Cloudways Review 2026
Cloudways’ best performing plan, Vultr HF scored 6.7 out of 10, which makes it a Strong tier host in our 2026 rankings. TTFB across Cloudways plans ranges from 421 ms to 451 ms with all plans scoring from 7 to 8 out of 10. The uptime is 99.99% across all 5 Cloudways plans in Q4 2025. Cloudways costs from $14 to $16 per month with same renewal price and a pay-as-you-go model with no contracts.
We have been monitoring Cloudways since 2020 across 5 cloud provider configurations with over 2,457,792 individual performance tests conducted across all Cloudways plans. Additional tests comprise Load testing using Loader.io, global TTFB test in 40 cities using SpeedVitals, and WPBenchmark server hardware scoring.
Cloudways strengths lie in its 99.99% uptime across all plans, strong US and EU speed, no renewal markup, server level control and multi CMS support. The weaknesses are addon CDN and email, which drag its features score to 5.5 out of 10, limiting its overall ranking despite excellent performance.
In this review, we answer the question that most reviews skip: Which of the 5 cloud providers delivers the best value for your money?
Performance Overview
| Metric | Cloudways DigitalOcean Standard | Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium | Cloudways Vultr | Cloudways Vultr HF | Cloudways Linode |
| TTFB (US) | 451ms | 447ms | 421ms | 424ms | 438ms |
| TTFB Score | 7/10 | 8/10 | 8/10 | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Uptime (Q4) | 99.99% | 99.99% | 99.99% | 99.99% | 99.99% |
| Uptime Score | 9.5/10 | 9.5/10 | 9.5/10 | 9.5/10 | 9.5/10 |
| Load Test | 282ms | 284ms | 168ms | 96ms | 295ms |
| Load Score | 5/10 | 5/10 | 6/10 | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Global TTFB | 425ms | 418ms | 444ms | 444ms | 444ms |
| Global Score | 8/10 | 8/10 | 8/10 | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| WPBench | 4.7/10 | 4.9/10 | 4.3/10 | 7.6/10 | 7.2/10 |
| Perf Total | 4.26/10 | 4.42/10 | 4.54/10 | 4.85/10 | 4.54/10 |
| Tier | Average | Average | Strong | Strong | Strong |
| Rank | #26 | #23 | #21 | #17 | #20 |
| Final Score | 6.31 | 6.47 | 6.59 | 6.70 | 6.59 |
| Price | $11/mo | $14/mo | $14/mo | $16/mo | $14/mo |
Cloudways Vultr HF and Vultr are Strong tier but Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium and Standard are Average tier. Cloudways Vultr HF delivers an overall performance of 4.85 out of 10 for $16/month while Cloudways DigitalOcean Standard delivers 4.26 out of 10 for $11/month. We saw consistent uptime reliability across all Cloudways plans regardless of cloud provider in Q4 2025 with an uniform uptime of 99.99%.Â
However, there were WPBench disparity with Cloudways Vultr HF with 7.6, and Cloudways Linode with 7.2, allocating significantly more computation than Cloudways DigitalOcean Standard with 4.7 and Vultr with 4.3.
Cloudways Vultr HF stands out as the clear performance leader with the fastest TTFB of 424 ms, best load handling of 96 ms, and the highest WPBench of 7.6. Cloudways DigitalOcean Standard is the weakest across every metric. The $5 per month difference in cost between Cloudways DO Standard and Vultr HF translates to better performance on every performance metric.
