This comparison is for 2 of the best WordPress hosting services available today, but they are entirely different. The main difference is the control panel that you use to configure your hosting and having dedicated resources. Siteground uses cPanel where Cloudways has its own custom build control panel. So the benefit of cPanel with Siteground is that you can have email accounts on the service, a file manager, DNS management and much more. But the downside is that cPanel 100% slows your hosting down, it’s just a fact. This is where Cloudways shines because you get dedicated resources with an easy to use control panel that is not cPanel. But with that, you don’t get some conveniences like hosting email, a file manager, DNS manager, etc. Siteground and all other WordPress shared hosting will never be as fast as Cloudways. With regards to support, Siteground wins in that department, they have exceptional support. Cloudways support is good, but not exceptional. So it all really depends on your priorities and what matters most to you.
Cloudways Vs Siteground 2024
by Adam Preiser updated Feb 23, 2024
Cloudways in a managed cloud server service where you choose the cloud provider and Cloudways connects their platform to it which makes it incredibly easy to manage. You pay a small monthly premium vs going direct in exchange for the management platform and support when you need it.
SiteGround is a highly recommended web host online because they have catered to WordPress users and yet still have affordable pricing. They are most known for their fast performance and equally fast support.
Cloudways Pros
- Choose From 5 Cloud Hosting Services
- Insanely Fast Servers
- Easy To Use Control Panel
- 24/7 Support & Live Chat
- Free SSL Certificates
- One Click Staging For WordPress
- Free WordPress Caching Plugin
SiteGround Pros
- Free SSL Certificate
- FAST Knowledgable Support
- WordPress Staging Enviroment
- Free Website Migrations
- Daily Backups
Cloudways Cons
- Doesn’t Include Email Hosting
- Lacks File Manager
- Support Can Be Technical
- Can’t Register a Domain Name
- Bigger Server Means a Bigger Fee
- Multisite SSL Limited To 100 Sites
SiteGround Cons
- Usage Is Metered / Limited
- When Going Over Limits, Your Website Is Throtlled
- Lacks Malware Removal
- Renewal Price Is High
- Easy To Get Kicked Off Service For High Usage
Ease Of Use
The service is extremely easy to use, but you have to understand certain technical things for a smoother experience.
Ease Of Use
Service is super easy to use and they have exclusive features for WordPress users such as staging, migrations, performance optimizations and more.
Price / Value
While the normal servers are an incredible value, as you scale your server up, the premium you pay also goes up and can get pricy.
Price / Value
You really can’t beat the value on the initial offer that saves you 70% when ordering. However, when you renew, be ready to pay full price.
Support
In the past Cloudways support needed improvement, but over the first half of 2019, I have experienced a huge improvement with their support.
Support
Everyone raves about SiteGround support and I will agree that it’s better than most. It’s not perfect though, I have some issues that they didn’t fix properly.
48 thoughts on “Cloudways Vs Siteground”
I got an a account with Siteground for my premium clients using a discount code. I was disappointed that I only got one Cpanel and any other accounts had to be add-on domains vs a Cpanel for every account like I had with other shared hosting accounts for a fraction of the $240 USD / yr cost for GrowBig. Also after just 10 small WordPress websites I started maxing out my innode usage which was a surprise. The knowledge of the live chat support was mediocre but the support ticket techs are excellent. Performance is pretty good but my lower cost hosting plans are catching up as they upgrade.
Most people seem to start with SiteGround then when their renewal comes up, switch to Cloudways.
Yea and I get it. For the same cost of the renewal, you can get dedicated resources and more performance on Cloudways.
Hi
whats the alternative to siteground gogeek plan on cloudways ?
Thanks
sorry i meant the alternative to growbig plan
Well anything on Cloudways is gonna be more powerful than SiteGround. Not dissing SiteGround, its a great service, but you get so much more power with Cloudways.
I’m currently using squarespace and it doesn’t seem fast enough or powerful enough to do optimized SEO. I’m not sure why CPanel matters because in the past I used it on bluehost and it was a pain anyway. I did a GTMetrix ping test of all the top hosts you recommend and many had poor performance. The only one that came back in an acceptable time was InMotion and Cloudways. If I want top speed and good support it sounds like cloudways is the best from your review? I’m using business gmail now so email is not a problem and when i used email in CPanel on bluehost it was terrible anyway so not sure why anyone would want to do that. One other question: In squarespace there is some nice built in analytics that show all the keywords people are using to find us. I’ve been using google analytics for a while and I can’t seem to find that level of detail anywhere for my site. Is it possible that squarespace has better analytics? Can this be replicated with something on wordpress. Thanks so much for all your reviews. I’ve been literally scouring them as I plan to do this big transition and all your advice is steering me toward Astra + Elementor + Cloudways or Inmotion.
