cloudways review 2021,

Cloudways Web Hosting- Review (MAY 2021)

Free Domain & 50% off Shared Hosting

Introduction

Cloudways is a cloud hosting provider built on top of the DigitalOcean, Linode, Google Cloud, AWS, and Vultr cloud providers.

It helps you leverage the power of these cloud providers without the hassle of having to deal with server-level content – so you can focus on your business rather than all the technology.

Firstly, this Malta-based company works with five top cloud providers—DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud. These five provide the basic infrastructure, but you don’t need to set up a direct account with them because Cloudways will set things up for you. As a managed hosting platform, Cloudways will help you deploy your website in just a few clicks and within minutes. It supports not only WordPress but also Joomla, Drupal, Laravel, Magento, PHP, and other open-source tools.

Another attractive aspect of Cloudways is its flexible pricing. The company operates on a “pay-as-you-go” structure, making Cloudways an excellent choice for small to medium-sized businesses and users with limited budgets. Read this Cloudway review to learn more about this cloud-based hosting provider.

                                   

Installation and Migration

When you are getting started with Cloudways, you need to set up a server first. And then, inside that, you can install many applications.

Any server can contain multiple applications. You can also choose its size (which you measure later), and the location.

At the time of writing this review, Cloudways offers applications like WordPress, Magento, Laravel, PHP, etc. for quick installation. However, if you have developmental knowledge, you can install pretty much any app.

When it comes to migration, it has a feature called “staging URL”, it helps you a lot in developing your website even before changing the nameservers of your domain. This process eases the migration and installation process.

When it comes to migration of your site, they have a wordpress plugin called “Cloudways WordPress Migrator”, it works well, but it has some bugs.

For example, in my case, when I migrated my live sites to Cloudway and changed the nameservers, the live sites had all internal links as their staging URLs – “https: // wordpress-xxxxxx-xxxxxx. cloudwaysapps.com/”.

I failed to identify the issue properly. I realized this only after looking through my analysis and people visiting those non-existent URLs.

I started losing traffic.

Once I realized the issue, I immediately ran find-replace to convert all staging URLs to live URLs.

When I reached out to technical support regarding the bug, they told me that the plugin contained a bug (which seems not to have been fixed in a long time – seeing me on older forums).

Server and application management

As I told you earlier, you will have servers, and under them, you will have applications. Now in this section, let’s look at all the management options available at both the server and application level.

As you can see here, you have various options. First, you have sections for managing your “master credentials”, resource monitoring, services (such as caching), settings and packages, security, scaling, backup, and SMTP.

Resource management is a feature I’ve used countless times, as servers were often going down due to unexplained CPU spikes (more on this later).

Sometimes, even though no processes were shown due to CPU spikes, CPU usage was shown as 100% (even on my very low-traffic portfolio sites) and when I reached support So they insisted I upgrade the plans (it didn’t help )

This did not give me peace of mind. Who knows when the CPU spikes will reoccur and spoil my vacation?

All these options are available for application management. The main ones are domain management, SSL certificates, application settings, and Cloudways CDN (which costs you extra money).

Overall, you have lots of options. But sometimes, you need to log in to your SSH or SFTP to issue commands and make server-level changes.

Talking about UI / UX, the speed of the interface can be improved a lot. This is very bad when making instant changes.

E-commerce and security

Cloudways app library contains several e-commerce tools, including the popular Magento and Prestashop platforms. I used Magento to create an eye-catching store in just a few minutes by dragging and dropping website elements.

In terms of security, as a managed cloud hosting platform, Cloudways engineers keep your installation safe from attacks by issuing regular operating system and firmware upgrades. In addition, Cloudways offers a free Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, which should be considered essential data protection if you plan to sell the product. In addition, Recommended Rackspace Email comes with Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) authentication technology for added security.

Customer Service

Cloudways offers 24/7 customer service, so you’ll be able to reach anyone around the clock. However, talk to a human if you want. You will need to fill out a form to request a phone or Skype call.

You also have the option to speak to a customer service representative via web chat. That way, you can get an answer in an instant fashion. I never waited more than a few seconds before a Cloudways representative fielded one of my chat questions.

The team is also very knowledgeable. The members gave me accurate information about the difference between cloud hosting and traditional hosting and the company’s payment structure. I also found an infrastructure-as-a-service primer.

Cloudways refund policy is not the typical 30-, 60-, or 90-day money-back guarantee you get with most other web hosts. In fact, the structure is so detailed that Cloudways customer service team just sent me this link. That’s a lot to digest.

Cloudways Pros and Cons

Pros-

  • The infrastructure is managed by DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud.
  • They have really feature-rich management features built-in to their interface.
  • You get SSH access to your server.
  • They have really good project and team management features.
  • Very easy to set up.
  • Excellent Uptime.
  • Supports multiple apps.
  • Multiple flexible account levels.
  • Pay-as-you-go plans.
  • You can try the service for free before signing up.
  • Site cloning.

Cons-

  • Their technical support is lacking in understanding and is not helpful at all. For “expedited customer support” (as they call it), they charge you $100/month and $500/month.
  • Suitable only for those who are comfortable with Linux commands and server-side of things.
  • No more than a cloud management panel built on top of pre-existing servers.
  • Their migration plugin is full of bugs and unreliable.
  • No DDOS Protection.
  • They do not support the email feature – you need to pay extra.

Cloud-based web hosting services are common now, but Cloudways does a number of interesting things with its cloud hosting that make it stand out in a growing field. It lets you choose from five platforms, including Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, offers wallet-friendly pay-as-you-go plans, and even lets you try out a trial without whipping up a credit card. Lets sign up for the run. The brightness is slightly dampened by the lack of features like domain registration and included email. Nevertheless, this excellent cloud hosting service is worth considering.

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