7 Best Cloudways Alternatives in 2026 (Compared)
The short answer: The best Cloudways alternative for most people is Hostinger — fully managed WordPress with LiteSpeed caching from $2.99/mo and no server to size. Kinsta is the best premium alternative (Google Cloud, best-in-class support). Nexcess wins for WooCommerce stores, and DreamHost (DreamPress) is the best long-running, US-based pick. Honestly, Cloudways is still excellent — only switch if you want lower entry pricing, phone support, or a fully turnkey host.
Hostinger — best Cloudways alternative for value in 2026
Managed WordPress with LiteSpeed caching from $2.99/mo. No server sizing, no cloud provider to pick — it just runs.
Key takeaways
- Best value alternative: Hostinger — managed WordPress, LiteSpeed caching, from $2.99/mo.
- Best premium alternative: Kinsta — Google Cloud + support it markets as best-in-class ($30/mo billed yearly).
- Best for WooCommerce: Nexcess — store-tuned caching and Liquid Web support (from $9/mo).
- Best long-running alternative: DreamHost DreamPress — US-based, 30-day refund ($14.99/mo first year, $19.99/mo after).
- You may not need to switch: Cloudways is still one of the best managed-cloud hosts — leave only for a specific reason.
Why people look for a Cloudways alternative
We use Cloudways ourselves, but none of our measured public sites runs there — see the real numbers from the hosts we do run, published September 2026 — so the comparison below rests on published specs, not a hit piece from a disgruntled user; by its specs and market position, it's an excellent platform, and for a lot of people the right answer is "stay." But "cloudways alternatives" is one of the most-searched hosting queries for a reason, and after fielding the question dozens of times the reasons cluster into five buckets:
- Entry pricing. Cloudways starts at $14/mo for the smallest DigitalOcean droplet. If you're running a single small WordPress site, a managed shared host like Hostinger gets you the same "it just works" experience for a third of the price.
- You have to make decisions. Cloudways asks you to pick a cloud provider (DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, GCP), a server size, and a data center. That flexibility is the point for power users — but if you just want managed WordPress with zero infrastructure choices, it's friction.
- No phone support. Cloudways is chat and ticket only. Some businesses want a phone number.
- Email is a paid add-on. You'll pay roughly $1.50/mailbox/mo via the Rackspace integration. Several alternatives bundle email or make it simpler.
- WooCommerce-specific tuning. Cloudways runs WooCommerce fine, but a store doing real revenue benefits from a host that tunes the database and object cache specifically for cart and checkout queries.
None of those are dealbreakers — they're fit problems. Below are the seven hosts we'd actually move a site to, depending on which of those reasons is yours.
How we compare these alternatives
We run our own production sites on Hostinger, so that entry reflects real day-to-day use. We use Cloudways too, but none of our measured public sites runs there and we publish no Cloudways benchmark numbers, so its entry is compared from published specs. We don't have first-hand hosting experience with Kinsta, Nexcess, DreamHost, WP Engine, or Flywheel — those entries are compared from each provider's published pricing, plan specs, and terms of service, checked on the date shown at the bottom of this page.
To be explicit about money: Hostinger and Cloudways are affiliate partners — we earn a commission if you sign up through our links. Kinsta, Nexcess and DreamHost are plain links that pay us nothing. We rank by published specs, pricing, and fit — plus our own hosting experience where we have it — not commission size, and we say so on our disclosure page.
Cloudways alternatives at a glance
Here's how the alternatives stack up against Cloudways itself. The winner row is our top overall pick; Cloudways is included as the baseline you're comparing against.
| Host | Type | Entry price | Best for | Rating | Visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger Win | Managed shared / cloud | $2.99/mo | Value, beginners | Visit | |
| Kinsta | Premium managed | $30/mo (billed yearly) | Premium support, GCP | Visit | |
| Nexcess | Managed (Woo focus) | $9/mo | WooCommerce stores | Visit | |
| DreamHost | Managed (DreamPress 1) | $14.99/mo | Long-running US host | Visit | |
| WP Engine | Premium managed | $28/mo (billed yearly) | Agencies, staging | ||
| Flywheel | Managed (creative) | $25/mo (billed yearly) | Designers, freelancers | ||
| Cloudways | Managed cloud | $14/mo | Scalable managed cloud | Visit |
Notice Cloudways still earns a 4.6 — it's not on this list because it's bad, it's here because you asked for alternatives. If none of the reasons in the section above apply to you, staying on Cloudways is a perfectly good decision.