TTFB Response Time
TTFB History – Cloudways DigitalOcean Standard (Monitored Since 2020)
| Year | Avg TTFB | Min TTFB | Max TTFB | Days Monitored | Tests Performed |
| 2020 | 311ms | 237ms | 701ms | 110 | 31,680 |
| 2021 | 306ms | 251ms | 494ms | 365 | 105,120 |
| 2022 | 308ms | 250ms | 643ms | 364 | 104,832 |
| 2023 | 332ms | 253ms | 693ms | 365 | 105,120 |
| 2024 | 404ms | 327ms | 505ms | 366 | 105,408 |
| 2025 | 449ms | 352ms | 666ms | 365 | 105,120 |
TTFB History – Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium (Monitored Since 2022)
| Year | Avg TTFB | Min TTFB | Max TTFB | Days Monitored | Tests Performed |
| 2022 | 315ms | 263ms | 426ms | 267 | 76,896 |
| 2023 | 339ms | 261ms | 441ms | 365 | 105,120 |
| 2024 | 404ms | 326ms | 508ms | 366 | 105,408 |
| 2025 | 460ms | 332ms | 954ms | 364 | 104,832 |
TTFB History – Cloudways Vultr (Monitored Since 2021)
| Year | Avg TTFB | Min TTFB | Max TTFB | Days Monitored | Tests Performed |
| 2021 | 304ms | 233ms | 418ms | 285 | 82,080 |
| 2022 | 309ms | 253ms | 398ms | 364 | 104,832 |
| 2023 | 329ms | 258ms | 582ms | 365 | 105,120 |
| 2024 | 382ms | 297ms | 486ms | 366 | 105,408 |
| 2025 | 424ms | 327ms | 585ms | 365 | 105,120 |
TTFB History – Cloudways Vultr HF (Monitored Since 2021)
| Year | Avg TTFB | Min TTFB | Max TTFB | Days Monitored | Tests Performed |
| 2021 | 310ms | 243ms | 392ms | 285 | 82,080 |
| 2022 | 312ms | 239ms | 680ms | 365 | 105,120 |
| 2023 | 331ms | 258ms | 640ms | 365 | 105,120 |
| 2024 | 375ms | 307ms | 433ms | 366 | 105,408 |
| 2025 | 424ms | 302ms | 945ms | 365 | 105,120 |
TTFB History – Cloudways Linode (Monitored Since 2021)
| Year | Avg TTFB | Min TTFB | Max TTFB | Days Monitored | Tests Performed |
| 2021 | 303ms | 216ms | 392ms | 285 | 82,080 |
| 2022 | 300ms | 239ms | 392ms | 365 | 105,120 |
| 2023 | 333ms | 249ms | 538ms | 365 | 105,120 |
| 2024 | 400ms | 311ms | 516ms | 366 | 105,408 |
| 2025 | 446ms | 320ms | 962ms | 365 | 105,120 |
Cloudways TTFB range is 421 ms to 451 ms and all score from 7 to 8 out of 10. Cloudways Vultr recorded 421 ms and Cloudways Vultr HF with 424 ms. Cloudways Linode recorded 438 ms, Cloudways DO Premium recorded 447 ms, and DO Standard recorded 451 ms. Although there is a spread of 30 ms across Cloudways plans, it’s narrow. Practically, users will not even feel the speed difference on TTFB alone.
Other hosts performance in this TTFB test are WP Engine with 367 ms, Hostinger with 478 ms, Kinsta with 469 ms, Bluehost with 520 ms, and SiteGround with 632 ms. All Cloudways plans beat Hostinger, Kinsta, Bluehost, and SiteGround on raw TTFB. Only WP Engine stands out faster as it comes with Edge CDN integrated which improves the response time a lot. The same Edge CDN is available at Cloudways for $4.99/domain and using it can achieve similar response time of WP Engine.Â
Uptime
Uptime History — Cloudways DO Standard
| Year | Uptime % | Downtime (min) | Outages | Worst Day Uptime |
| 2020 | 99.93% | 107.5 min | 7 | 97.05% |
| 2021 | 99.98% | 102 min | 3 | 93.13% |
| 2022 | 99.99% | 68 min | 5 | 97.19% |
| 2023 | 100.00% | 2 min | 1 | 99.86% |
| 2024 | 99.99% | 62 min | 3 | 95.97% |
| 2025 | 100.00% | 12 min | 8 | 99.72% |
Uptime History — Cloudways DO Premium
| Year | Uptime % | Downtime (min) | Outages | Worst Day Uptime |
| 2022 | 99.98% | 62 min | 4 | N/A |
| 2023 | 100.00% | 1 min | 1 | N/A |
