Visit Cloudways : https://www.cloudways.com/en/?id=1450915
Cloud-based web hosting services are now common, but Cloudways does several interesting things with its cloud hosting that make it stand out in a growing field. It lets you select from one of five platforms, including Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, offers wallet-friendly pay-as-you-go plans, and even lets you sign up for a trial run without whipping out a credit card. The shine is dulled a bit by its lack of amenities, such as domain registration and included email. Still, this excellent cloud hosting service is well worth considering.
Pros and Cons of Cloudways
Pros
- Very stable and fast VPS hosting
- Easy VPS hosting management
- Relatively low prices starting at $7.50/month
- No initial prepayments or price increases
- Loads of server locations to choose from
Cons
- Pricier than the original provider’s prices
- Basic security tools
- Email hosting comes for an extra cost
- No domain registration option
Cloudways pricing
Cloudways offered plans start at $7.50/month and can go as high as thousands of dollars a month. While it’s a huge gap, it can be explained by the different amounts of disk space, bandwidth, CPU, and RAM each service provider includes.
Each hosting solution has its own pricing but the base features in the basic plans are the same – SSLs are free, unlimited daily backups, and you can host unlimited websites or apps.
As you can see, the main difference is the server location, but the base resources are quite similar for each provider. Also, features like basic security measures, customer service, or unlimited application installation are included in all plans no matter the provider.
Now the main question is, what is the difference between the original providers’ price and Cloudways? The same base resources with DigitalOcean would be noticeably cheaper than with Cloudways. However, the higher cost comes from added convenience – Cloudways sets up and deploys the server for you. You also get a control panel with numerous useful tools. So in my opinion, it looks like a good option so far.
Talking about premium solutions, the Google Cloud Platform and AWS tend to be even pricier, so if you wish to find something similar for less, check out our lists of AWS alternatives and the best cheap hosting providers.
Cloud Hosting Plans
Cloudways leverages the resources of several clustered servers to balance your website load; it doesn’t dabble at all in the traditional shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting plans. Instead, the company offers several pay-as-you-go, hourly cloud hosting packages that only charge you for the amount of time you’ve used. For example, if you cancel a plan while 10 days into a month, you’ll only be charged for 10 days’ worth of hosting. Hosts like the Editors’ Choice award-winning DreamHost and HostGator bill you for the entire month, even if you cancel just a week into the cycle. Cloudways offers traditional monthly billing, too.
The monthly web hosting plans start at $10 (for 25GB of storage, 1TB of monthly data transfers, 1GB of RAM, and a single-core processor) and scale upward to $1,035 (for 3840GB of storage, 12TB of month data transfers, 192GB of RAM, and a 32-core processor.) The high-end offering outclasses many web hosts’ most powerful dedicated server plans. In fact, Cloudways’ top-level specs have more in common with the SMB-friendly Liquid Web, which lets you outfit a server with an wild 512GB of RAM. If you prefer hourly billing, the aforementioned plans start at just over $0.01 and scale up to slightly more than $1.43.
Building a Website
Cloudways may not possess some of the typical web hosting elements, but building a site is a fairly straightforward affair. WordPress was my CMS of choice in testing, and the service created a server in just seven minutes. I logged in with my Cloudways credentials, selected a theme, tweaked how pages and posts appeared, and added images. It was a trouble-free experience.
This particular WordPress flavor is of the managed variety, so your installation receives the white-glove treatment by auto-updating the CMS, performing automatic daily backups, and providing real-time site monitoring and WordPress-specific security. Cloudways also has useful one-click cloning (so you can quickly create duplicates of your apps and servers) and staging areas (so you can test website elements without placing them live on your site).
Cloudways lets customers separately monitor the applications hosted on a server. This application-level monitoring has two sections: Analytics and Logs. Analytics displays traffic information, PHP requests, MySQL requests, and Disk Usage. Logs, on the other hand, show your website’s access log and error log.
Customer Service
Cloudways offers 24/7 customer service, so you’ll be able to reach someone around the clock. There’s a catch, though, if you wish with speak to a human being. You must fill out a form to request a phone or Skype call.
You also have the option to speak with a customer service representative via web chat. That way, you can get answers in immediate fashion. I never waited more than a few seconds before a Cloudways rep fielded one of my chat questions. The team is quite knowledgeable, too. The members fed me accurate information about the differences between cloud hosting and traditional hosting and the company’s payment structure. I also received an infrastructure-as-a-service primer.
Cloudways refund policy isn’t the typical 30-, 60-, or 90-day money back guarantee that you find with most other web hosts. In fact, the structure is so detailed that Cloudways’ customer service team simply referred me to this link(Opens in a new window). It’s a lot to digest.
An Excellent, Focused Web Host
There’s a lot to like about Cloudways. The service has flexible cloud hosting plans, fast setup times, top-notch web-based customer support, and excellent uptime. It’s a company you can count on to keep your site up and running to services that offer those items. Additionally, some people won’t like the odd way of getting a customer service rep on the phone. If those caveats aren’t dealbreakers, however, give Cloudways a chance. You may find it offers just what you need to get and keep your website online.
