WP Alpha vs Cloudways
An honest comparison for WordPress site owners weighing up Cloudways. Where Cloudways is the better choice, this page says so.
Side by side
| Compared | WP Alpha | Cloudways |
|---|---|---|
| Server locations | Sydney, Melbourne, London, Chicago | Yes. DigitalOcean Sydney (Sydney also on Vultr, Linode, AWS and Google Cloud). No Melbourne. |
| Entry price | A$29, £15.95 or US$24.95 a month | US$11/mo (DigitalOcean Standard Micro, 1GB RAM, US$0.0164/hr) pay as you go, no term; Premium NVMe Micro US$14/mo. Sydney available. |
| Free migration | Yes, done for you | Yes. Unlimited free WordPress/WooCommerce migrations by Cloudways experts or via their migrator plugin; non-WP apps US$99 each. |
| Updates tested on a staging copy first | Yes | Yes, as a paid add-on: SafeUpdates/Site Manager (from US$3/app/mo) tests updates on a temporary staging copy, rolls back on failure. |
| Backups | Every two hours offsite, plus your own hourly backups to your own storage | Automated off-site backups, default daily, kept 1 week (set 1 hour to 7 days, 1 to 4 weeks); 1-click restore; storage US$0.033/GB. |
| Malware scanning and cleanup | Daily scans, cleanup included | Free WordPress vulnerability scanner included; Malware Protection add-on (scans and auto-cleans, from US$4/app/mo) is paid, off by default |
| Firewall | Business grade WAF on every plan | Server firewall (Imunify360: IP blocking, bot and DoS protection) included; Cloudflare Enterprise WAF add-on from US$4.99/domain/mo. |
| Traffic limits | None. No metering, no overage fees | Unlimited visits. Micro includes 1TB transfer; DigitalOcean overage charged at US$0.02 per extra GB, pay as you go. |
| Support | 24/7 live chat and tickets | 24/7/365 live chat and tickets on all plans. Phone only with Premium Support add-on (US$500/mo); Advanced Support US$100/mo. |
| Contract | None. 30-day money-back guarantee | No contract; hourly billing, cancel any time; 3-day trial, no card. No money-back guarantee; unused prepaid funds refundable in 3 months. |
Cloudways column read from Cloudways’s own pages on 2026-10-10, prices in USD (site showed USD to this visitor; billing docs say all transactions are exclusively in USD; no AUD option). Sources: www.cloudways.com, www.cloudways.com, www.cloudways.com, www.cloudways.com, www.cloudways.com, www.cloudways.com.
Where Cloudways is the better choice
- Multi-cloud choice: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud per server, each with a Sydney location.
- Pay-as-you-go budgets: hourly billing from US$11/mo with unlimited visits and websites per server, no annual term.
- Non-WordPress or mixed stacks: Magento, Laravel and PHP apps on the same server, plus agency add-ons and client billing.
Switching from Cloudways
We migrate your site for free. We move it, you approve it, then DNS changes, and 99 of 100 migrations happen with no downtime window. Your old host stays live until you say so.
Backups: Server Management > Backup tab (Take Backup Now, restore, download). Files/SFTP: Server Management > Master Credentials (public IP, username, password), or Application Management > Access Details > SSH/SFTP for one app. Cloudways does not sell domains (help docs: ‘Cloudways does not sell domain names’), so there is no EPP code to collect from Cloudways.
Which hosting fits your business?
The simple rule: if you pay for your traffic, in ad spend or in SEO, choose Fully Managed. If customers find you on their own, Basic is all you need.
The one to pick if customers find you on their own
Basic Managed Hosting
A reliable site with minimum hassle.
For businesses that win their work through reputation, referrals and repeat customers. Your site needs to be there, look right and load fast whenever someone looks you up. It is important, but it is not the engine of the business, its traffic needs are small, and it does not need a team working on it.
This is you if
- Your site is a brochure, a portfolio, a local service site or a small store
- Customers find you through referrals, word of mouth or your Google listing
- You are not paying for clicks or running an SEO campaign
- A few hours of downtime would be annoying, not expensive
- You want updates, backups and security handled, and never to think about hosting
On a bad day: the site is slow for an afternoon. We fix it, and nobody is out of pocket.
From A$29 a month
See Basic Managed plansThe one to pick if you advertise
Fully Managed Hosting
For businesses that market online, every day.
For businesses proactively marketing online: running Google Ads or other paid traffic, doing SEO aggressively, including for AI search, and relying on the site day by day, sometimes hour by hour, to generate leads, customers and sales. Downtime and issues have a serious impact on the bottom line.
This is you if
- You run Google Ads, Meta ads or other paid traffic to the site
- You invest in SEO, in Google and increasingly in AI answers, and being found is tied to revenue
- The site brings in enquiries, bookings, calls or orders every day
- An hour of downtime, a broken form or a slow checkout costs real money
- You chose the hosting, and you do not want to be the one who gets the 7am call
On a bad day: the site is slow for an afternoon while your ads keep running. You pay for every click and lose the enquiries. Our job is to make sure that day does not happen, and to catch it fast if it does.
You do not need this if customers find you without ads or an SEO push. Basic will serve you well, and if you ask us, we will tell you so.
From US$99 a month
See Fully Managed plansThe one to pick if you need to prove what works
Fully Managed, with the Conversion Tracking Pack
For businesses that need proof of what the site produces.
Everything in Fully Managed, plus PixelYourSite and CallRail set up and kept working, so every form, sale and phone call is credited to the ad, keyword or page that produced it. Your monthly report shows leads, sales and calls next to speed and uptime.
This is you if
- You want to know which ads and keywords bring in customers, not just clicks
- Phone calls are a large share of your enquiries
- You report marketing results to a boss, a board or a client
- Your ad platforms are bidding without seeing all your conversions
On a bad day: a plugin update quietly stops your forms reporting to Google Ads, and the bidding drifts for weeks before anyone notices. We test the tracking on a schedule, so it is days, not weeks.
Any Fully Managed plan, plus US$99 a month and a US$295 setup
See what is in the packWhat customers say
These guys helped us optimise and improve website performance in no time at all. Great job. Support side of the business is also very responsive as well.
Very professional, efficient and quick service. Brendan and Ash both very responsive and kept me up to date.
Best and fastest service in this business.
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