Cloudways vs WPEngine: Which Host is Most Worth The Money?

Looking to start a new website and can't figure out whether to go for Cloudways vs WPengine?

Let's start with a bold statement, but getting a website up and running has never been simpler.

There's never been a better time to start an online business, publish a blog, or finally bring your brick and mortar operation into the twenty-first century than right now, with wonderful site building platforms (web builders) like WordPress and a huge variety of hosting providers and services for every need and budget.

Herein lies the difficulty: determining which hosting company or hosting services to use. Most of us are familiar with common web hosting options such as shared, VPS, and dedicated.

Today, however, we'll be looking at managed WordPress cloud hosting and comparing two of the most popular options: Cloudways vs WpEngine

Cloudways vs WPEngine

Both of these forward-thinking web hosts have managed to stand out from the crowd in a variety of ways. Both provide reliable managed cloud hosting for WordPress sites, as well as a variety of hosting plans to choose from.

They also offer cutting-edge hosting technology, expert support, and a managed hosting environment designed specifically for the changing needs of today's WordPress website owners.

As a result, they've grown in popularity and are now widely used by brands and businesses of all sizes.

You don't want to get ahead of the game. Your site's success is determined by the security, dependability, and performance of the company that hosts it, so take a look at everything Cloudways and WPEngine have to offer before deciding on one.

While Cloudways and WPEngine are both well-known hosting companies, their services are not identical.

So, which one do you think you should go with? We'll compare Cloudways and WPEngine side by side in this guide. Both are well-known for various reasons and host millions of websites, so we already know they're among the best in the business.

However, we'll delve deep and provide you with all the information you need to answer the ultimate question:

Cloudways vs WPEngine – Which managed WordPress web host is the best?

About Cloudways and WPEngine

While Cloudways and WPEngine are similar in many ways, they are two very different web hosts with their own unique stories.

Let's take a look at the history and backgrounds of these innovative managed WordPress hosting providers, because it's always a good idea to know a little about the company you'll be entrusting your website with.

Cloudways

Cloudways' mission is to provide managed cloud hosting solutions to customers so they can focus on growing their business rather than worrying about hosting issues.

They were founded in 2009 and are based on the Mediterranean island of Malta, with offices in Dubai and Spain.

They're able to provide fast and functional cloud-based hosting for WordPress sites at an affordable price thanks to an umbrella of high-tech server networks around the world.

WPEngine

WPEngine is a well-known American hosting company based in Austin that specialises in fully managed hosting and WordPress solutions.

Jason Cohen, Cullen Wilson, and Ben Metcalfe founded the web host in 2010, and since then, the privately held company has built a world-class infrastructure with data centres in Tokyo, London, and the Midwest of the United States.

WPEngine focuses solely on WordPress, as the name implies, and their client list is as impressive as their hosting platform and fully managed WordPress services.

They describe themselves as a "leading WordPress digital experience platform," which pretty much sums them up.

What Types of Hosting Solutions Do Cloudways vs WPEngine Offer?

Cloudways and WPEngine both have a variety of hosting plans to choose from. They are, however, cloud-based, managed, and designed for WordPress, unlike traditional hosting.

This means you'll have to do almost nothing to get and keep your WordPress site up and running.

Your website data isn't just stored on one server with cloud hosting; it's stored on several servers all over the world. As a result, it's a network of servers known as "The Cloud."

Cloud hosting is becoming increasingly popular among businesses and developers due to its speed and infinite scalability.

There are two terms in the world of cloud hosting: managed WordPress hosting and fully managed WordPress hosting.

WPEngine is fully managed, which means they take care of everything. Cloudways is managed, but WPEngine is fully managed.

WPEngine manages both your servers and your WordPress site, whereas Cloudways just manages your server and provides a tonne of great features in the process.

This includes site updates, backups, and other critical issues.

Fully managed hosting services, on the other hand, are more expensive than basic managed hosting services like Cloudways.

Cloudways is the better option if you'd rather spend less and manage your WordPress site yourself, which many people prefer.

Regardless of who you choose, both managed WordPress cloud providers provide a variety of tiers from which to choose, making scaling a breeze.

Cloudways, in fact, provides five different pricing plans and cloud infrastructures, including:

• Digital Ocean
• Vultr
• Linode
• Google Cloud
• Amazon Web Services

If you're on a low budget, Digital Ocean's Basic Plan, which costs $10 per month, is the most cost-effective option. You'll get 1 Gb ram, 25 GB of storage, and 1 TB of bandwidth with it.

