Cloudways vs. WP Engine

Last verified 35 days ago · 35 sources · Updated automatically

Cloudways and WP Engine 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

WP Engine

Managed WordPress platform for businesses and agencies, with staging, CDN, and developer tooling.

HQ Austin, TX

Visit WP Engine Full profile

Attribute

Cloudways

WP Engine

Company facts

Headquarters

St. Julian's, Malta

Austin, TX Founded 2010 in Austin, Texas

Employees

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

1k 1,000+ globally distributed employees (lower bound)

Pricing

Starting Monthly Price (USD)

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

$30 Startup plan, billed annually ($30/mo)

Entry Plan WordPress Sites

—

1 sites Startup plan: 1 WordPress install

Entry Plan Monthly Visits

—

25k Startup plan: 25,000 monthly visits

Entry Plan Storage (GB)

50 GB

10 GB Startup plan: 10 GB local storage

Free Trial Length (Days)

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

0 days No free trial; 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 (annual 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, AWS Google Cloud on all plans; AWS (and Azure) on Premium

Datacenter Locations

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

28 across Google Cloud, AWS & Azure; AWS and Azure regions plus 3 GCP regions are Premium-tier only

Free CDN

Global CDN included on all plans

Web Server

NGINX

NGINX NGINX-based stack

Built-in Object Cache

Redis persistent object cache available at no extra cost

Object caching enabled by default; dedicated Redis on higher tiers

Latest PHP Version

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

8.4 PHP 8.4 (beta; requires WordPress 6.7+)

Free SSL Certificate

Free 1-click Let's Encrypt SSL

Auto-renewing SSL included on all plans

WordPress management

Automatic WordPress Updates

Managed WP, PHP & MySQL updates included

Staging Environments

Free 1-click staging and cloning

1-click staging & dev environments on all plans

Automatic Daily Backups

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

Daily & on-demand automatic backups

Backup Retention (Days)

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

40 days Revert to any backup up to 40 days

Free Site Migration

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

Free automated migration plugin (WP Migrate)

SSH & WP-CLI Access

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

SSH gateway with WP-CLI and Git on all plans

WordPress Multisite Support

Cloudways Flexible only (not Autonomous)

Multisite supported as add-on (Growth+); not on Startup

Support & security

Uptime SLA (%)

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

99.99% 99.99% uptime SLA

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 hack fix / malware cleaning for infections on-platform

WAF / DDoS Protection

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

Basic network DDoS included; managed WAF + advanced DDoS via paid Global Edge Security

Platform & integrations

Control Panel

custom Cloudways Platform (custom dashboard; no cPanel)

custom Custom dashboard (WP Engine User Portal / my.wpengine.com)

White-Label / Agency Features

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

Agency plans, partner program, multi-site client management

Email Hosting Included

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

No email hosting; recommends a dedicated provider (e.g. Google Workspace)

The verdict

Cloudways

Best for cost and capacity at the entry tier

Cloudways starts at $11/mo with 50 GB storage, unlimited sites and unmetered visits, versus WP Engine's $30/mo Startup plan capped at 1 site, 10 GB and 25k visits. You pick the cloud (DigitalOcean, AWS, Google, Linode, Vultr) across 150+ datacenters vs WP Engine's 28, plus a free built-in WAF and multisite at the entry tier.

Full profile

WP Engine

Best for hands-off managed WordPress

WP Engine bundles a free CDN, automatic WordPress/PHP/MySQL updates, free malware removal, and 40-day backup retention, all of which Cloudways lacks (no free CDN, no managed updates, no hack fix, 7-day retention). Its 60-day money-back guarantee beats Cloudways' none, though entry pricing is higher at $30/mo for one site.

Full profile

Sources · 35 verified references

cbinsights.com wpengine.com linkedin.com cloudways.com support.cloudways.com medium.com

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