Compared by record
Five hosts compared with Cloudways on reported problems and price, with the question that matters most when you move: who looks after the server?
Linode has the strongest record of these 6 right now, with 19 reported problems and no major outage in the last 90 days. Kinsta and Pantheon come next. Cloudways sits 6th, with 12 reported problems in the last 90 days, up 98.31% of the time.
| # | App | Now | Uptime | Problems, last 90 days | Typical fix | Free plan | Paid from | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Linode | Some problems | 100% | 19 | 4 h 32 min | No, $100 credit for 60 days | $5 a month | Visit |
| 2 |  Kinsta | Working normally | 99.83% | 12 | 5 h 31 min | No, first month free | $30 a month, billed yearly | Visit |
| 3 |  Pantheon | Some problems | 99.75% | 17 | 5 h 20 min | Sandbox only, can't go live | $500 a year | Visit |
| 4 |  Hostinger | Working normally | 99.18% | 45 in 38 days | 1 h 8 min | No, 30-day money back | $2.49 a month for 48 months, then $10.99 | Visit |
| 5 |  DigitalOcean | Working normally | 98.41% | 14 | 3 h 18 min | No, $5 credit | $4 a month | Visit |
| 6 |  CloudwaysStarting point | Working normally | 98.31% | 12 | 12 h 38 min | No, 5-day trial | $11 a month | Visit |
Ranked by uptime (the share of time without a major outage, as each company rates its own problems), then time free of any reported problem, then problems per month, all from each company's own status page. Some companies never rate a problem as major, so read the problems column too. Typical fix is the middle time a post stayed open across its whole record, so a company that posts late looks quicker. A low count can mean few problems or few posts. Prices are the lowest paid plan in US dollars unless marked, checked on each company's own site on 1 Nov 2026. See how Appys checks apps.
Cloudways is managed hosting on someone else’s cloud. You pick DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud and a server size, and it handles the software, patching, backups and support. DigitalOcean has owned it since 2022.
The trade-off is control. Your servers sit in Cloudways’ accounts, not yours, there’s no root access, and you can’t bring your own cloud account. Offsite backups are charged by the gigabyte on top of the server.
So there are two different moves. Kinsta, Pantheon and Hostinger keep the server someone else’s problem. DigitalOcean and Linode hand it to you: cheaper, but updates, security and backups become your job. Cloudways’ recent problems are on its Appys page.
Read its uptime with care. In October 2026 that figure was pulled down mostly by one problem: a 31-hour fault with the Rackspace webmail add-on, which the company rated at its top level. If you don’t use that add-on, it says little about your sites.
Managed WordPress with no server to think about
WordPress only, each site in its own container on Google Cloud. The entry plan covers one site, and each extra site is $30 a month, so it suits a few important sites more than a long list of small ones. Migration is free, on weekdays, from its dashboard. There's no email hosting, some caching and backup plugins are banned, and backups are kept for 14 days.
12 reported problems in the last 90 days, up 99.83% of the time; typically fixed in 5 h 31 min.
Developers and larger organisations
WordPress and Drupal with separate Dev, Test and Live environments, priced per site by traffic. Basic is $55 a month or $500 a year, covering 25,000 visits, or 35,000 on the yearly plan. Sandboxes are free but can't go live without a paid plan, and Basic has no object cache or search. A free migration plugin handles sites under 500 MB; larger ones go the manual route.
17 reported problems in the last 90 days, up 99.75% of the time; typically fixed in 5 h 20 min.
Small sites on a tight budget
Managed hosting at a very low entry price, but read the small print: the headline is a 48-month term paid upfront, $119.52, renewing at $10.99 a month. Cloud Startup, its nearest match to Cloudways, is $7.99 on the same terms and renews at $25.99 for 4 CPUs and 4 GB of memory. Migration is free, requested per site from its dashboard.
45 reported problems in the 38 days its record covers, up 99.18% of the time; typically fixed in 1 h 8 min.
Developers who want the server without the middleman
Cloudways' parent company, selling the raw servers. A 1 GB Droplet is $6 a month against $11 for a 1 GB DigitalOcean server through Cloudways, and the gap is what you pay for management. You get full root access, and in return, its own documents say, you're responsible for the server. We found no migration service for Droplets.
14 reported problems in the last 90 days, up 98.41% of the time; typically fixed in 3 h 18 min.
Developers who want plenty of included transfer
Now part of Akamai. The $5 Nanode has 1 GB of memory and 1 TB of transfer, and new accounts get $100 of credit for 60 days. It's self-managed. The Linode Managed add-on, $100 per server a month, covers monitoring and incident response, but not maintenance or updates, so it doesn't turn this into what Cloudways does.
19 reported problems and no major outage in the last 90 days; typically fixed in 4 h 32 min.
There’s no leaving guide, and Cloudways’ own migrator only moves sites onto Cloudways, so use your new host’s migration if it has one. If you’d rather do it by hand, turn on Local Backups for the server and download the latest copy of your files and database by SFTP.
Bring the new site up and test it before you touch the old one. To leave, you back up, delete all servers, remove add-ons and then cancel, and you’re billed up to the deletion date. Cancelling is permanent: Cloudways says all data goes and support can’t restore it. See also the most reliable website builders and web hosts.
Email alerts
Email us once with the app’s name and we’ll tell you when it reports a major outage, and when it’s working again. No forms, no account, no password.
You sign up by sending one email, so nobody else can use your address. Every alert has a stop link. Add "all problems" to the subject to hear about small problems too.
