Short answer
As of October 23, 2026, Cloudways sells 7 VPS plans from $11.00/month (DigitalOcean Micro: 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD, 2 TB traffic) in 9 locations. It ranks #88 of 160 providers overall. Trustpilot rates it 4.6 from 3,766 reviews.
Key takeaways
- Cheapest plan: DigitalOcean Micro at $11.00/month (1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD, 2 TB traffic).
- 9 data-center locations in 8 countries: Amsterdam, Bangalore, Frankfurt, London, New York, San Francisco and 3 more.
- Free trial: 3-day free trial of Flexible, no credit card required.
- Ranks #88 of 160 overall; best placing #42 of 157 for VPS for Developers.
Key facts
| Website | cloudways.com |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Mosta, MT |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Cheapest plan | DigitalOcean Micro, $11.00/month |
| Price per GB RAM (median) | $11.00 |
| Data centers | 9 locations in 8 countries (Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania) |
| Virtualization | KVM (underlying DigitalOcean/Vultr/Linode droplets) |
| Billing | Hourly, monthly |
| Windows Server | No Linux-only managed stack (Debian-based); no Windows, no root access, no OS selection. |
| Operating systems | Debian (fixed managed stack) |
| Storage | Yes NVMe (NVMe, SSD) |
| DDoS protection | Yes |
| Backups / snapshots | Paid backups; snapshots: Yes |
| IPv4 / IPv6 | IPv4 included: Yes; IPv6: — |
| API | Yes |
| Dedicated CPU plans | Yes |
| Payment methods | Card, paypal |
| Trial or credit | 3-day free trial of Flexible, no credit card required |
| Money-back | Not published |
| Support | 24/7/365 live chat and tickets on all plans (3h high-priority response target); Advanced ($100/mo) and Premium (custom, phone/Slack) support add-ons |
| Email / port 25 | Opt-in email only (spam banned) |
| Uptime SLA | No uptime percentage published; support-response SLA with 5% monthly-fee credit per missed hour |
| Trustpilot | 4.6 / 5 from 3,766 reviews (profile) |
Cloudways is a managed layer on top of DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud: no root access, PHP stack managed for you.
Plans and prices
7 plans recorded across 4 lines. Monthly list prices in US dollars; the highlighted row is the cheapest. Native USD pricing; all transactions processed in USD, taxes added by billing address.
| Plan | Line | CPU | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Traffic | $/month | $/GB RAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Micro | Flexible on DigitalOcean (Standard) | Shared | 1 | 2 GB | 50 GB SSD | 2 TB | $11.00 | $5.50 | Lowest card on the official pricing page ($11/mo). The page shows Micro and Small with the same 2 GB/1 vCPU/50 GB/2 TB specs and the same $0.0357/hr rate (which equals about $24/mo), so the Micro specs may be smaller than displayed; verify in the console. Includes managed stack, free SSL, staging, firewall, 24/7 chat support. |
| DigitalOcean Small | Flexible on DigitalOcean (Standard) | Shared | 1 | 2 GB | 50 GB SSD | 2 TB | $24.00 | $12.00 | $0.0357/hr (about $24/mo cap); WHTop lists Small at $24/mo (Jan 2026). Bandwidth overage $0.02/GB. |
| DigitalOcean Medium | Flexible on DigitalOcean (Standard) | Shared | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | 5 TB | $88.00 | $11.00 | $0.1310/hr; monthly cap $88 on the official page. |
| DigitalOcean 8XL | Flexible on DigitalOcean (Standard) | Shared | 24 | 128 GB | 2560 GB SSD | 11 TB | $342.00 | $2.67 | Largest DigitalOcean card on the official page; hourly figure shown ($1.0848) does not reconcile with the $342 monthly cap. |
| DigitalOcean Premium 48GB | Flexible on DigitalOcean (Premium NVMe) | Shared | 12 | 48 GB | 960 GB NVMe | 8 TB | $388.00 | $8.08 | Premium Droplets (Intel Xeon Scalable, NVMe, up to 10 Gbps). $388/mo cap and $0.5774/hr confirmed in Cloudways' billing support article; specs from the Cloudways Premium launch post. Premium 32GB $279 and 64GB $487. |
| Vultr High Frequency 1GB | Flexible on Vultr (High Frequency NVMe) | Shared | 1 | 1 GB | 32 GB NVMe | 1 TB | $16.00 | $16.00 | Third-party listing (bestusavps.com, updated Jul 2026); not shown on the live pricing page. Vultr overage $0.01/GB in NA/EU, $0.025/GB Singapore/Tokyo, $0.05/GB Sydney. Vultr offers about 30 locations via Cloudways. |
| Linode 1GB | Flexible on Linode (Akamai) | Shared | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB | $14.00 | $14.00 | Third-party listing (bestusavps.com Jul 2026 / websiteplanet.com Dec 2025); not shown on the live pricing page. Linode overage $0.02/GB pooled; about 25 locations. |
Native USD pricing; all transactions processed in USD, taxes added by billing address.
Data-center locations
Cloudways lets you deploy in 9 locations: 3 in North America, 3 in Europe, 2 in Asia and 1 in Oceania. Countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom and United States.
Map of Cloudways locations
Click a marker to see which providers sell servers there. Marker size reflects the number of providers in that city.