The 7 best Cloudways alternatives, ranked
Hostinger
Managed WordPress with LiteSpeed caching from $2.99/mo — the turnkey alternative for anyone who doesn't want to size a server.
If you came to this page because Cloudways felt like too many decisions or too much money for one small site, Hostinger is the answer. The thing Cloudways makes you do — pick DigitalOcean vs Vultr, pick a droplet size, pick a data center — Hostinger simply does for you. You sign up, WordPress is installed and LiteSpeed-cached, and that's the whole setup.
We run production sites on Hostinger. By published specs, Hostinger's Unlimited plan is competitive with an entry Cloudways DigitalOcean 1GB plan — mostly because LiteSpeed Cache does real work at the server level. For a personal site, a blog, or a small-business brochure site, you likely won't notice the difference, and you'll pay a fraction of the price.
The honest trade-off: Cloudways lets you resize a server to absorb a traffic spike in seconds, and Hostinger's shared tiers don't scale that way. If you're a power user who specifically wants that vertical-scaling lever, Hostinger isn't your alternative — Kinsta or staying on Cloudways is. But for the majority of "cloudways alternatives" searchers, who are price- or simplicity-motivated, Hostinger is the pick.
Pros
- A third of Cloudways' entry price for a single small site
- LiteSpeed Cache built in — genuine WordPress speed advantage
- Zero infrastructure decisions: no provider, server size, or data center to pick
- Free domain + SSL on Premium and above
- 3 sites on Premium (unlimited on Unlimited); hPanel is friendlier than any cloud console
Cons
- Renewal price is much higher than intro — budget for it
- Less vertical scaling headroom than a resizable Cloudways droplet
- High-traffic sites (50K+/mo) will outgrow Premium
Who it's for: Anyone leaving Cloudways purely on price, or a beginner who wants managed WordPress without choosing a cloud provider and server size.
Try HostingerKinsta
Fully managed WordPress on Google Cloud's premium-tier network, with support quality Kinsta markets as best-in-class — the upgrade alternative, not the downgrade.
Cloudways and Kinsta both run your WordPress site on premium cloud infrastructure, but they sit at opposite ends of the hand-holding spectrum. Cloudways, per its published specs, gives you the controls and a chat-and-ticket support team. Kinsta takes the controls away entirely and markets itself around white-glove support with real engineers, not script-followers — we haven't hosted on Cloudways or Kinsta ourselves to verify either claim first-hand.
Performance-wise, Kinsta on Google Cloud's premium tier is positioned by its own specs as a top-tier performer, and its published architecture is comparable to a similarly-sized Cloudways plan. The MyKinsta dashboard, per Kinsta's product pages, includes real-user performance data, query times, and resource usage in one view — something we can't confirm from our own use since we don't host there.
The catch is price. Kinsta starts at $30/mo (billed yearly; $35 month to month) for one WordPress install, where Cloudways starts at $14/mo. You're paying for the support and the dashboard, not just the speed. If "I want fewer decisions and better support, and I'll pay for it" describes you, Kinsta is the strongest Cloudways alternative on this list.
Pros
- Support quality Kinsta markets as best-in-class in the category
- Google Cloud premium-tier network, per published specs
- Fully managed: no server to size, no provider to choose
- MyKinsta dashboard is the best in managed WordPress
- Unlimited free migrations
Cons
- Most expensive entry tier of any host here
- Visit-based pricing means high-traffic sites get expensive
- Overkill (and overpriced) for a hobby blog
Who it's for: Anyone leaving Cloudways because they want MORE — premium support, a polished dashboard, and zero infrastructure management — and has the budget for it.
Try KinstaNexcess
Liquid Web's managed WordPress brand, tuned specifically for WooCommerce — the alternative for stores, not brochure sites.
Cloudways runs WooCommerce perfectly well, but WooCommerce has a specific bottleneck: cart and checkout pages hammer the database, and generic page caching can't cache a logged-in shopper's cart. That's where Nexcess pulls ahead. As Liquid Web's WordPress-specialist arm, its WooCommerce plans tune object caching around product and cart queries, bundle image optimization, and add store-aware features like smart cart-abandonment handling.
We haven't hosted with Nexcess ourselves; based on its published architecture, that gap should be most visible on the checkout flow under concurrent load — exactly where a growing store feels pain. For a store doing $5K-50K/month, that specialization can pay for itself in conversion and in not having to hand-tune a Cloudways server yourself.
