Cloudways vs Giant Swarm: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Cloudways and Giant Swarm to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
Cloudways
7/10
Managed cloud hosting platform that runs WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Laravel and PHP apps on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud servers.
Giant Swarm
6.9/10
Giant Swarm runs a Kubernetes platform-engineering stack inside the customer's own AWS, Azure or on-premises environment, aimed at enterprise platform teams that want 24/7 operations without building the platform in-house.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7/10 | 6.9/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 3/10 |
| Customization | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 5/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Reliability | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 9/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| Features | ||
| Managed WordPress | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Free SSL Certificates | ||
| Git Deployments | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Cloudways vs Giant Swarm cost by team size
| Team size | Cloudways | Giant Swarm |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| 5 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| 10 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| 25 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| 50 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Cloudways
- Higher Cost score (6/10 vs 3/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 5/10)
- Includes Managed WordPress, which Giant Swarm lacks
Why choose Giant Swarm
- Higher Support score (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Customization score (7/10 vs 6/10)
Pros & Cons
Cloudways
Pros
- You can choose from five cloud providers and more than 50 locations from one control panel.
- Hourly pay-as-you-go billing, with a 5-day trial that needs no credit card.
- Every server includes free SSL, Layer 3 and 4 DDoS mitigation, a firewall and offsite backups.
- Agencies get one-click staging, cloning and Git auto-deployment for many client sites.
- Ratings are strong, at about 4.7 on G2 and 4.6 on Trustpilot.
Cons
- Email hosting and domain registration are not included.
- Billing gets hard to track once add-ons and bandwidth overages are added, and some reviewers report charges after cancelling.
- Some reviewers say support quality has dropped since the DigitalOcean acquisition.
- Power users report limited low-level control.
- Phone support requires a paid premium support add-on.
Giant Swarm
Pros
- Reviewers rate its hands-on, round-the-clock Kubernetes support highly, and the vendor cites a mean time to acknowledge under 2 minutes.
- Built on open-source parts (Cluster API, Flux, Cilium, Kyverno, Grafana LGTM) and runs in the customer's own accounts, which reduces lock-in.
- One management cluster controls workload clusters across AWS, Azure and on-premises sites.
- ISO 27001 certified, with ready-made Pod Security Standards and CIS benchmark policies.
Cons
- No public pricing, and reviewers repeatedly complain about cost transparency.
- Reviewers call the opinionated stack hard to learn and heavy for smaller teams.
- Leaning on vendor experts can make migrating away slower.
- Public evidence for SOC 2 and a detailed SLA matrix is limited, and there are few reviews.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudways scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7/10 against 6.9/10 for Giant Swarm. The largest gap is in Cost: 6/10 for Cloudways and 3/10 for Giant Swarm.
No, neither Cloudways nor Giant Swarm lists a free plan.
Cloudways has Managed WordPress, which Giant Swarm lacks.