| 2024 | 99.99% | 43 min | 3 | N/A |
| 2025 | 100.00% | 12 min | 5 | N/A |
Uptime History — Cloudways Vultr
| Year | Uptime % | Downtime (min) | Outages | Worst Day Uptime |
| 2021 | 99.98% | 88 min | 2 | 96.04% |
| 2022 | 99.98% | 115 min | 7 | 96.25% |
| 2023 | 100.00% | 17 min | 4 | 99.31% |
| 2024 | 99.99% | 42 min | 2 | 97.15% |
| 2025 | 100.00% | 13 min | 5 | 99.72% |
Uptime History — Cloudways Vultr HF
| Year | Uptime % | Downtime (min) | Outages | Worst Day Uptime |
| 2021 | 100.00% | 1 min | 1 | 99.93% |
| 2022 | 99.99% | 43 min | 3 | N/A |
| 2023 | 100.00% | 4 min | 3 | N/A |
| 2024 | 99.99% | 37 min | 6 | N/A |
| 2025 | 100.00% | 7 min | 5 | N/A |
Uptime History — Cloudways Linode
| Year | Uptime % | Downtime (min) | Outages | Worst Day Uptime |
| 2021 | 100.00% | 14 min | 6 | N/A |
| 2022 | 99.99% | 72 min | 7 | N/A |
| 2023 | 100.00% | 4 min | 2 | N/A |
| 2024 | 99.99% | 36 min | 4 | 98.19% |
| 2025 | 99.79% | 1,093 min | 5 | 56.24% |
In Q4 2025, All the 5 Cloudways plans recorded the same consistent uptime of 99.99% with a score of 9.5 out of 10 each. Other notable hosts in this field are WP Engine with 100%, Kinsta with 99.97%, Hostinger with 99.98%, and SiteGround with 99.97%. Cloudways with 99.99% is among the best in this test.
The annual 2025 uptime data suggests that Cloudways Linode had an annual uptime of 99.97% with 1,093 minutes of downtime, which is over 18 hours and the worst single day uptime was 56.24%. The rest of the Cloudways plans had strong annual uptime with Cloudways DO Standard with 99.998%, DO Premium with 99.998%, Cloudways Vultr with 99.998% and Vultr HF with 99.999%. However, the Cloudways Linode 2025 outage incident is just an outlier and not a pattern since Q4 showed full recovery.
Load Handling
Cloudways Vultr HF recorded an average response time of 96 ms with 0% error, scoring 7 out of 10 and stands out as the best performer among all the plans. Cloudways Vultr recorded 168 ms, which also reflects solid load handling. However, Cloudways DO Standard responded with 284 ms and 2% error, scoring 5 out of 10, which was okay to pass the test but not impressive.Â
Cloudways DO Premium recorded 284 ms with 2.5%, scoring 5 out of 10, despite costing more. Cloudways Linode recorded 295 ms and 2.5% error, scoring 5 out of 10, which makes it the slowest under load. Hence, Cloudways Vultr and Cloudways Vultr HF had zero errors, which means they served every request while the other 3 Cloudways plans dropped 2 to 2.5% of the requests.
Notable hosts in this field are WP Engine with an Elite load handling of 27 ms, Hostinger Business with 31 ms, Kinsta with 40 ms, and SiteGround with 170 ms. Cloudways Vultr HF with 96 ms sits in the strong mid field between Kinsta and SiteGround. While there were 6 out of 34 hosts we tested that FAILED the load test with an error rate over 50%, no Cloudways plan failed.Â
Our testing method involves ramping 0 to 100 concurrent users to the website in 60 seconds and observing how well the website handles the load and if it drops any request. Cloudways Vultr HF’s 96 ms means your site will stay up and running even during a traffic spike with no requests dropped. The other plans such as Cloudways DO Standard/Premium and Linode will also serve most visitors but may drop a small percentage like 2 to 2.5% during a traffic spike.