If your site isn't a store, Nexcess is fine but not special — you'd be better served by Hostinger on value or Kinsta on premium. Nexcess earns its place on this list specifically as the WooCommerce alternative.
Pros
- WooCommerce-tuned hosting per published specs — object caching for product queries
- Liquid Web's enterprise support team behind it
- Built-in image optimization and CDN
- Free migration handled by the Liquid Web team
- Premium plugins bundled on some plans
Cons
- Pricing escalates fast for higher-traffic stores
- Less compelling for non-WooCommerce WordPress sites
- Dashboard is more utilitarian than Kinsta's
Who it's for: WooCommerce store owners who run real revenue through Cloudways and want cart/checkout queries tuned at the server level.
Try NexcessDreamHost
Employee-owned, US-based managed WordPress (DreamPress 1) at $14.99/mo for the first year, with a 30-day refund.
If Cloudways' à la carte model wears on you — watching the bill move with your droplet size — DreamPress is the antidote. DreamHost is employee-owned, has been hosting since 1997, and sells DreamPress 1 at $14.99/mo for the first year, renewing at $19.99/mo. There is no server size to choose.
We haven't hosted with DreamHost ourselves. Per its published specs, DreamPress runs on AWS infrastructure and is positioned below Kinsta and a tuned Cloudways Vultr plan on raw performance, but comfortably ahead of cheap shared hosting. Support is described as knowledgeable but not marketed around instant response the way premium hosts are.
This is the "I want to stop thinking about hosting" alternative. It won't give you Cloudways' scaling controls, but it gives you a 30-day refund window and a host that's survived three decades of industry churn.
Pros
- $14.99/mo first-year price for managed WordPress, with no server size to pick
- Employee-owned and hosting since 1997 — they outlast cheaper hosts
- 30-day money-back guarantee on DreamPress 1
- Solid managed performance on AWS-backed DreamPress
Cons
- Slower support response than Kinsta or Cloudways
- Dashboard feels dated next to MyKinsta
- No vertical-scaling lever like a resizable Cloudways droplet
Who it's for: Anyone leaving Cloudways for a calmer, US-based managed host with a long operating history and a 30-day refund window.
Try DreamHost5. WP Engine — the agency alternative (covered factually)
WP Engine has been the default agency WordPress host for over a decade, and it's a legitimate Cloudways alternative if your needs are workflow-driven. Its staging environments are first-class, the free Local desktop dev tool syncs cleanly with production, and plan transfers between accounts make client handoffs easy. We haven't hosted with WP Engine ourselves; per its published specs, its performance tier sits close to Kinsta's.
We cover WP Engine factually rather than rank it in our top picks for two reasons: for the same money Kinsta markets stronger support, and Cloudways delivers cheaper equivalent performance per published specs if cost is your motivation. Its entry plan (Essential) starts at $28/mo billed yearly with visit-based pricing that penalizes spikes. If you're an agency that lives in staging and multi-environment workflows, it's worth a look — for everyone else, our ranked four are a better fit. (We have no affiliate arrangement with WP Engine, so there's no affiliate link here.)
6. Flywheel — the designer alternative (covered factually)
Flywheel, now owned by WP Engine, is built for designers and small creative studios. Its standout feature is client billing transfer: you build a site, then hand the bill to the client without a migration — a workflow Cloudways doesn't replicate. The dashboard is more visual, and Local (also Flywheel-built) is the best WordPress local dev environment going. Entry pricing starts at $25/mo billed yearly (Starter, $300/yr).
Since the WP Engine acquisition, independent feature development has slowed, and the community is smaller than the main WP Engine brand. We list Flywheel factually as a niche alternative for freelance designers — if that's you, it's a genuinely good fit; if not, Hostinger or Kinsta will serve you better. (As with WP Engine, there's no affiliate link here because we have no arrangement with Flywheel.)
7. Cloudways itself — sometimes the answer is "stay"
It would be dishonest to write a "Cloudways alternatives" page without saying the obvious: for a lot of readers, the best alternative to Cloudways is Cloudways. It remains one of the best managed-cloud WordPress hosts on the market — choice of underlying cloud (DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, GCP), genuine vertical scaling without re-platforming, server-level Breeze caching, free staging, and pay-as-you-scale pricing with no plan-tier pressure.
If your reason for shopping around was a single bad support ticket or a feature you didn't realize was a paid add-on, it's worth weighing that against the cost and disruption of migrating. By its published specs, the scaling model is excellent. Only move if one of the five fit problems above is genuinely yours — and if it is, the four hosts above are where we'd send you. You can see current Cloudways plans here to compare before you decide.