The Google Cloud platform, which costs $80 per month and includes 8GB of RAM, 160GB of storage, and 5TB of bandwidth, is the most expensive package.

WPEngine offers four high-powered packages to suit the needs of a wide range of users. Their Startup Plan starts at $28 per month and includes up to 25k monthly site visitors, 10GB of storage, and 50GB of bandwidth.

At $238 per month, the Scale Plan is the most expensive. It supports up to 25 websites, millions of visitors, and up to 1TB of storage and 400GB of bandwidth.

Cloudways vs WPEngine: Speed and Performance

When choosing a web hosting company, one of the most important factors to consider is speed and performance.

Cloudways and WPEngine both use cutting-edge hardware and software to provide some of the industry's fastest connection speeds.

Quality of the server

In terms of hardware, both providers don't cut corners and use top-of-the-line equipment. Cloudways connects to the servers of five of the most popular cloud hosting companies today.

You get the same speed and performance as some of the industry's biggest names, plus the Cloudways platform's features and user-friendliness.

Cloudways partners with cutting-edge NGINX SSD servers at each of their locations. There are also over 60 data centres to choose from, all of which are located around the world to ensure maximum speed.

WPEngine, on the other hand, makes use of servers from Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform. Both are among the best hosting companies today, and their cloud services are known for their speed, performance, and scalability.

Advanced Caching

Caching systems reduce the time it takes for a page to load. These systems can be used on any page, but they're especially useful for speeding up applications.

Both Cloudways hosting and WPEngine use the advanced NGINX caching mechanism, as previously mentioned. They do, however, use Varnish, and WpEngine also uses Memcached, which is a plus.

Varnish's reverse proxying capabilities are ideal for giving content-heavy websites a boost. It also works well with complex scripts and dynamic APIs, allowing you to build visually stunning websites without sacrificing speed or performance.

Database queries are also cached using Redis. Both providers can offer scalable, high-performance hosting services thanks to this trifecta of caching mechanisms.

Finally, both Cloudways and WPengine's caching systems support MySQL, and each runs applications using the most recent version of PHP, Ruby, or Python, depending on your preference.

Other Speed-Boosting Features

Both managed WordPress cloud hosts use HTTP/2 in addition to fast servers and advanced caching. Their servers are also PHP7-enabled, ensuring that applications load quickly.

Both use the Cloudflare content delivery network, or CDN, which is widely regarded as the best in the industry.

A CDN is a global network that stores websites and their content for easy access, which is beneficial for visitors who are located far from the server data centres.

Content can be loaded and viewed from a CDN node closest to a user's or visitor's location, rather than waiting for connections to distant servers.

Each provider has lightning-fast load times, but WPEngine just edged out Cloudways in our speed tests. While both were faster than the competition, WPEngine had the slight advantage when it came to testing the speed of larger sites with more dynamic content.

WpEngine connected in under 300 milliseconds on average, which is lightning fast. Cloudways, on the other hand, established a connection in just over 400 milliseconds, which is impressive in and of itself.

Cloudways vs WPEngine: Overall Reliability

A hosting plan's dependability and uptime can make or break it. You're losing potential visitors and sales every second your site is down. Not only will your bottom line suffer, but your reputation and search engine rankings may suffer as well.

Fortunately, most cloud providers, including these two, are capable of providing excellent reliability and uptime.

When hosting sites on their managed WordPress cloud servers, Cloudways has partnered with many of today's top cloud hosting providers, allowing them to boast an impressive 99 percent uptime.

Cloudways had an average uptime of 99.6 percent in our tests. While this is impressive, WPEngine performed even better. In fact, they can provide a 99.99 percent uptime guarantee. Only Vultr and possibly a few other cloud hosts can claim to have 100 percent uptime and reliability.

Data Centers

Any hosting service's lifeblood is its data centres. They house your servers and serve as entry points for visitors to your website.

Cloudways connects you to more than 60 data centres managed by their five cloud hosting partners. The centres are spread out around the world, covering every major region and city to ensure global coverage.

WPEngine has a large number of data centres located all over the world. They currently own and operate 18 data centres.

WPEngine shares some servers and data centres with Cloudways, which also offers plans with these hosting giants, because they use Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services servers. Cloudways, on the other hand, provides you with a plethora of other options.

Storage Technology

The manner in which your site's data is stored can have a significant impact on its performance. Solid-state drives (SSD) are used by all of today's top hosting providers instead of traditional mechanical hard drives.