Server Hardware Test
Cloudways Vultr HF scored 7.6 out of 10 in the WPBenchmark test, which is competitive with managed hosts like Hostinger with 7.4 and Kinsta with 8.8. Even Cloudways Linode has a strong allocation with 7.2. However, Cloudways DO Premium scored 4.9 and DO Standard scored 4.7, indicating below average hardware allocation. Cloudways Vultr scored 4.3, indicating the lowest allocation among all Cloudways plans.
WPBench measures allocated CPU, RAM and disk I/O independent of web server type. LiteSpeed and Apache will have no impact on the WPBench scores. A low WPBench score means the provider has limited resource allocation for the plan.
The WPBench score difference between Cloudways Vultr HF ($16 per month) and Cloudways Vultr ($14 per month) is because of the NVMe storage and higher clock CPUs, which translate into better resource allocation. Cloudways Vultr HF with 7.6 or Cloudways Linode with 7.2 are the only plans that offer adequate compute for plugin heavy WordPress sites or WooCommerce stores.
Global TTFB
Cloudways recorded a global average of 425 ms, scoring 8 out of 10, which puts it in the upper mid tier. We conducted our test without the Cloudflare Enterprise addon. The host recorded an average of 222 ms in the Americas with an excellent TTFB of 58 ms in N. Virginia, 83 ms in Toronto, 145 ms in Dallas, and 242 ms in LA. The TTFB in Latin America was weaker with 505 ms in São Paulo.
Cloudways recorded an average of 316 ms in Europe, which is Strong for a US origin host. The host recorded 247 ms in London, 270 ms in Paris, and 281 ms in Frankfurt. However, the delivery speed was weaker in Northern Europe with 370 ms in Finland and 486 ms in Oslo. The host recorded an average of 707 ms in Asia Pacific, which is clearly weak with 512 ms in Tokyo, 645 ms in Seoul, 655 ms in Sydney, 872 ms in Mumbai, and 964 ms in Delhi.
The other hosts’ performance in this test are WP Engine with 169 ms (edge CDN), Hostinger with 222 ms (Static), Bluehost with 344 ms (Static), Cloudways with 425 ms (no CDN), Kinsta with 557 ms, and SiteGround with 833 ms. Cloudways beats both Kinsta and SiteGround in terms of global TTFB. Further if a Cloudways user enables Cloudflare Enterprise CDN addon for another $4.99 per month, one would see dramatic improvement in global performance.Â
While Cloudways global performance is adequate for US and European audiences, users targeting Asia Pacific audiences can enable the Cloudflare Enterprise addon or switch to WP Engine for a faster delivery speed.
Which Cloudways Plan Should You Pick?
| Plan | Price | Renewal | RAM | CPU | Storage | Bandwidth |
| Cloudways DigitalOcean Standard | $11/mo | $11/mo | 1 GB | 1 Core | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB |
| Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium | $14/mo | $14/mo | 1 GB | 1 Core | 25 GB NVMe | 1 TB |
| Cloudways Vultr | $14/mo | $14/mo | 1 GB | 1 Core | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB |
| Cloudways Vultr HF | $16/mo | $16/mo | 1 GB | 1 Core | 32 GB NVMe | 1 TB |
| Cloudways Linode | $14/mo | $14/mo | 1 GB | 1 Core | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB |
Cloudways Vultr HF stands out as the best overall Cloudways plan as it leads on TTFB with 424 ms, load handling with 96 ms/0% error, and WPBench with 7.6. While Cloudways Vultr HF costs $2 per month more than Cloudways Vultr, it’s worth it since it offers NVMe storage and higher compute. Cloudways Vultr HF for $16 per month is recommended for most users for best performance. However, you can choose Cloudways Vultr for $14 per month since it also offers excellent value.
However, Cloudways Linode for $14 per month has reliability concerns because of its 2025 uptime disaster despite its competitive performance. Cloudways DO Standard for $11 per month is not recommended for any users since the $3 saving is not worth the performance loss. Cloudways DO Premium and Cloudways Vultr are available at the same price of $14 per month. However, Cloudways Vultr wins on TTFB with 421 ms vs 447 ms, and load test with 168 ms/0% vs 284 ms/2.5%. Hence, Cloudways Vultr is a better pick for $14 per month.
