Cloudways Autonomous is the new high-availability WordPress hosting launched in 2024. With this plan, Cloudways is directly competing with WP Engine and Kinsta, which offer auto-scalable hosting solutions at the same price.
Powered by Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), it has features like Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, Unlimited PHP workers, and Object Cache Pro.
As part of the Hostingstep testing methodology, we launched a test site on Cloudways Autonomous to measure performance. I collected the speed, uptime, and load testing data and compared it to the regular Cloudways flexible plan and other managed hosts like WP Engine.
Cloudways Autonomous Review Summary
Cloudways Autonomous is an excellent choice if you are looking for a high traffic wordpress hosting service. We sent 500 constant client loads, and it handled all the load without any errors and offered a 20 ms average response time (lower is faster).
The website didn’t struggle at any point during our test. The uptime is 100% all through the test. It scored an average TTFB of 348 ms, measured from 22 North American locations for every 1-minute interval (a total of 43800 tests a month). The TTFB performance is one of the best among other hosts we’ve tested so far. In total, it offers the best performance in load handling, TTFB, and uptime.
Cloudways Autonomous Pros
Cloudways Autonomous Cons
Starts at $35/month [get $30 off for 3 months here]
Pricing
The Cloudways Autonomous plan starts at $35/month. It comes with 1 WordPress application, 15 GB Disk space, 30k visitors, and 100 GB Bandwidth. There is a 30% OFF coupon code.
The pricing is on par with WP Engine and Kinsta, which have similar disk space and bandwidth limits. Cloudways slightly offers a higher 30k visitors compared to 25k visits on the other two managed hosts.
Cloudways Autonomous – Performance
The performance is measured by the following tests: Load handling, Speed (TTFB), and Uptime.
Load Handling:
The load handling performance is measured by sending 500 constant client loads for a minute to the test site. The recorded average response time is 20ms with no timeout, 400/500, or network errors. The max response time is 490 ms, and the minimum response time is 9 ms.
This indicates that it is a great, high-availability hosting service for WordPress. It can easily handle high traffic on your WordPress site.
Speed:
The Speed TTFB is measured with Pingdom from 22 North American locations for every 1-minute interval (a total of 43,800 tests a month).
Based on three months of data, the average TTFB of Cloudways Autonomous is 338 ms.
| Month | Speed |
|---|---|
| March 2024 | 348 ms |
| April | 322 ms |
| May | 342 ms |
In the same time period, Cloudways Flexible plan recorded an average TTFB of 388 ms.
Uptime:
The average uptime of the autonomous site for three months is 100%.
This is again a perfect score as one can expect from a premium priced hosting service. The uptime is measured from the same 22 North American regions.
Features:
Cloudflare Enterprise CDN:
The Cloudflare Enterprise CDN comes pre-installed with full-page caching enabled by default. Cloudways also utilizes Cloudflare Enterprise for DDoS mitigation.
If you check on the Cloudflare official site, the Enterprise pack costs more than $200/month, but with Cloudways, we have a cost-saving approach.
Though many companies now offer Cloudflare Enterprise on their hosting stack, Cloudways is the only player that can use it on top of Google Kubernetes, which is known for its reliable auto-scalable solution.
Object Cache Pro:
Object Cache Pro is priced at $79/month and helps optimize database queries. Cloudways includes this for free on all its plans. If you run a resource-hungry site, a powerful CDN like Cloudflare alone can’t help you at the front; a powerful backend performance can only be offered with a service like Object Cache Pro.
Cloudways has a long history of working with Object Cache Pro on its previous plans, so the integration should speed up your backend performance. The data can be seen via WordPress dashboard and option to manage can be seen.
Staging:
The staging environment is easy to set up with a 1-click push and pull option. That means whatever the changes you made in staging can be moved to the production site at 1-click and vice-versa from production to pull.
I created a staging site at 1-click. When you select Manage Environment takes you to staging site settings where Push and Pull options appear.
Backup and Restore:
Cloudways offers 14 days of backup and restore with an option to take manual backups when needed. I checked the logs and saw that the backups are created data-wise with an option to restore at a single click.
The process is simple and simple hover over any of the dates and the restore process starts after few confirmations.
How to setup Cloudways Autonomous?
The Cloudways Autonomous application can be installed after purchasing your hosting plan. Login to Cloudways control panel and click on Add Application.
The following screen will appear. Enter the Name of the application and select your preferred data center region. After that, choose WordPress or Woocommerce and finally click on the Add Application.
The setup is some simple and in the next screen, you will get the Autonomous site with credentials including login and password are auto created. Click the Manage Access button and the domain management will be shown.
Enter the desired domain name and a CNAME record will be generated. Enter the details in your DNS management tool and the Autonomous site will be live.
There are four tabs to explore: Overview, Performance, Workflow/Tools and Intelligence.
Overview: Get access to site details like location and PHP version. Scroll down and see the option to create staging environment and below that you will get logs such as Total visits, disk space usage and bandwidth. There is also a quick settings menu with access to SSH/SFTP, domain management and database access.
Performance: This tab gives access to Object Cache Pro and Cloudflare CDN setings.
Workflow/Tools: Access to most common features like Backup/restore, PHP settings and Staging environment setup. We have explained all these settings in features section above.
Intelligence: This tab shows the logs and traffic analtyics data.
Concluding
Cloudways Autonomous is a potential alternative to WP Engine and Kinsta. The earlier Flexible plan lacked features like auto-scaling; it comes with manual CDN integration and many technical stuff that needed to be managed properly.
Cloudways fixed all these issues and made this autonomous plan look like a plug and play thing. One can simply add a domain, choose a data center, and make the site live in seconds. It is definitely worth a try.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need to upgrade to Cloudways Autonomous plan?
Cloudways Autonomous comes with auto-scalable hosting solutions. Hence, if your existing Cloudways server often hits 100% CPU usage, upgrading to autonomous is a wise choice. If there are no CPU issues, stay with your current flexible setup.
How to migrate to Cloudways Autonomous?
The company offers one free managed migration. You can also use their Cloudways Migrate WordPress plugin to migrate any number of sites.
Will my pricing go up in Cloudways Autonomous?
All the new plans come with 30% OFF for the first three months, and then the regular pricing will be applicable. The company is known for not increasing its prices, so you will stay on your pricing plan for a long period.