Solid-state drives use flash technology to achieve much faster transfer speeds. Cloudways and WPEngine both offer SSD storage with all of their hosting plans.

Cloudways vs WPEngine: Security Features

In the cyber world, security is always a hot topic. Malware installations and DDoS attacks happen on a daily basis, so it's critical that you do your part to keep your site safe. Your own data must be protected in addition to that of your visitors.

Many of the security features offered by Cloudways and WPEngine come standard with each of their hosting packages.

SSL Certificates

In today's world, a website without an SSL certificate is simply untrustworthy. In fact, most web users simply skip over websites that lack one, and modern browsers inform them whether or not a website has one before it even begins to load.

The good news is that all of Cloudways' and WPEngine's plans include free SSL. Both make use of the well-known Let's Encrypt SSL certificate, which encrypts the connection between your visitors' devices and your hosting server.

Malware Protection

Malware protection protects your site's data and content from viruses, spyware, and other threats. Cloudways and WPEngine, fortunately, are both extremely secure.

To keep intruders and malicious software out, all Cloudways plans include OS-level firewalls.

You can also choose the Sucuri Application Antivirus and Firewall add-on for $149.99 per year if you want to take your malware protection to the next level.

Despite the fact that it is expensive, it will provide you with top-notch protection against malware and DDoS attacks.

WPEngine, on the other hand, employs a proactive security system that includes multiple layers of security, proactive patching updates, two-factor authentication, and managed threat mitigation.

This could give them a slight edge in terms of overall malware protection, but it’s too close to call, so we’ll say it’s a tie.

Backup and Recovery

Backups are essential for any WordPress site, and Cloudways and WPEngine both provide daily backups and recovery points.

Both providers will allow you to avoid data loss and quickly restore your website in the event of a disaster. WPEngine, on the other hand, has an automatic disaster recovery system in place, allowing you to recover on autopilot.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Both Cloudways and WPEngine offer managed WordPress cloud hosting. It's what they do 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Unlike other hosting companies, their services are specifically designed to meet Wordpress' specific performance requirements. As a result, you can expect high reliability and lightning-fast speeds from either platform.

Both cloud hosts will take care of all necessary security updates, so you won't have to worry about getting lost in the technical weeds. Additionally, each provides one-click WordPress installation.

WPEngine even claims that your site will be up and running in less than a minute.

WPengine, on the other hand, is unquestionably more "managed" than Cloudways. In fact, if you truly want to take a hands-off approach, they can handle just about everything hosting and WordPress-related.

Cloudways vs WPEngine: Important Features

With the essentials covered, let’s move on to some other common hosting features.

Free Domain

Cloudways wins this battle. They provide a free domain name with each of their managed WordPress hosting plans. WPengine, on the other hand, doesn’t.

Site Migration

If you already have a website and need to move it to a new host, you'll be pleased to learn that both Cloudways and WPEngine make site migrations simple.

For free site migrations to a Cloudways server, Cloudways provides a WordPress migration plugin. It's simple, straightforward, and completely free.

WPEngine offers automated and stress-free site migrations using a similar built-in tool. They also have a section dedicated to step-by-step videos that will walk you through the entire migration process.

Staging

With staging, you can work on your WordPress website and make changes to test themes, plugins, custom code, and other features while still seeing a preview of the changes before they go live.

This way, you can correct any errors and ensure that your site looks and functions at its best before visitors and potential customers see it.

Cloudways includes a full staging feature, allowing you to work on your site without having to clone it. It allows you to push and pull code while maintaining the integrity of your live site.

In addition, Cloudways gives you a URL for staging. While we prefer the first staging option, having options is nice.

WPengine, on the other hand, employs cloning to allow you to work on your site while also allowing you to test new features. It's a different procedure, but it accomplishes the same goal.

WPEngine vs Cloudways: User-Friendliness

Cloudways and WPengine both offer cPanel, which is one of the most popular platforms in the hosting industry. It's simple to use and gives you complete control over your website from a single location.

It's where you'll keep track of your domains, databases, and files, among other things. It's also where you'll put your Joomla or Wordpress plugins.

Cloudways also has a number of features to help you manage your WordPress site as efficiently as possible. Their help is also fantastic.

WPengine, on the other hand, is a fully managed WordPress host, so they essentially handle everything for you.

Customer Support

Even with the best managed WordPress hosting companies, you'll have a question or encounter a problem and need to seek assistance at some point.

Cloudways provides live chat support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can also open a support ticket or search their extensive knowledgebase for non-critical issues.