Pros and cons
Strengths
- Fully managed stack (security patching, firewall, free SSL, staging, free WordPress migration) with hourly billing and a 3-day no-card trial
- Choice of five underlying clouds; DigitalOcean servers deployable in nine regions on four continents
- 24/7 live chat support included, with paid Advanced/Premium tiers down to 10-minute response targets
Limitations
- Roughly 2x the price of the underlying DigitalOcean droplet, plus paid add-ons for off-site backups ($0.033/GB), Cloudflare Enterprise and support tiers
- No root access, no OS choice, no Windows and no custom ISO; only PHP-based applications are supported
- No money-back guarantee or uptime SLA; Vultr/Linode/AWS/GCP prices are only visible inside the console
Acceptable use
Governed by DigitalOcean's AUP: open proxies, open relays and Tor exit nodes are prohibited, cryptocurrency mining requires written permission, disruptive crawling/scraping and unsolicited bulk email are banned; torrents and IPTV fall under the IP-infringement clause. The fixed managed PHP stack has no root access, so VPN/proxy hosting is not practical.
Where Cloudways ranks
Positions in the rankings on this site, based on the data above.
- Best VPS for Developers #42 of 157
- Best WooCommerce VPS #57 of 157
- Best MySQL and Database VPS #62 of 157
- Best VPS for E-commerce #63 of 157
- Managed VPS Hosting #25 of 59
- Best Redis VPS #67 of 157
- Best VPS for Odoo #67 of 157
- Best VPS for Moodle #67 of 157
- 128 GB RAM VPS #6 of 14
- Best VPS for WordPress #68 of 157
- Best VPS for OpenClaw #71 of 157
- Best Gaming VPS #73 of 157
- Best VPS for Mastodon #73 of 157
- Best VPS for Dokploy #52 of 111
- Best VPS for n8n #56 of 118
- Best TeamSpeak VPS #76 of 157
- Best FiveM VPS #81 of 157
- Best Docker VPS #62 of 118
- Best VPS for GitLab #80 of 152
- VPS for Email Marketing and Mail Servers #68 of 129
- Best Magento VPS #83 of 157
- Storage VPS (500 GB+ Disk) #39 of 72
- SSD VPS Hosting #82 of 151
- Best VPS for Django #86 of 157
Alternatives to Cloudways
Providers closest to Cloudways by region, price and features. LikeVPS, Bluehost VPS and DigitalOcean are the nearest matches.
| # | Provider | Plan | $/month | RAM | $/GB RAM | Locations | Windows | Trustpilot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lite 2.0 | $10.00 | 2 GB | $5.00 | 26 | Yes | — | |
| 2 | NVMe 2 | $5.69 | 2 GB | $2.85 | 9 | No | 4.5 (31,911) | |
| 3 | Basic 512 MB (s-1vcpu-512mb-10gb) | $4.00 | 512 MB | $8.00 | 13 | No | 4.5 (2,581) | |
| 4 |  Akamai Cloud (Linode) |
Nanode 1 GB | $5.00 | 1 GB | $5.00 | 26 | No | 2.5 (207) |
| 5 | Spark | $3.69 | 1 GB | $3.69 | 9 | No | 4.8 (1,125) | |
| 6 | NVMe 2 GB | $16.00 | 2 GB | $8.00 | 19 | No | 4.3 (8) |
Frequently asked questions
How much does Cloudways VPS cost?
Plans start at $11.00 per month for DigitalOcean Micro (1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD, 2 TB traffic); Lowest card on the official pricing page ($11/mo). The page shows Micro and Small with the same 2 GB/1 vCPU/50 GB/2 TB specs and the same $0.0357/hr rate (which equals about $24/mo), so the Micro specs may be smaller than displayed; verify in the console. Includes managed stack, free SSL, staging, firewall, 24/7 chat support. Across its published plans the median price is $11.00 per GB of RAM.
Where are Cloudways's data centers?
Cloudways lets you deploy in 9 locations: 3 in North America, 3 in Europe, 2 in Asia and 1 in Oceania. Countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom and United States.
Does Cloudways offer Windows VPS?
Linux-only managed stack (Debian-based); no Windows, no root access, no OS selection.
Does Cloudways have hourly billing?
Yes, servers are billed by the hour with a monthly cap.
Is Cloudways good?
As of October 23, 2026, Cloudways sells 7 VPS plans from $11.00/month (DigitalOcean Micro: 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD, 2 TB traffic) in 9 locations. It ranks #88 of 160 providers overall. Trustpilot rates it 4.6 from 3,766 reviews. Strengths: fully managed stack (security patching, firewall, free ssl, staging, free wordpress migration) with hourly billing and a 3-day no-card trial and choice of five underlying clouds; digitalocean servers deployable in nine regions on four continents. Limitations: roughly 2x the price of the underlying digitalocean droplet, plus paid add-ons for off-site backups ($0.033/gb), cloudflare enterprise and support tiers and no root access, no os choice, no windows and no custom iso; only php-based applications are supported.
Sources
Data was read from these pages (provider data checked October 14, 2026; rankings updated October 23, 2026). Prices change; check the provider's site before buying.
- https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php
- https://www.cloudways.com/en/digital-ocean-cloud-hosting.php
- https://www.cloudways.com/en/vultr-hosting.php
- https://www.cloudways.com/en/linode-hosting.php
- https://www.cloudways.com/blog/new-do-premium-servers/
- https://www.cloudways.com/en/terms.php
- https://www.cloudways.com/en/support-sla.php
- https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/12157984-understanding-monthly-vs-hourly-bill...
- https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5119648-charges-for-off-site-backups
- https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5119615-how-does-cloudways-payment-system-work
- https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5119679-bandwidth-charges-of-infrastructure-providers
- https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5124126-how-to-launch-server-and-add-an-appli...
- https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/acceptable-use-policy
- https://www.whtop.com/review/cloudways.com
- https://bestusavps.com/reviews/cloudways/
- https://www.websiteplanet.com/web-hosting/cloudways/
- https://www.trustpilot.com/review/cloudways.com