Cloudways users are free to upgrade server size or migrate between different cloud providers within the same dashboard anytime they want without any platform lock-in. For most WordPress users on Cloudways, Vultr HF plan for $16 per month offers the best balance of performance and value.
Cloudways vs Competitors
| Metric | Cloudways (range) | Hostinger Business | Kinsta | WP Engine | SiteGround | Bluehost |
| Rank | #17–#26 | #5 | #13 | #6 | #22 | #14 |
| Score | 6.31–6.70 | 8.02 | 7.02 | 7.98 | 6.50 | 6.90 |
| Tier | Avg–Strong | Strong | Average | Elite | Below Avg | Average |
| TTFB | 421–451ms | 478ms | 469ms | 367ms | 632ms | 520ms |
| TTFB Score | 7–8/10 | 7/10 | 7/10 | 9/10 | 4/10 | 6/10 |
| Uptime Q4 | 99.99% | 99.98% | 99.97% | 100% | 99.97% | 99.95% |
| Load Test | 96–295ms | 31ms/0% | 40ms/0% | 27ms/0% | 170ms/0% | 170ms/9% |
| Load Score | 5–7/10 | 9/10 | 9/10 | 10/10 | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Global TTFB | 418–444ms | 223ms | 557ms | 169ms | 833ms | 344ms |
| Global Score | 8/10 | 10/10 | 7/10 | 10/10 | 4/10 | 9/10 |
| WPBench | 4.3–7.6 | 7.4 | 8.8 | 6.5 | 8.4 | 9.6 |
| CDN | Addon | Static | Edge | Edge | Addon | Static |
| Addon | Addon | None | None | Included | Addon | |
| Backups | Daily | Daily | Daily | Daily | Daily | Weekly |
| Intro Price | $14–$16/mo | $3.69/mo | $30.00/mo | $23.00/mo | $2.99/mo | $3.99/mo |
| Renewal | $14–$16/mo | $7.99/mo | $30.00/mo | $30.00/mo | $17.99/mo | $12.49/mo |
Cloudways vs Hostinger Business
Hostinger Business beats Cloudways with a wide margin on ranking with #5 vs #17-26 and on score with 8.02 vs 6.31 – 6.70. The host beats Cloudways best load handling of 96 ms with 31 ms. Hostinger also wins on global TTFB with 223 ms vs 418 ms to 444 ms due to static CDN.
Cloudways, on the other hand, wins on uptime with 99.99% vs 99.98% and TTFB range with 421 ms to 451 ms vs 478 ms. All Cloudways plans win on this metric except Cloudways DO Standard. Hostinger wins on price as it is 4x cheaper at intro than Cloudways with $3.69 per month vs $14 to $16 per month. However, it renews at $12.99 per month, which significantly narrows the 2 year cost gap.
The fundamental difference between the two hosts lies in the type of hosting. While Hostinger is shared hosting, Cloudways is managed cloud, offering server isolation, scalable RAM & CPU, and root level access. Hostinger is shared resources with no scaling control. You can choose Hostinger, if you want a budget host for traffic under 100K per month with no need for server customization. Cloudways is ideal if you need server level control, vertical scaling and consistent cloud isolated performance. Read Hostinger Review
Cloudways vs Kinsta
Kinsta ranks higher than Cloudways with #13 vs #17-26. Cloudways Vultr HF wins on TTFB with 424 ms vs 469 ms and uptime with 99.99% vs 99.97% while Kinsta wins on load test with 40 ms vs 96 ms.
