CloudWays is one of the most significant web hosting provider in the industry. With the number of hosting provider piling up, it is always essential to choose the one which is affordable and provides useful features. When it comes to host a WordPress site, no one does it better than the Cloudways.
Thus, Cloudways is a one stop solution for the WordPress hosting. I have given detailed information below about the best host for your WordPress site.
Cloudways Review 2021 Pros & Cons
About Cloudways
Founded in 2011 in Malta, Europe, Cloudways has evolved drastically in 9 years. Started by four guys; Pere Hospital, Umair Gadit, Uzair Gadit and Aaqib Gadit, this company currently has 50+ employees. They are providing their services in almost 43 countries with 25,000+ website hosting. The most distinctive feature of this web host is its managed cloud WordPress hosting.
Why Choose Cloudways for WordPress Hosting?
Well, like it or not, the Cloud is complex. Doing it right on your own can easily become doing it wrong. This is why I like Cloudways. Because of its one-in-all reasonable package, user-friendly (Just a Click Away) interface, quick response time, and much more, I will recommend you to try it out because I am sure you'll love it.
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Cloudways Coupon Promo Code March 2021
Simply add promo code "CWBlOGIDEA" when you sign-up with Cloudways and 10$ credit will be applied automatically. You can also start with 30 days free trial of Cloud hosting with Cloudways and your discount will be applied automatically when you upgrade to higher plans.
Promo code: CWBlOGIDEA Offer: $10 free hosting credit.WordPress Hosting features of Cloudways
So what makes Cloudways different from other cloud hosting platforms? Here is a list of reasons why one should choose Cloudways as their Web Hosting Platform.
Solid Infrastructure
Infrastructure identifies what cloud services are offered to its customers. It has the best cloud providers in the world right now and they are none other than Google Compute Engine (GCE), Digital Ocean, Vultr and Amazon Web Service (AWS).
Unique Hosting Stack
Cloudways is different from all other hosting platforms because of its unique VMAN technology. Combining Nginx, Apache, Memcached and Varnish it creates a powerfully configured server environment for hosting WordPress websites.
Safe Managed Security
Potential threats have increased. They are becoming more and more hostile with each passing day. At Cloudways, its team of experts offers managed security to individuals through platform level firewalls. This makes server data as safe and secure as possible. Moreover, Cloudways regularly patches OS and firmware with the latest security fixes.
Simple & Easy Setup
It takes only a few steps to launch a cloud server through Cloudways. Click your way to launching your very own WordPress website through your desired Cloud provider. To launch your WordPress website on Cloudways, you have to select your desired Cloud provider, desired Application (WordPress, WooCommerce, or WordPress Multisite), pick your server resources, and select your hosting location. Once you are done with setting attributes, hit "Launch". There you go! As easy as catching a fish in a barrel.
Feature-Rich Console
Cloudways WordPress Hosting Platform comes with a feature-rich console which allows customers to manage their servers and applications easily. Every feature is a single-click solution. This means you do not have to an expert to run cloud servers when your web apps are hosting on Cloudways.
How does Cloudways work?
Once you have launched a server on Cloudways, you will be directed to a page with server window containing buttons such as Start, Stop, Delete, Add App, and Clone. Located at the bottom of the window is a "Manage Server" button that will lead you directly to the administration screen.
Compared to various other web hosting platforms, Cloudways offers you managed cloud hosting that means you can get a wide range of options to play around with. The Console on Cloudways contains a server management tab and an application management tab. What surprises do they hold for you? Let's discuss them a bit.
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Server Management Tab
Making cloud server administration easier for you, the Server Management tab at Cloudways provides you a number of features.The Summary section lets you overview general information about your launched servers, its current status and its interrelated resources.Master Credentials section displays the SSH access details of your server.
The Monitoring section displays graph-based details about different performance aspects of your server. This way you stay updated on all things server related.Vertical Scaling allows users to scale resources (like RAM, storage size, etc.) for your server depending on your website functionalities and traffic.
