Cloudways vs Hivelocity: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Cloudways and Hivelocity 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.
Hivelocity
6.6/10
Tampa-based provider of bare metal dedicated servers, VPS, colocation and private cloud for businesses that need global, API-driven infrastructure.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7/10 | 6.6/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Customization | 6/10 | 9/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Reliability | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 5/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 4/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $10/mo VPS pro.sm.amd |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $10/mo VPS pro.sm.amd |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Automatic Backups | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| VPS Hosting | ||
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
Cloudways vs Hivelocity cost by team size
Hivelocity costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Cloudways | Hivelocity |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $10/moVPS pro.sm.amd |
| 5 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $10/moVPS pro.sm.amd |
| 10 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $10/moVPS pro.sm.amd |
| 25 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $10/moVPS pro.sm.amd |
| 50 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $10/moVPS pro.sm.amd |
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 Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Analytics score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 5/10)
Why choose Hivelocity
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: $10/mo vs $14/mo
- Higher Customization score (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Cost 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.
Hivelocity
Pros
- DDoS mitigation for Layer 3 and 4 attacks is built into every bandwidth-enabled service at no extra cost.
- Every VPS and dedicated server includes at least 10TB of outbound transfer, and inbound and private traffic are free.
- Custom builds scale to four processors, 1TB of RAM and 100 drives, and GPU options are available.
- Provisioning can be automated through a REST API and a Terraform provider, and VLANs are self-service.
- Support is in-house, US-based and available 24/7, and phone reboots are free.
Cons
- VPS plans are billed monthly, with no hourly billing, and port 25 is blocked on VPS.
- No managed Kubernetes, serverless or managed database offering appeared on the pages reviewed.
- Some reviewers on G2 and Trustpilot complain of aggressive abuse handling, including instant terminations.
- Dedicated server fees are non-refundable and there is no standard money-back guarantee.
- According to VPSBenchmarks, reverse DNS changes require a support ticket and there is no built-in VPS firewall.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudways scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7/10 against 6.6/10 for Hivelocity. The largest gap is in Analytics: 7/10 for Cloudways and 4/10 for Hivelocity.
Hivelocity costs less for 10 users: about $10/mo on its VPS pro.sm.amd plan, against about $14/mo on its Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) plan for Cloudways, billed monthly.
No, neither Cloudways nor Hivelocity lists a free plan.
Cloudways is the better fit for small business: we rate it 7/10 for them, against 5/10 for Hivelocity.