Kinsta also wins on WPBench hardware with 8.8 vs 7.6. However, Kinsta costs nearly 2x more than Cloudways Vultr HF with $30 per month vs $16 per month, while both have no renewal markup. Both hosts are managed cloud platforms but while Kinsta runs on Oracle Cloud, Cloudways allows you to choose from 5 different providers.Â
You can choose Kinsta if you have resource hungry WordPress site (WPBench 8.8) and a fully managed WordPresss specific platform at $35/month. You can choose Cloudways if you want cloud provider flexibility and multiple CMS beyond WordPress for a much lower cost with $14 to $16 vs $30. Read Cloudways Vs Kinsta
Cloudways vs WP Engine
WP Engine is Elite tier and dominates on all performance metrics comprising 367 ms TTFB, 100% Uptime, 27 ms load handling, and 169 ms global TTFB. While Cloudways’ best plan Vultr HF trains on every speed metric and is also $7 per month cheaper, WP Engine comes with built in edge CDN, delivering 2.6x better global performance with 169 ms vs 444 ms.Â
WP Engine is WordPress exclusive while Cloudways supports WordPress, Magento, Laravel and other PHP apps. You can choose WP Engine if you prioritize WordPress performance and are comfortable with the price point of $27/month. You can choose Cloudways if you need multi CMS support, cloud provider choice and acceptable good performance at $7 to $12 per month less. Read Cloudways Vs WP Engine
Cloudways vs SiteGround
All 5 Cloudways plans beats SiteGround on TTFB with 421 ms vs 632 ms, global reach with 418 ms vs 833 ms, and uptime with 99.99% vs 99.98%. SiteGround wins on WPBench hardware with 8.4 vs 7.6 and also includes email hosting for no additional cost. SiteGround’s intro is a lot cheaper than Cloudways with $3.99/month but the renewal price is more than Cloudways with $17.99 per month vs $11 per month.
Cloudways beats SiteGround on global TTFB with 425 ms vs 833 ms, which means SiteGround’s global TTFB is nearly 2x worse than Cloudways. You can choose SiteGround if you buy the cheapest possible year 1 price with included email. However, if you want measurably faster performance at every level with no renewal shock and willing to handle email separately, Cloudways is the ideal host for you. (Read Cloudways Vs SiteGround)
Cloudways vs Bluehost
Bluehost ranks slightly higher for some of the Cloudways plans like Vultr HF but lower than others. Bluehost wins on WPBench with 9.6, and is the highest in the field. The host also wins on global TTFB with 344 ms vs 418 ms to 444 ms due to its static CDN. Cloudways on the other hand, wins on TTFB with 421 ms to 451 ms vs 520 ms, uptime with 99.99% vs 99.95%, and load test with Cloudways Vultr HF recording 96 ms/0% vs Bluehost’s 170 ms/9% error.
Bluehost has a cheaper intro price with $3.99 vs $14 to $16 but renews at $12.49 per month. Cloudways wins on backups with daily backups vs weekly backups, which shows a meaningful data safety gap. You can choose Bluehost if you want the highest raw server power with a WPbench of 9.6, budget pricing and can accept weekly backups and occasional load errors. For cleaner uptime, daily backups, zero load handling errors, and no renewal surprise, Cloudways Vultr or Cloudways Vultr HF is the right plan to go with.
Who Should Use Cloudways
WordPress developers looking for server level control without managing raw infrastructure can choose Cloudways since the host provides SSH access, server scaling, staging environment with 424 ms TTFB and 99.99% uptime.Â
Small business owners with target audiences in the US or Europe can use Cloudways as the host recorded an average of 222 ms in the Americas and 316 ms in Europe for $14 to $16 with no renewal surprises, which makes budgeting predictable.
Users that need to migrate from shared hosting due to resource limitation can use Cloudways as the host offers cloud isolation and high scalability. Shared hosting users paying $8 to $18 per month at renewal are paying close to Cloudways prices but for a comparatively worse performance.
WooCommerce stores that need reliable uptime and daily backups can use Cloudways. Further, such stores can benefit from Cloudways high scalability to scale up the resources during sale events. Users who are looking for multi CMS can also use Cloudways since the host supports WordPress, Magento, Laravel, and other PHP apps on the same server.