How are you defining poor performance? A ping test is not going to give you any data to suggest a host is good or bad.
For analytics, you should be looking at google webmaster tools.
i have a 150k visitors per month and it may increase in the future, what is the best managed hosting for wordpress? Kinsta is too expensive as my website is a blog, no download or woocommerce. I am thinking about cloudways, but i do not know how to choose, is it secure? Currently, i am using siteground shared plan. Will it be faster than siteground? Is there any other hosting? I want hassle free and only focus on creating content. Thank You
Cloudways will be much faster then Siteground and it’s a lot less expensive then Kista. Kinsta is going to get you excellent customer service, this is where the higher cost is going to come from.
If the cost is a concern, Cloudways will be your best bet.
Excellent review Adam. You’ve really helped my thinking.
Please, I want to build an online course creator website like UDEMY, teachable etc, where there will be a lot of intructors managing their courses. Which Hosting can you prescribe for such considering the relatively large audience and which LMS is best for such?
Thanks.
You will be best off with Cloudways, more affordable and more powerful.
It seems that SiteGround offers managed cloud hosting packages now. How does that compare to Cloudways?
Thank you for your reviews
They don’t it’s always been the same thing. If you look at all their plans, they are exactly the same, but they have different pages with different named for SEO purposes only.
Adam,
I have just found this page and it is extremely useful. I have seen and referred to many other advice posts that you have published in the past and I take my hat off to you. I have been using EC2 on AWS for several years but prefer now to have a managed service that does not tax my minimal knowledge of server management. The info that you have provided comparing Cloudways with SiteGround has been enormous help …. so I just wanted to thank you for all your efforts. All the best to you.
Nick
Oh glad to hear that you found this helpful. Yea I used to use Linode direct, but I much more prefer having a control panel and access to support with Cloudways.
Adam,
Just read your other blog on Swift WP plug-in and pasting comments below.
Now with additional info as above ( Cloudways lack of email/ file manager/DNS management and no domain registration), what is a good combo of plugins on WP/Woo to make Cloudways equivalent to cPanel functionality?
Which domain registrar is great with Cloudways Digital Ocean and what is the extra cost?
——Swift comment—
Hey Adam,
Just fantastic ! After reading I was convinced Swift + SiteGround was the way to go and save $$.
You have expanded the Swift details greatly, and convinced me to look at Cloudways…
Suggestions:
1. Links to Adam and Comments in byline are not working.
2. The comments are restricted to WordPress members only? ( I need to revive.)
Questions:
1. What is this talk (from a comment) re: lack of File Manager on Cloudways?
What is important here and alternates?
2. Does Cloudways have a Webmail feature like cpanel?
I am thinking of using a simpler way than MailChimp or MailerLite where I am afraid emails could be lost in the recipients’ Gmail Promo or Spam tags.
3. Do I need to use an email optimizer in WordPress to make sure SMTP is properly used given php issues ( resolved in php 7+?)
Cheers buddy ?
Shippy.
Cloudways doesn’t offer email or an email viewer. Ultimately its better to not have email hosting with your web host. I personally just get an extra really cheap cPanel hosting plan just for email along with Cloudways. But many people use Google Apps.
And Cloudways doesn’t have a file manager. I personally use an FTP program which I am sure if you are the type of person to use Cloudways then you most likely are fine configuring an FTP program. I rarely need it but sometimes it does come in handy, but I think they are adding a file manager in 2020.
i do not understand what does it mean if there is no filemanager. Where do you pay cPanel hosting plan? really need help. hope you reply
That means there is no web interface to access the files that make up your website. It’s not the end of the world though, you can use an FTP program, but that is a little technical to setup. There is no cPanel with either of these hosts, they have their own custom panels.
Why CloudWays has an 85% reliability score?
That is a great question. And a good time to revise it based on current experiences.
Hi Adam,
I am wondering what plugin you use to create the review itself. I understand you are using Astra theme with Beaver Builder or Elementor, but I like your fancy review with the speedometer that tracks up. What review plugin is that?
It’s done in Beaver Themer. However, I am soon going to switch it over to Elementor.
Hey Adam.