The Managed Services section lets you manage stack functionalities for running applications on your server.Server Settings and Packages section helps you change your server settings whenever such changes are necessary.The Security section allows you to check whether you IP is blocked for SFTP/SSH Access and further helps you whitelist your blocked IPs for SFTP/SSH Access.
The Backups section enables you to create backups of your server data at anytime you want. Furthermore, Cloudways comes with automated and managed backups. Therefore, you don't have to worry about losing any of your information at any instance. It's all safe and secure on an offsite cloud.
A Server Addons section provides you addons that can be easily configured on your server. During your trial, you will see two email-based addons during your trial: SMTP and Elastic Email.
Application Management Tab
Similar to the Server Management tab, you have an Application Management tab as well. It allows users to set attributes related to your web app. It starts with an Access Detail section containing admin area login, database username and password, DB Access and SFTP information.
A Domain Management section provides a control panel for domain name administration. Through this tool, you can quickly point a domain to your WordPress site. A Cron Job Management section enables users to set and manage cron jobs at scheduled times.
An SSL Certificate section lets users deploy SSL protection on web apps. Furthermore, Cloudways is one of the few hosting mediums that allows multiple SSL protected website on the same server. A Restore section allows you to revert back to older copies of your web apps.
If you would like to buy an SSL Certificate at a great price, click here to check out our article on the best GoDaddy SSL Discount codes.
A Deployment Via Git section for deploying projects to your website through your Git repository.
An Application Addons section offering addons for your WordPress application, like "Application Migration" for moving your WordPress website, "Application Update" for updating WordPress version and "Application Load Test" for checking how much traffic your WordPress website can handle.
Finally, there is a Migrator Tool that lets you migrate your WordPress website automatically to Cloudways WordPress Hosting Platform.
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What about pricing?
Depending on the selection of cloud server, location, bandwidth, and storage, Cloudways follows a single package payment method. The most economical and reasonable cloud service is Vultr where the pricing plans are as low as $14/month. DigitalOcean, Amazon and Google infrastructure options are available as well, however their costs vary depending on your server requirements.
How to Install WordPress On Your Cloudways
Cloudways offers its customer with the managed WordPress hosting. Launching a WordPress site on your Cloudways is a breeze. You just need to have the Cloudways account before installing the WordPress.
Promo code: CWBlOGIDEA Offer: $10 free hosting credit.Once you have logged in, Click on the Applications tab to proceed further. In the application & server page, you can choose your WordPress Application; WordPress Version 4.9.5, WordPress with WooCommerce, MultiSite Version or No cloudways version 4.9.5.
After entering the information such as the name of the app and name of the project, you need to choose your cloud. Each of the following clouds is available for 3-day free trial. You can choose any of the available clouds.
- Choose Server Memory and server location
After choosing the cloud platform, you can select the Server size by scaling your server size. In some of the cloud hosts such as AWS or Google Cloud Platform, you can choose the server size, RAM, Bandwidth and storage.
You can also choose the server location according to your target audience. The server locations can be chosen by clicking the dropdown button. Out of the 6 managed cloud hosting, different cloud platforms have different number of data centers spread around the world; 8 DigitalOcean, 4 Kyup, 15 Vultr, 8 Linode, 14 AWS. Flexible Enough!!
Setting up a server may take around 5 minutes. After the server has been setup, you get the full access to your server dashboard to manage it.
You can safely hover over any of the given options and manage your server.
On the top of the screen, you can see your server's information such as the disk space, IP address and server name. In the right hand corner of this ribbon, you can view the number of users working on this server or the number of WordPress site installed on this server.
After the server has been setup and managed, your next step is to manage your application and it covers a number of operations that need to be carried out to install the application.
It contains the information about your application. It gives you access to all the credentials of your blog such Application URL, Admin Panel, MYSQL access and SSH and FTP access.
Click on Launch Database Manager to manage your application.
