WPX Hosting or Cloudways — which hosting service takes the title of the best hosting? After our head-to-toe examination of both, we concluded we like WPX Hosting more. Still, Cloudways is great in many aspects. From fast cloud hosting and flexible prices to stellar uptimes, free migrations, and reliable support. Still, WPX Hosting is a bit more popular.
The reason is that it’s a WordPress-adapted hosting provider, and as you know, around 43.5% of websites are made with WordPress. While neither is particularly affordable, both options offer a rich palette of features. If you want a short answer, they’re flagship hosting services.
Don’t let our alignment with WPX Hosting kill the mood. Instead, take your time to read our full WPX Hosting vs Cloudways 2026 comparison and determine the better choice for yourself. Remember — we’re comparing shared vs cloud hosting, so it’ll be exciting!
WPX Hosting vs Cloudways – Quick Comparison
| 🏆 WPX Hosting | Cloudways | |
| 🌐 WordPress Hosting Price | Starts at $20.83/mo (Business plan) | / |
| 💾 WooCommerce Hosting Price | Starts at $29.17/mo (Powerstore plan) | / |
| ☁️ Cloud Hosting Price | / | Starts at $14/mo (DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode Micro plans) |
| 🆓 1-Year Free Domain | No | No |
| 🔐 WHOIS Domain Privacy | Yes, for all WPX-registered domains | No |
| 🌎 Data Centers | Chicago, London, Sydney | USA, Europe, Australia, Asia (54+ in total) |
| ✅ Uptime Guarantee | 99.95% | 99.99% |
| 🖥️ Free SSL Certificate | Yes (Let’s Encrypt SSL) | Yes (Let’s Encrypt SSL) |
| ⏬ Automated Backups | Yes (plus on-demand copies) | Yes (plus on-demand copies) |
| 💿 Storage | 15 GB to 100 GB | 20 GB to 3,840 GB |
| #️⃣ Number of Hosted Websites | 5 to 35 | Unlimited |
| 🤖 AI Website Builder | No | No |
| 💸 Money-Back Guarantee | 30 days | No (it has a 3-day trial) |
Hosting Plans, Pricing & Features Breakdown
Before we start digging deeper into their plans, prices, and features, let us break down their differences for you. WPX Hosting is, as you know, a WordPress web hosting solution. It emphasizes WordPress and WooCommerce hosting for those who need an online shop.
Cloudways has a self-explanatory name. Its base is cloud hosting, but it’s not a direct provider. Instead, it’s a way to connect to the cloud hosting platform from a third-party company like Google Cloud, Vultr, Digital Ocean, and a few others mentioned below.
Think of Cloudways as a middle-man that provides a dashboard from which you can control your cloud hosting server sourced from another company. As you’ll soon find out, the large difference at the start spawns a slew of differences later on.
Pricing Plans
Let’s start with the pricing plans that we’ll loosely compare. Here are their starting prices:
- WordPress hosting with WPX — $20.83/mo for the Business plan,
- WooCommerce Hosting with WPX — $29.17/mo for the Powerstore plan,
- DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode hosting with Cloudways — $14/mo for the Micro plan.
WPX Hosting has a total of six plans that we can easily compare to SiteGround or any other regular hosting service. Cloudways has several different cloud hosting providers:
- DigitalOcean, which starts at $14/mo
- Vultr, which starts at $14/mo
- Linode, which starts at $14/mo
- Amazon Web Services (AWS), which starts at $20.56/mo
- Google Cloud, which starts at $37.33/mo
From here, each provider offers tiered plans like Micro, Small, Medium, Large, XL, etc. Each plan typically includes unlimited visitors and websites, with limited bandwidth that goes up to 5 TB and starts at just 1 GB in Google Cloud. These prices apply to Basic servers, though.
Cloudways has General Purpose and CPU Optimizer servers. Their prices are extremely steep and can range from roughly $90/mo to more than $560/mo, depending on the provider. For a full breakdown of Cloudways pricing, we strongly recommend visiting its official website.
