Closte Vs Cloudways 2023: Which Host is Fastest?

This post is a comparison of Closte Vs. Cloudways. The hosts, Closte and Cloudways, are compared in terms of performance, support, and pricing. 

Closte Vs Cloudways – Introduction

Closte is a WordPress cloud hosting powered by Google Cloud and LiteSpeed. It comes with pay-as-you-go pricing with the best features like

• Automatic core updates
• High security by default
• Staging sites
• Google CDN
• Free Migration.

You can check our Closte Review to know more about its performance and pricing.

Cloudways is the managed Cloud hosting that offers WordPress hosting services. Cloudways claims to provide unmatched performance, reliability, and 24/7 support with features like

• Options to choose from five cloud providers
• Innovative control panel
• Managed Security
• Built-in Cache
• 24/7/365 support

Their plan starts at $10 per month and offers many plans for upgrades.

Closte Vs Cloudways – Performance

I ran the following tests to compare the two hosts’ performance.

Server Response Time

A fast server response time is the basis for any good hosting service. Based on our testing, the Closte site recorded a 328 ms average response time while Cloudways was similar with a 324 ms response time. Since the difference is not so big, I did one more test to check the global response time (TTFB)

Based on this test, Cloudways is at least 100 ms faster than Closte in European locations.

Overall, Closte is not bad, but Cloudways is impressive here. If you have your target audience in America and Europe, then Cloudways should be your ultimate choice.

Uptime

Both Closte and Cloudways recorded 100% uptime during our test. As months go, I will update this section with more uptime data. Now, both the hosts are winners when it comes to uptime.

Load Testing

I ran three load tests to extract the best of the two hosts. 

• Clients Per test (1000 clients in 1 min) – Clients will be evenly distributed throughout the load testing. 
• Maintain Client Load (50 clients in 1 min) – Constant client maintained throughout the test
• Maintain Client Load (1000 clients in 1 min) – Same as above with high client load.

In test #1, Closte records a 32 ms average response time while Cloudways took 10 ms to handle 1000 clients per test.

In test #2, Closte records a 415 ms response time and fails to handle the client load. Again, Cloudways came with a fast response time of just 16 ms.

In test #3, Closte and Cloudways performed similarly in the first 10 seconds. After that, Closte struggled with ups and downs handling the load and eventually failed after the 40th second. Like previous tests, Cloudways produced top-notch results, and the graph shows Cloudways handled the load consistently without any errors.

Touted to be performance-focused, Closte’s scores are not impressive while doing load tests. Their Maintain Client Load (50 clients in 1 min) is the slowest among the 18 hosts I’ve tested and mentioned in this Fastest WordPress hosting post. Overall, when it comes to loading testing, Cloudways is the absolute winner. 

Core Web Vitals

These two hosts’ Core Web vitals score is similar, listed below. Both the hosts are helpful if you’re focused on improving your Largest Contentful Paint, TBT, and CLS score.

Summary: If performance is your criteria, then Cloudways is the clear winner beating Closte in all tests.

Closte Vs Cloudways – Pricing

As discussed, Closte comes with pay-as-you-go pricing, and the Cloudways plan starts at $10 per month. In simple terms, If you like Closte, create a new site with them and hold till you get a bill of less than $10 per month.

However, if your monthly pricing is above $10, you should use Cloudways to offer better performance, control pricing, and live chat support. 

Support

Closte provides support for their platform-only issues and not your WordPress site issues. If you’re tech-savvy, go with Closte and manage support independently. Cloudways offers live chat support, and you can connect with WordPress support agents, while it may take a few hours to get a ticket response from Closte.

Closte Vs Cloudways – Features

Control Panel: Both hosts offer a custom control panel with an easy-to-use interface. You will get familiar with using it for a few days. 

CDN: Closte uses Google CDN, while Cloudways has its own CDN powered by Cloudflare Enterprise. The thing to note is Cloudways CDN is an add-on available at $4.99 per site, while Closte charges based on pay-as-you-go pricing. 

Staging Sites: You can create staging sites based on your need. The thing to note, Closte charges separately for staging sites. So, till you delete it, charges will be calculated.

Concluding

Both Closte and Cloudways are good on their own terms. Closte helps anyone get started for cheap while you need to start at $10 per month at Cloudways, and they provide you customer support, faster performance, and justify the price. Overall, I recommend Cloudways over Closte.