If you already own a domain and wish to direct your domain to a Cloudways WordPress site, you can click on domain management tab to proceed. Enter your website's URL in the primary domain name and click on 'Save Changes'.
In case you have a multisite, you can add more domains to point out your site.
You can add certain tasks or schedule your tasks by using the cron job management tab. You can choose the basic or advanced settings for your cron job.
Fill out the information required in the box to proceed.
Your website needs a security certificate and encryption to win trust from its users and Google. Cloudways WordPress hosting has a free SSL certificate. All you need is to enter the domain name and the email address. Click on 'Install certificate' and your site is secured.
If you own multisite, you can and another domain and get the SSL certificate. Moreover, you can also create custom certificate and manage your application's SSL Certificate with an ease.
Restore anything such as the file or databases from your WordPress site if you lose access at some point. With just one click, you can restore everything without hassle.
You can easily deploy a code to give access to Git repository. Once you have generate the SSH key and code, you can enter the repository address and click Authenticate. Once you have authenticated, you get access to the deployment and make changes or give access to anyone to make changes to your site.
You can manage your application and increase or decrease visibility and allow/disallow permissions. It has three sub divisions.
General tab; access permission such as SSH access or application access and webroot directory.
PHP settings; configure your site's PHP.
Varnish settings; add rules to cache your WordPress site.
You can easily migrate your site from any other host to the reliable Cloudways with just one click. It uses the migratory plugin for migration. It uses the plugin blog vault for this purpose. You can download the plugin zipped file or find it in the WordPress directory too.
Promo code: CWBLOGIDEA Offer: $20 free hosting credit.Cloudways WordPress hosting gives your site a boost and speeds up your website's performance. Enter your website' URL and enter. CDN integrates with Cloudways with Stackpath. Once you have entered the URL, you don't need to worry about paying at different places. Get your bill added to your final invoice. CDN integration is not available with your free account. It costs you $1 for 25 GB per application.
How does it perform cloning?
A lot of tedious tasks can be made handy by using this host. It makes your WordPress site cloning looks easy. You can clone your website from one of your local servers to the Cloudways server as it offers better hosting and faster speeds. This web host lets you increase your server size anytime by vertical scaling.
With its WordPress cloning feature, you can replicate your whole website without missing any files or without any errors. It does not replicate any site directly.
Before creating a live site, it creates the staging environment for that website. A staging site is a complete copy of your site which is created to test for any errors before appearing live. After the errors are fixed, you can deploy it your live site. Further, you can add or install any themes or plugins to your staging site and check it on your live site.
You can also clone your web applications on any other server. Its cloning feature lets you clone, share or transfer servers to another account.
Migrating your WordPress Site
Migrating a WordPress site has never been easy for the non techies. Be it the migration of the content or migration of your shared hosting to VPS or cloud hosting, this web host gives it all at an affordable price. This is done using the duplicator plugin. What's more exciting about this plugin is that it is given away for free for the first month. You can test it for a month and can switch it if it doesn't fits into your shoes.
Cloudways Plugins
You would verily need some plugins to modify your WordPress site or add various customizations to it. Well, you can get all the plugins that gives your website a go. Some of them are:
This caching plugin lets you convert your pages containing dynamic content into the static files. You can convert any kind of file; HTML, JavaScript, CSS into the static file. It speeds up your site reducing the page load time. You can exclude the pages that you don't want to convert into a static file.
Tired of deleting the spammy or abusive comments? Use this plugin to delete the spam comments. With each visitor commenting on your blog, Akismet checks each comment before posting it and automatically removes the one which is a spam.
It is one of the most reliable WordPress plugins to rank your page or site. You can analyze any page to rank it up higher in the search engine ranking. You can get scads of features using this plugin tool:
More than 90% of the internet users are active on social media. Social interaction becomes of utter importance when you own a blog, a website, a business or a small shop and want to promote it at a larger scale.
This is where Super Socializer works. With this plugin, you can get the visitors on your site by logging in to their social profiles. Moreover, you can share your blog on any social platform. It comes up with highly customizable social media icons. It is compatible with other platfiorms such as WooCommerce, Buddypress, Multisite, bbPress.