Features of WPX Hosting & Cloudways
Now that we’ve established their prices, it’s time to glance at their features.
During our WPX Hosting vs Cloudways comparison, we liked that their features remained the same across all plans, with only computer resources going up or down. We won’t compare these because Cloudways naturally offers more. After all, it’s a cloud hosting company.
One thing we must tackle is the number of hosted websites.
WPX allows for 1 to 5 in WooCommerce plans and 5 to 35 in WordPress plans. As said, Cloudways hosts unlimited websites, but it also mostly uses NVMe storage instead of SSD storage found in WPX Hosting, although Vultr Standard plans come with SSD storage, too.
WPX Hosting’s best features include:
- Free SSL certificate (Let’s Encrypt)
- Managed WordPress features
- Unlimited site migrations
- On-demand backup copies and daily website backups
- Staging area
- LiteSpeed servers
- Daily malware scans
- Enterprise-level DDoS protection, and more.
- WPX XDN (CDN)
Cloudways offers these features in its plans:
- Free site migrations
- Free SSL certificate
- Redis Cache and Object Cache Pro
- Advanced staging and cloning
- Web Application Firewall
- WordPress vulnerability scanner
- Automated and on-demand copies
- Cloudflare CDN
The biggest difference is, again, in WordPress. WPX Hosting handles this much better by including a litany of managed WordPress features to help you install and manage your website. Cloudways has nothing similar. It just provides cloud computing resources.
This means WordPress installation, management, and updates are all on you and/or your IT administrator. We haven’t mentioned it, but Cloudways has a short 3-day free trial without a credit card, while WPX Hosting has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Cloudways allows for third-party and first-party integrations, although most of them are paid — some are actually very expensive, like malware protection at $4/app/month or WordPress auto-updates at $3/app/month.
Winner: WPX Hosting
All things considered, we’re nearly comparing apples to oranges, but despite the current proposition, we have to go with WPX Hosting. It’s not by any means affordable, but neither is Cloudways if you want beefier resources in terms of RAM, CPU cores, and storage.
If you go with some optional add-ons for malware protection or performance, expect to splurge more and even surpass WPX Hosting prices.
WPX Hosting vs Cloudways Performance Comparison
Web hosting, also known as shared hosting, is usually enough for most users performance-wise. A rule of thumb is that cloud hosting is speedier, but in our experience, it’s not always the case. You can have some great web hosting and some poor cloud hosting, too.
Fortunately, our WPX Hosting vs Cloudways speed tests were satisfactory and we haven’t had many complaints. Before we start, we’ll mention that WPX Hosting uses LiteSpeed servers, while Cloudways mostly relies on Apache. LiteSpeed is considerably faster than Apache.
To ensure much-needed equality, our websites created on WPX Hosting and Cloudways were WordPress-based. We installed Astra, a lightweight theme, and made a few pages, including a whole blog section, many compressed JPEG images, and a few videos to spice things up.
As both offer data centers in the US, that was our choice. We used the DigitalOcean Small plan in Cloudways — the server location was New York. Our WPX Hosting server location was Chicago, as the only US-based option available.
GTmetrix Speed Test Comparison
It’s time to discuss our GTmetrix findings. GTmetrix has countless server locations for testing. We settled for Vancouver, as the default (and free) option that most people would use. During our Cloudways vs WPX Hosting tests, we distinguished five different metrics:
- Time to First Byte, also known as TTFB,
- First Contentful Paint, also known as FCP,
- Largest Contentful Paint, also known as LCP,
- Fully Loaded Time, also known as FLT,
- Cumulative Layout Shift, also known as CLS.
These concern your website’s loading speed and indicate how fast and responsive it is. Well, here are our Cloudways vs. WPX results, which, you’ll admit, look nearly identical.
| Cloudways | WPX Hosting | |
| TTFB | 331 ms | 355 ms |
| FCP | 487 ms | 523 ms |
| LCP | 1.0 s | 1.1 s |
| FLT | 1.1 s | 1.1 s |
| CLS | 0.02 | 0.02 |
In the digital world, it’s all ones and zeroes, and in that world, we could say that Cloudways is faster than WPX. However, in the real world, the difference is barely noticeable. For instance, they both loaded the entire home page of our website in 1.1 seconds.