Cloudways "alternatives" to skip
Plenty of pages pad their "Cloudways alternatives" lists with hosts you should not move to. By category:
- "Free WordPress hosting" services. If you're leaving a paid managed host, free hosting is a downgrade in every way that matters — throttled performance, no real support, and frequently your data is the product. We don't recommend any of them.
- Generic shared hosts with a "WordPress" label and no actual tuning. If the only WordPress feature is a one-click installer — no server-level caching, no managed updates — you're trading Cloudways' real managed layer for marketing. Hostinger is the exception here precisely because LiteSpeed caching is real.
- "Lifetime hosting" deals. The recurring $99-once-for-lifetime pitch rarely survives long. Not a place to move a site you care about.
- SiteGround. You'll see SiteGround on most alternatives lists, and the platform is competent. We don't rank it among our picks; we have no affiliate arrangement with it, so the link is plain and earns us nothing. If you're set on it, the GrowBig plan is the practical entry point — but by published specs and our own use, Hostinger on value and DreamPress on reliability are the better moves, and we'd point you there first. Full disclosure.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Cloudways alternative in 2026?
For most people it's Hostinger — fully managed WordPress with LiteSpeed caching from $2.99/mo and no server to size. If you want premium managed cloud with the best support quality, Kinsta (on Google Cloud) is the strongest alternative. For WooCommerce stores, Nexcess is the best fit, and DreamHost's DreamPress is the best long-running, US-based option.
Why would I leave Cloudways?
The common reasons: you want lower entry pricing (Cloudways starts at $14/mo and email is a paid add-on), you want phone support (Cloudways is chat and ticket only), you want a fully turnkey host where you never pick a server size or data center, or your store needs WooCommerce-specific tuning. Cloudways is still excellent — you don't have to leave. But each of those needs has a better-fit alternative.
Is Hostinger a good Cloudways alternative?
Yes, for value-focused and beginner users. Cloudways asks you to choose a cloud provider and server size; Hostinger just gives you managed WordPress with LiteSpeed caching from $2.99/mo, and it's a host we run production sites on. By published specs, Hostinger Unlimited is competitive with an entry Cloudways DigitalOcean plan for a fraction of the cost. The trade-off is less vertical scaling headroom for high-traffic sites — that's where Kinsta or staying on Cloudways, per its own specs, wins.
Is Kinsta better than Cloudways?
Kinsta is better if you want fully managed premium hosting with top-tier support and you're willing to pay for it — it runs on Google Cloud's premium-tier network and markets its support as best-in-class, though we haven't hosted with Kinsta to confirm that first-hand, and we publish no Cloudways benchmark numbers of our own. Per its published specs, Cloudways is better if you want lower cost, choice of underlying cloud, and you're comfortable picking a server size. They serve different budgets: Kinsta from $30/mo, Cloudways around $11-14/mo.
What about WP Engine and Flywheel as Cloudways alternatives?
Both are solid managed WordPress hosts. WP Engine is the agency standard with strong staging and the Local dev tool; Flywheel (now WP Engine-owned) is built for designers with client-billing transfer. We cover them factually rather than rank them at the top — for the same money Kinsta markets stronger support and Cloudways delivers cheaper equivalent performance per published specs, so they sit just outside our recommended picks.
Can I migrate from Cloudways to another host easily?
Yes. WordPress migrations are routine. Most managed hosts here offer free migration as a signup incentive — Kinsta does unlimited migrations; DreamHost and Nexcess handle it for you. Self-migrating with All-in-One WP Migration or Duplicator takes roughly an hour for a typical site. Don't let migration anxiety keep you on the wrong host.
The best Cloudways alternative depends on why you're leaving
Most people: Hostinger for value. Want more, not less: Kinsta. Running a store: Nexcess. Want calm: DreamPress. Happy where you are: stay on Cloudways.
If you're weighing managed WordPress more broadly, our best managed WordPress hosting guide ranks Cloudways, Kinsta, WP Engine, Pressable and Flywheel head-to-head. For the full host landscape see best WordPress hosting, or if budget is the real driver, best cheap web hosting.
What to read next
- Cloudways discount, verified — what's actually live today, no invented codes.
- Cloudways vs Hostinger.
- Cloudways vs SiteGround.
- Hostinger pricing in full.
Sources
Prices, plan limits and terms on this page come from the vendors' own pages below. These links carry no affiliate tag. Prices change, so check the seller's current page before you buy.