I have had experience with both builders. IMHO, Elementor is full of bugs that destroy usability. Beaver Builders just works! I used to swear by Elementor but they are way more intent on building meaningless features than fixing the existing bugs. Think carefully!
Yea, not my experience in the slightest, but thanks for adding to the convo.
Hey Adam…
I need a video tutorial on Cloudways platform… Please…
Working on that right now and will have it out this week.
I am starting with a new website designing business, Can you suggest something better from your experience?
thanks
These two are pretty much the best for that. However Cloudways is probably a better environment because it has more tools for someone that is hosting websites for clients.
I switched over some sites from siteground to cloudways. But i’m very confused on how to set-up the email account and such. I have one website with like 10 active emails, they seem to have an option to pay 1$ per email per month. But just to handle 10 e-mails that each receive maybe 5-10 emails a month seems a bit expensive. You have any advise on this? There also seem to be other services but I don’t really understand for what they are for, like sendgrid or mailgun?
Yea so that is one of the negatives with Cloudways. It’s a good thing an a bad thing really. Unfortunately, email hosting will cost around that $1 per month per email. However many email hosting providers offer a catch-all feature. So you can have 1 email address, but it can receive emails sent to other email addresses on that domain. So I would ask for that.
Leave email to shared hosting on siteground. Take a cheap plan and configure DNS settings to send email from SiteGround. Enjoy Cloudways
I do something like this.
hi, may i know how to hosted by cloudways and at the same time the email account was hosted by other service provider with the same domain name ?
Yea I need to make a tutorial on that. It’s easy, but it involves DNS entries and most people don’t know what that is :-).
Hi Adam, Thanks for the information. Really great information.
Two questions:
Firstly, would I be right in thinking that Site Ground offer better user support (especially for non techies?).
Secondly, are there any WordPress hosting offers that allow you to disable caching/speed type Plugins in WordPress because it’s managed another way or managed for you? I can’t seem to get speed issues resolved despite trying different plugins and Cloudflare etc (maybe because I’m not a techie :P)
Thank you x
Yea the SiteGround support is pretty stellar. It’s top notch in my personal experience. They now have server-side caching, which is ideal. They are more of a managed WordPress hosting service.
Exactly how much faster is Cloudways versus a managed VPS? If you use an unmanaged VPS, you don’t have to use CPanel at all. Shouldn’t this then as fast as Cloudways – particularly if you use a CDN?
cPanel uses a lot of resources. This is why all the managed WordPress hosts don’t use it. Also, you are limited in the exact server stack that you can have. So it’s faster, but is it faster enough that you would have a noticeable difference, I don’t know. I think you would see it most if there is a heavy load on your site.
hey adam,i am the biggest fan of you.But i am going to start an ecommerce store but i confuse in between this two hosting.Which one is your reccomandation for ecommerce store.
You will get better performance from Cloudways, but better support at Siteground. Both will be fine for an Ecommerce website.
Siteground has a caching switch in your cpanel that you can easily turn on and off. To say they FORCE something on you when you can easily turn it off is a lie… lying to deceive your readers to get SEO or lying out of lack of knowledge is still deception.
Why do you immediately have to suggest that I am lying in some way? I think that speaks more to you then it does to me that this is the first place that you go in your mind. I think a more rational comment, or balanced, would be to say “hey not sure if SiteGround forced caching in the past, but they don’t today. Just letting you know if you wanted to update what you wrote.”
John seems like a grumpy old man… Lol @John, relax buddy… things change all the time. Let’s not assume or be quick to judge in a negative way. Adam is changing lives for the better! Always learning something new from this guy…
Okay back to Hosting… @Adam, I have about 15 websites I’m managing for my clients and a few personal sites. I think I’m ready to upgrade my hosting. Currently paying $101.50 per month at WPGateway… Looked at all your hosting reviews and it sounds like SiteGround is the better option for me because of support (important for us non super techie folks) and CPanel. My clients and I personally like adding emails when needed. CPanel makes that pretty easy. If you have multiple client sites you’re managing or planning to build a digital agency, what hosting would you personally use?
The cost of Siteground is going to get expensive. If you’re hosting websites for clients it’s typically better to have reseller hosting so you can set up an individual cPanel account for each one of your clients. You can try to get one Siteground account and have multiple clients in their but you can’t give the client access to its because everyone else’s website will be there. So in order to have these separate cPanel accounts with Siteground it’ll get very expensive very quick. Now if you went the Cloudways route the big negative there is that you can’t host email. So it’s a tough call.
Good on you Adam – – – some people????
great response!!!
thank you for your review!