial; WordPress.com offers a money-back guarantee instead.

Money-Back Guarantee (Days)

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

14 days 14-day refund window on annual plans (7 days on monthly).

Performance & infrastructure

Underlying Cloud

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

own datacenters Automattic-operated infrastructure, 28+ data centers across 6 continents.

Datacenter Locations

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

4 4 site-placement regions: US West, US Central, US East, EU West.

Free CDN

Global edge cache / CDN included on all plans at no extra cost.

Web Server

NGINX

NGINX NGINX-based stack.

Built-in Object Cache

Redis persistent object cache available at no extra cost

Persistent object cache (Memcached) enabled by default on all plans.

Latest PHP Version

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

8.4 PHP 8.4 selectable (8.2, 8.3, 8.4 supported).

Free SSL Certificate

Free 1-click Let's Encrypt SSL

Free SSL certificate auto-provisioned on all plans.

WordPress management

Automatic WordPress Updates

WordPress core and security updates are managed by the platform automatically.

Staging Environments

Free 1-click staging and cloning

Staging sites require the Business plan; not available on the entry (Personal) plan.

Automatic Daily Backups

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

Automated real-time backups/restore (VaultPress) require the Business plan; not on the entry (Personal) plan.

Backup Retention (Days)

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

—

Free Site Migration

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

Free 'Do it for me' expert migration plus free content import; full plugin/theme site migration needs the Business plan.

SSH & WP-CLI Access

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

SSH and WP-CLI require the Business plan; not on the entry (Personal) plan.

WordPress Multisite Support

Cloudways Flexible only (not Autonomous)

WordPress Multisite networks are not supported; each site needs its own plan.

Support & security

Uptime SLA (%)

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

99.999% 99.999% uptime SLA.

24/7 Support

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

24/7 priority support requires the Business plan; Personal gets email + weekday/extended live chat, not full 24/7.

Malware Removal / Hack Fix

Daily malware scanning with automatic fixes, built into every site.

WAF / DDoS Protection

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

Web Application Firewall and DDoS protection built into every site at no extra cost.

Platform & integrations

Control Panel

custom Cloudways Platform (custom dashboard; no cPanel)

custom Custom WordPress.com dashboard (Calypso); no cPanel.

White-Label / Agency Features

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

Automattic for Agencies: unified multi-site dashboard, consolidated billing, client referrals, bulk discounts.

Email Hosting Included

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

No mailbox hosting on the entry plan; Professional Email / Google Workspace is a paid add-on (free for 1 year only on Business/Commerce).

The verdict

Cloudways

Best for developers and agencies on the entry plan

From $11/mo Cloudways gives SSH + WP-CLI, free staging, daily backups, and WordPress Multisite at the entry tier, where WordPress.com locks all four behind its Business plan. It also hosts unlimited sites with 50 GB storage (vs one site, 6 GB), picks among five clouds across 150+ data centers, and adds 24/7 support and white-label agency tools.

Full profile

WordPress.com

Best for hands-off, fully managed single sites

At $9/mo WordPress.com manages WordPress updates automatically and scans every site for malware with auto-fixes, both of which Cloudways leaves to you. It also bundles a free CDN, carries a 99.999% uptime SLA (vs 99.99%), and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee where Cloudways gives only a 3-day trial. The trade-off is a single 6 GB site and no SSH/WP-CLI at this tier.

Full profile

Sources · 34 verified references

cbinsights.com automattic.com linkedin.com cloudways.com wordpress.com support.cloudways.com + 1 more

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