Cloudways vs KnownHost
Cloudways and KnownHost compared on measured uptime, response time, pricing and features from our own tests. Cloudways scores higher overall.
By Jennifer T. · Updated
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Verdict
CloudwaysWins overall
DigitalOcean's managed cloud layer: servers from $11 a month on five clouds, billed hourly, staging and caching included
Managed cPanel hosting since 2006 on LiteSpeed and NVMe with stated cores and RAM, daily backups and three locations
Cloudways wins 2 of the six sub-scores and comes out ahead overall (7.8 vs 7.4).
How do the scores compare?
Cloudways leads on 2 sub-scores, KnownHost on 1. Higher is better.
Which one is faster and more reliable?
Which one costs less?
On renewal, KnownHost is cheaper ($7.16/mo vs $14.00/mo). Intro prices need the listed term.
| Cloudways | KnownHost | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | DigitalOcean Premium Micro | Basic |
| Intro price | $14.00/mo | $3.47/mo (better) |
| Renewal price | $14.00/mo | $7.16/mo (better) |
| Required term | 1 months (better) | 36 months |
| Websites | unlimited | 1 |
| Storage | 25 GB | 10 GB |
| Money back | 0 days | 30 days (better) |
What does each include?
| Cloudways | KnownHost | |
|---|---|---|
| Free domain | No | No |
| Free SSL | Let's Encrypt certificates on every application | Every plan, every domain |
| Backups | On-demand and scheduled server backups with one-click restore; offsite storage billed at $0.033 per GB per server | Daily JetBackup with 2-day and 1-week retention on every plan; extended retention sold as an add-on |
| Free migration | Free migration of existing sites | Migration team copies files, databases and email and tests the site |
| Free CDN | No | No |
| Caching | Lightning Stack (NGINX), Object Cache Pro and Redis included on every plan | LiteSpeed Web Server with LSCache on every plan; Redis and Memcached optional |
| Staging | Advanced staging and cloning on every plan | No |
| No | 5, 25 or unlimited mailboxes by plan, with webmail | |
| Resource limits | A whole server per customer: 1 to 8 GB RAM and 1 to 4 vCPU on the listed sizes, larger sizes and other providers available | CloudLinux isolation with 1, 2, 4 and 6 cores and 1, 2, 4 and 6 GB memory limits by plan |
| Data center choice | The provider's regions, chosen per server: DigitalOcean 9, Vultr 30, Linode 25, AWS 28, Google Cloud 28 | Atlanta, Seattle or Amsterdam at checkout |
| Uptime guarantee | No | The network page claims a 99.999% availability SLA and 99.99+% uptimes; the terms of service contain no uptime clause or credit schedule |
| Security | Built-in firewall with IP blocking, WordPress vulnerability scanner, bot protection and dedicated firewalls per the pricing page | Imunify360 with real-time malware scanning and a web application firewall; Patchman optional on Basic and Standard, included above |
| Free trial | 3 days without a credit card | Not stated |
| Phone support | No | A US toll-free number on every page, with 24/7 ticket support |
| Windows hosting | No | No |
| SSH, Git and cron | Not stated | Every plan, with current PHP versions |