While Cloudways has a slightly faster TTFB of 331 ms, 355 ms in WPX is all but unimpressive. The first piece of content was loaded in 487 ms in Cloudways, while it took 523 ms for WPX Hosting to do the same. In practice, we couldn’t distinguish which hosting service was faster.
Even after performing a test on the GTmetrix Texas server, the results were nearly on par, albeit, much better because of the GTmetrix server location.
Uptime Analysis & Response Times
Next up, we moved to Pingdom to examine their uptimes, reliability, and average response times.
Both providers have high promises — a nearly 100% uptime. Cloudways brags about having a 99.99% uptime, while WPX Hosting’s promise is a bit less ambitious, but impressive nonetheless — 99.95%.
We launched Pingdom and tested WPX vs Cloudways for 3 months. The results were great. Cloudways had 2 outages that haven’t lasted for more than 5 minutes in total, resulting in an uptime of roughly 99.98%. WPX Hosting, shockingly, had no outages in the given period. Its uptime result was 100%.
We also gauged their average response times and found that:
- WPX came back with 376 ms of average response time;
- Cloudways came back with 322 ms of average response time.
When we tested Hostinger, we were also fond of its well-balanced performance. We can say the same in this comparison. At well under 600-650 ms, which is the upper limit for shared hosting, WPX churned out an impressive average response time for that snappy feeling.
As expected, Cloudways was just a tad quicker at 322 ms, which is still an awesome result, even for cloud hosting. However, it’s worth noting and observing that the difference isn’t night and day, although that wouldn’t be the case with a dedicated server hosting plan.
Winner: Cloudways (Barely)
Numbers speak for themselves — Cloudways was indeed slightly faster in our tests. In practice, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a difference. We do not doubt that the priciest Cloudways plans would squander WPX’s efforts, but these plans are usually bought only by enterprises.
For an average user, WPX Hosting’s performance will be sufficient, but if you seek that slight edge, it would make sense to go for Cloudways.
Which Hosting Provider is Easier to Use?
We again witness two different philosophies even when it comes down to basic hosting management.
Though, we wouldn’t call Cloudways basic by any stretch.
Cloudways: Not for the Faint-Hearted
As explained previously, Cloudways is just a means of connecting you to a cloud hosting company and its resources. It leverages a custom panel, which sports all the menus on the left for easier access. However, this is basically a playground with excellent customization.
It provides access to the bare virtual server, where you’ll be able to install applications, monitor your website, enable security features, etc. You can also switch from multiple servers from the dashboard if you’ve bought them. Once you get the gist of it, it’s unfussy enough.
On the other hand, beginners will hardly find their footing here.
Cloudways puts you in the driver’s seat and lets you control the throttle, brake, and clutch. For instance, you’ll have to manually apply your Let’s Encrypt SSL to encrypt your website. Installing WordPress or any other CRM is manual, so be ready to go through that on your own.
Akin to cPanel and other proprietary solutions, Cloudways includes a small search bar up top. This lets you access specific apps or settings without digging like an angry terrier. As experienced users, we enjoyed Cloudways and ultimately found it snappy and straightforward.
Beginners will feel differently, but honestly, Cloudways isn’t suited to them in the first place.
WPX Hosting: Much Simpler to Use
To be clear, WPX Hosting isn’t the prettiest hosting service, at least in terms of interface.
You get this weird blend of colors that punches you right in the face, and if your capillaries can’t take it, you might start bleeding. All jokes aside, WPX is straightforward and resembles more of a “classic” feeling with menus on the left and one-click hosting management.
Installing WordPress takes a minute, while SSL is applied with a press of a button. We love its easy access to the file manager, email boxes, databases, and website management. Plus, WPX’s staging is realized properly, and the staging copy can be made in virtual seconds.