Even more impressive is WPengine's customer service. They have server and WordPress experts on hand to assist with any hosting or WordPress problems that may arise. They have four core WordPress contributors and plug-in developers on staff.

WPengine offers toll-free phone support during business hours and email support 24 hours a day. A live chat feature would also be nice, but their phone support is great for those who prefer a little more of a human touch.

Plans and Pricing

Now it's time to get down to business with the brass tax. So, how much do these two industry-leading managed WordPress cloud providers charge for their high-performance, fast-loading, and all-around excellent hosting services?

Cloudways Managed WordPress Cloud Hosting Plans (by Hosting Partner)

Digital Ocean

Each cloud provider that Cloudways works with has four different plans. Free SSL, a built-in CDN, 24/7/365 support, automated backups, staging environments, and more are included in all Digital Ocean plans. The server capabilities are the only real difference between the plans.

The monthly plans range from $10 to $80 and include:

• RAM – 1-8GB
  • Processor – 1-4 cores
  • Storage – 25-160GB
  • Bandwidth – 1-5TB

Linode

The Linode plans from Cloudways come with all of the same great features.

Their plans range in price from $12-$90 a month. For that you get:

• RAM – 1-8GB
  • Processor – 1-4 cores
  • Storage – 25-160GB
  • Bandwidth – 1-5TB

Vultr

The Vultr plans range in price from $11-$84 a month and also come with all of Cloudways great features as well as:

• RAM – 1-8GB
  • Processor – 1-4 cores
  • Storage – 25-160GB
  • Bandwidth – 1-4TB

AWS

Cloudways is the one who shakes things up. You get free SSL, site migration, automatic backups, and all of Cloudways' other great features, of course. However, you get the following for each of its AWS plans, which range in price from $36.51 to $274.33 per month:

• RAM – 1.75-16GB
  • Processor – 1-4 vCPUs
  • Storage – 20GB
  • Bandwidth – 2GB

Google Cloud

Except for price, Cloudways' Google Cloud hosting services are nearly identical to their AWS plans. The Google Cloud plans range in price from $33.18 to $225.93 per month and include the following features:

• RAM – 1.70-15GB
  • Processor – 1-4 vCPUs
  • Storage – 20GB
  • Bandwidth – 2GB

WPengine Managed WordPress Cloud Hosting Plans:

Startup Plan – $20 a month

• 1 site included
  • 25,000 visitors a month
  • 10GB of storage
  • 50GB of bandwidth

Professional Plan – $50 a month

• 3 site included
  • 75,000 visitors a month
  • 15GB of storage
  • 125GB of bandwidth

From here onwards, things start to get a little bit complicated, so you might want to check out their website directly.

Final Verdict

WPengine and Cloudways are two of the best managed WordPress cloud hosting providers. With all of the speed, performance, and features they have to offer, deciding which one is better is a tough call.

It must, however, be done.

WPengine is ideal if you want to take a hands-off approach to website management. They not only provide the tools, but they also take care of everything for you for a fee.

With everything Cloudways has to offer at such low prices, they just edge out WPengine in our opinion.

They provide the tools you need to create a lightning-fast WordPress site for a fraction of the cost, earning them a win in this roundup.

Cloudways Vs WPEngine FAQs

Is Cloudways a reputable hosting provider?

When it comes to cloud-based managed WordPress hosting, Cloudways is one of the few companies that strikes a good balance between price and functionality. Cloudways offers fully managed hosting, ensuring that your WordPress sites load quickly and that you don't have to worry about WordPress hosting issues.

Is WP Engine a good hosting provider?

As of this writing, the company has over 150,000 customers worldwide and is one of the best-reviewed WordPress hosting companies. Users gave it an overall rating of 8.69 out of ten in a recent survey (data). So yes, in general, WP Engine is a good hosting provider.

Why should you use WP engine for your WordPress content management system?

WP Engine work with Google, Amazon Web Services, and New Relic to optimise their technology for WordPress. The WordPress CMS and the open source technology's flexibility allow agencies and businesses to compete on an equal footing. WPEngine handle the techy stuff while the businesses can focus on what they do best, i.e. communicating with their client.

About the Author

Author: Jamie KavanaghWebsite: https://www.coastalcontent.co.uk/Email: jamie@collectiveray.com

Jamie, an engineer by education is our primary technical writer and researcher. Jamie also runs Coastal Content, a content marketing, copywriting and web design company based out of Cornwall in the United Kingdom.