Who Should NOT Use Cloudways
Budget conscious beginners who need everything included for a nominal price should avoid Cloudways as the host requires you to buy addon like CDN for $4.99 per month and email hosting. This could take the total cost to $20 per month. On the contrary, Hostinger Business for just $3.69 per month includes static CDN, daily backups at a much lower cost than Cloudways. If your budget is under $10 per month, choosing a shared hosting is the practical way to go about it. Â
If your site has heavy Asia Pacific traffic, Cloudways is not the ideal option for you since Cloudways Asia Pacific average is 707 ms without the CDN add-on with the TTFB going as high as 872 ms in Mumbai and 964 ms in Delhi. The ideal hosts to choose in this case would be WP Engine with 246 ms in Asia Pacific or Hostinger Business with 287 ms, which should be measurably better for these audiences.
Non technical users who want cPanel or Plesk should not use Cloudways as the host doesn’t come with any traditional file manager and users who rely on cPanel will find it hard with the steep learning curve of the Cloudways interface. Such users can go with SiteGround or Bluehost as both offer traditional panels.
Users who need maximum server hardware at entry level should not use Cloudways as the host has WPBench score of 4.3 to 7.6 while Bluehost scored 9.6 and SliteGround scored 8.4, indicating more raw server allocation on their cheapest plans. Plugin heavy sites on a tight budget can go with shared hosts with a higher WPBench as this will deliver better compute per dollar.
Our Verdict
Cloudways scored 6.7 out of 10 for the Cloudways Vultr HF plan with a rank of 17 out of 34 providers we tested in our 2026 rankings. We recommend Cloudways Vultr HF if you want a managed Cloud hosting with no renewal markup, 99.99% uptime, and a strong US/European performance, and if you are comfortable managing email separately as the plan doesn’t come with email hosting. We do not recommend Cloudways if you are under a tight budget and your primary audience is in Asia or if you want a traditional cPanel interface.
Among all the 5 cloud providers we tested, Cloudways Vultr HF for $16 per month is our pick while Cloudways Vultr for $14 per month is the runner-up and also offers a good value for money. Cloudways DO Standard for $11 per month recorded the worst performance among all the 5 plans and is not recommended. If Cloudways is not the right fit, you can go with Hostinger Business as it scored 8.03 out of 10 with a rank of 5 and offers 223 ms global TTFB, and static CDN for an intro price of $3.69 per month and a renewal price of $7.99 per month.
This review is based on over 2,457,792 performance tests conducted across 5 Cloudways plans between 2020 and Q4 2025 using tools such as Pingdom, Loader.io, Speed Vitals, and WPBenchmark.
Methodology
We purchase all hosting accounts with our own funds and none of these accounts is a promotional or press account. We purchased all 5 Cloudways plans separately and independently. Our testing tools comprise Pingdom for testing TTFB and uptime every 60 seconds for 24/7, Loader.io for load testing using 0 to 100 concurrent users over 60 seconds, SpeedVitals for measuring global TTFB from over 40 cities, and WPBenchmark to conduct 21 server hardware tests across 5 categories.Â
We conduct over 525,600 tests per provider per year with tests conducted every minute, 24/7/365. We conducted over 2,628,000 Cloudways specific tests alone with 5 Cloudways plans per year. Our scoring method comprises 60% on Performance with 15% on TTFB, 15% on Uptime, 15% on Load handling, 10% on Global speed, and 5% on Hardware, 30% on Features including CDN, Email, and Backups and 10% on Value based on intro price tier.
Our Data period is Q4 2025 (Oct 1 to Dec 31 2025) for our current rankings. For this review, we referred to the historical data from 2020 for Cloudways DO Standard, 2021 for Cloudways Vultr, Cloudways Vultr HF, and Cloudways Linode, and 2022 for Cloudways DO Premium. We tested a total of 34 providers including Cloudways accounts for 5 of these. Our tier classification comprises Elite for a score above 5, Strong for a score between 4.5 to 4.49, Below Average for a score between 3.5 to 3.99 and Poor for anything below 3.5.
Mohan Raj is the founder of Hostingstep.com, where he oversees the independent testing of 25+ web hosting providers. He conducts 525,600+ performance tests per year across 60+ global locations to measure TTFB speed, uptime, load test, core web vitals, and hardware benchmarks. Each provider is tested using independently purchased hosting accounts, backed by verifiable data.