Cloudways vs WP Engine: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Cloudways and WP Engine 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.
WP Engine
6.3/10
Managed WordPress hosting platform with staging, automated updates, backups, CDN and security tooling for businesses, agencies and enterprise sites.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7/10 | 6.3/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 3/10 |
| Customization | 6/10 | 5/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Reliability | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| 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 | ||
| Automatic Backups | ||
| Content Delivery Network | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Free SSL Certificates | ||
| Git Deployments | ||
| Managed WordPress | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Cloudways vs WP Engine cost by team size
| Team size | Cloudways | WP Engine |
|---|---|---|
| 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 Analytics score (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 5/10)
Why choose WP Engine
- Higher Support 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.
WP Engine
Pros
- Every plan includes WordPress-specific caching, a global CDN, daily backups and free SSL.
- Developer tools include staging environments, SSH and Git CI/CD on the Business tier.
- G2 reviewers rate support highly, and Business and higher plans add phone support.
- Every plan includes Genesis Blocks and 10 premium themes.
- Business and higher plans come with a 99.99% uptime SLA.
Cons
- Prices are high, and reviewers report large increases at renewal after the intro pricing ends.
- Visit and storage caps lead to overage fees, and bot traffic counts toward visits.
- More than 60 plugins are banned, including many caching and backup plugins.
- No email hosting is included.
- Uptime monitoring, APM and advanced WAF are sold as paid add-ons.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudways scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7/10 against 6.3/10 for WP Engine. The largest gap is in Cost: 6/10 for Cloudways and 3/10 for WP Engine.
No, neither Cloudways nor WP Engine lists a free plan.
Cloudways is the better fit for small business: we rate it 7/10 for them, against 5/10 for WP Engine.
