Cloudways vs Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Cloudways and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 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.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
6.7/10
Oracle's public cloud platform, offering pay-as-you-go compute, Kubernetes, serverless functions, managed databases and storage, mainly for enterprises and developers.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7/10 | 6.7/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Customization | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 4/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Reliability | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 4/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Free Always Free |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Cloud Compute | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| VPS Hosting | ||
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
Cloudways vs Oracle Cloud Infrastructure cost by team size
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Cloudways | Oracle Cloud Infrastructure |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | FreeAlways Free |
| 5 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | FreeAlways Free |
| 10 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | FreeAlways Free |
| 25 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | FreeAlways Free |
| 50 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | FreeAlways Free |
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 4/10)
- Higher Support score (6/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 4/10)
Why choose Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- Has a free plan (Cloudways does not)
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $14/mo
- Higher Customization score (8/10 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.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Pros
- Large permanent free tier with Arm VMs, 200 GB of block storage, two Autonomous Databases and 10 TB of monthly egress.
- 10 TB of outbound data transfer a month at no charge, which reviewers praise next to typical hyperscaler egress fees.
- Strong fit for Oracle Database and Oracle application workloads, with Autonomous Database and MySQL HeatWave offered as managed services.
- Flexible VM shapes let you set OCPU and memory independently.
- OCI Functions runs on the open source Fn Project, so you can develop locally and avoid some lock-in.
Cons
- Oracle halved the free Arm A1 allowance in June 2026 without a public announcement.
- Free instances can be reclaimed when idle, and Arm capacity in a home region is often unavailable.
- Reviewers on PeerSpot and G2 describe technical support as slow and sometimes automated.
- Networking setup (VCNs, routing, hybrid connectivity) is described as more complex than on AWS.
- Sign-up requires a card and phone number, and Trustpilot users report repeated card rejections.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudways scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7/10 against 6.7/10 for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 8/10 for Cloudways and 4/10 for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure costs less for 10 users: free on its Always Free plan, against about $14/mo on its Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) plan for Cloudways, billed monthly.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure has a free plan; Cloudways does not list one.
Cloudways is the better fit for small business: we rate it 7/10 for them, against 4/10 for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