We noticed there’s no search bar for quicker navigation — but you don’t need one! Everything is laid out perfectly and at your hand’s reach. WPX Hosting’s automated daily updates are also there, and you can, at any moment, request a backup copy, keeping in mind that each copy is kept for 28 days.
Winner: WPX Hosting
WPX Hosting is objectively more beginner-friendly because of its hand-holding approach to hosting management. While not the most enthralling looks-wise, it’s functional and straightforward. Cloudways does look better, but requires a bit of experience, at least in the beginning.
Which Web Hosting Is More Secure?
Let’s examine their security and see which one is more capable.
We’ll start with Cloudways which includes:
- Free SSL (Let’s Encrypt)
- Server-level firewall (Imunify360)
- Automated daily backups with on-demand backup copies
You’ll notice the rather “lengthy” list — hopefully, you get the sarcasm. Cloudways sort of covers the basics… sort of. Apart from an SSL, you do get a server-level firewall and automated daily backups, but, for example, there’s no malware protection in any plan.
You can and should buy it if you use Cloudways, but you’ll have to spend at least $4/mo per application if you have 1 to 5 of them. Multiply that by a year and you’ll get quite a hefty sum of money. A more secure hosting option is WPX because it doesn’t try to squeeze out more money through optional purchases.
Instead, all plans include basic and advanced features such as:
- Let’s Encrypt SSL (free)
- Free malware removal with daily malware scans
- WHOIS privacy on WPX-purchased domains
- Managed WAF (Web Application Firewall)
- Two-Factor Authentication
- Hybrid (enterprise-level) DDoS protection
- Daily and on-demand website backups
WPX Hosting’s security measures are top-notch. Enterprise-level DDoS protection works extremely well, while managed WAF keeps various threats away from your website. Unlike Cloudways, malware removal is included for free, keeping things clean as a whistle.
Winner: WPX Hosting
Cloudways is secure enough, but its paid malware protection add-on is a must, yet, it can raise the price rapidly. WPX Hosting is equipped far better out of the box, ensuring that even its cheapest plans contain all the latest and greatest security tools.
Customer Support
Getting stuck without help sounds agonizing, especially because your website is on the line. If you choose WPX or Cloudways, you can avoid these inconveniences promptly. Both providers offer 24/7 live chat support, and in our experience, both are insanely good.
Unlike some providers that casually redirect you to the knowledge base before allowing you to get in touch, these two are far more chatty. You can open up the live chat widget, and once you provide your email, start the session. Best of all, response times are phenomenal.
We contacted WPX many times and never had to wait for more than a few minutes for a response — Cloudways is identical. Plus, the latter even encourages you to leave your email, should the chat session abruptly end as a result of internet connection loss. Pretty clever.
If you don’t want to chat, there are knowledge bases. These aren’t bases — these are bunkers of information! You can find various setup guides, how-to articles, and everything else you need to start or maintain your hosting later on.
Winner: Tie
We can’t say we’re surprised. That’s how the finest web host solutions operate. You’ll never be left stranded with timely support from renowned experts and tons of comprehensive guides. Pick whichever one you like and enjoy world-class customer service.
WPX Hosting vs Cloudways: The Final Verdict
At the end of the day, it boils down to your preferences. Yes, WPX Hosting has won the battle against Cloudways, but Cloudways didn’t leave without a few punches. Cloudways offers only cloud hosting, which, while powerful, isn’t for everyone’s needs and financial possibilities.
Being more flexible and scalable, Cloudways can naturally be beefier, as we say, but only if you have a thick enough wallet. If you belong to the majority, WPX Hosting will be easier to use, it’ll almost be equally fast, and have proper security out of the box, which is a plus.
We’d say that WPX Hosting is adequate for small businesses, but really, every WordPress or WooCommerce user can squeeze out plenty of juice from it. With everything said, in this WPX Hosting vs Cloudways 2026 comparison, our choice has fallen to WPX Hosting.
Feel free to examine our favorite managed WordPress hosting providers if you want more equally good options.