Reviews of Cloudways
Performance
This web hosting provider has one of the fastest servers in the world offering cloud hosting. The reason for the faster servers and drivers is ThunderStack which includes a number of features in its interface such as the Vanish, Apache, nGinx, Redis and few others which include fast servers, databases or caches.
Along with its lightning speed, you can get certain features such as the 1-click installer or 1-click backup and restore. Moreover, the servers in this web host are all based on different IP addresses and designed with different assets. You have full access over the web applications.
Security
This web host provides you a sleek security system. It guarantees the protection against the hackers by IP whitelisting. Further, you can settle any issues related to your site or security by using Two factor authentication.
You can safeguard your site against the malware or threat using the Click and Go safeguard which is a firewall for blocking the malware. You can backup your data anytime automatically. Just set the frequency of the backup and you will have your job done.
Support
With the experts and cloud engineers in the assistance 24/7, this web host certainly gives the other competitors the run for money in terms of features as well as the support. The dynamic customer support would resolve all your issues with breeze. It also offers the ticketing support system for all the specific issues.
A unique CloudBot has been assisted for the customer's convenience for any queries. If still the issue persists, you can have a live chat or phone or even the email support. With premium support at some additional cost, you can get certain additive support such as the private Slack channel or email support or private customization.
Why Cloudways is better than other WordPress Hosting?
What separates it from the other web hosts is its sheer performance, management and functionality. It gives the best cloud hosting for the WordPress. With just one click, you can host your WORDPRESS site on the cloud servers.
- They have got an incredible managed server site security. You can use your website without the fear of any security breach. The multi-layered security system makes it more reliable among the users. Moreover, you can get regular updates of your server which makes it a top-notch web host.
- The fastest cloud hosting servers and they are also the most reliable one among its users. This is attributed to its Thunderstack which is a stack of a number of servers including (nginx, Varnish cache, Apache, Redis, PHP-FPM), out of which some are fast servers, some of them being the databases or even the cache. Thus, the group of these makes it faster among its competitors.
- With just 1 click, you can install the WordPress and clone or backup or restore everything with just a single click. You can manage the number of WP sites and eCommerce websites using this web host.
Pros and Cons of Cloudways WordPress hosting
Multi-layer mix of advanced caching technologies and cloud platforms results in higher optimization and better performance of your WordPress site. These technologies with advanced caching systems such as Varnish, Redish or MemCached provide features which even premium hosting service providers cannot.
Hosting on cloud platform can be a tedious task. It takes a lot of thing to keep your WordPress site working. If you are running your WordPress on Cloudways, all you need is to set up your account as everything comes up pre configured. There are no maintenance required for the servers too as the experts supervise our servers well.
It is essential to use plugin s when you are using WordPress as your platform. A number of hosting provider has the loophole where they do not give full access to all the WordPress plugins even if they provide WP hosting. This makes it quite ambiguous. CloudWays gives access to all the plugins on the WordPress with all the freedom to use. You can use every plugin in the same way you would use in the woredpress hosting.
With the fairly affordable pricing and features available in the package, what becomes more amazing their pay-as-you-go principle. It means that you will have to pay for the resources that you have used. Isn't that cool?
You can stage your site any time from live to staging site by just one click. Clone your live site into a staged one. You can test your website before going live.
- Not-so-good Customer Support
- Everything is not managed
Cloudways is the right solution for hosting WordPress websites
Taking web hosting service to a whole new level, Cloudways provides your website the optimization it requires. Offering multiple features and effective migration, it is one of the most secure managed hosting platforms for your WordPress website. I would like to add that the technical support team at Cloudways is pretty reassuring while providing quick response time.
I must say from my Cloudways Review, that it is the most commendable solution for WordPress hosting. Do give it a try.
Pros Cons Promo code: CWBLOGIDEA Offer: $20 free hosting credit.