SiteGround vs Cloudways
SiteGround and Cloudways compared on measured uptime, response time, pricing and features from our own tests. SiteGround scores higher overall.
By Jennifer T. · Updated
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Verdict
SiteGroundWins overall
Managed-feel shared hosting on Google Cloud with daily backups and staging; the renewals are the price
DigitalOcean's managed cloud layer: servers from $11 a month on five clouds, billed hourly, staging and caching included
SiteGround wins 3 of the six sub-scores and comes out ahead overall (8.0 vs 7.8).
How do the scores compare?
SiteGround leads on 3 sub-scores, Cloudways on 1. Higher is better.
| SiteGround | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 8.0 | 8.0 |
| Uptime | 8.5 | 8.5 |
| Support | 8.5 (better) | 7.5 |
| Features | 8.5 (better) | 8.0 |
| Value | 6.5 | 7.0 (better) |
| Ease of use | 8.0 (better) | 7.0 |
Which one is faster and more reliable?
| SiteGround | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 8.0 (better) | 7.8 |
| Uptime (published)HostingStep 243 d vs Kripesh Adwani 365 d; methods differ | 99.97% | 99.99% (better) |
| Response time (published)HostingStep vs HostingStep; methods differ | 745 ms | 442 ms (better) |
Which one costs less?
On renewal, Cloudways is cheaper ($14.00/mo vs $17.99/mo). Intro prices need the listed term.
| SiteGround | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | StartUp | DigitalOcean Premium Micro |
| Intro price | $2.99/mo (better) | $14.00/mo |
| Renewal price | $17.99/mo | $14.00/mo (better) |
| Required term | 12 months | 1 months (better) |
| Websites | 1 | unlimited |
| Storage | 10 GB | 25 GB |
| Money back | 30 days (better) | 0 days |
What does each include?
| SiteGround | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Free domain | First year only; regular renewal fee after that | No |
| Free SSL | Yes | Let's Encrypt certificates on every application |
| Daily backups | Kept for 30 days; on-demand backups on GrowBig and GoGeek | Not stated |
| CDN | SiteGround CDN on Google Cloud, 170+ edge locations | Not stated |
| Email hosting | Unlimited accounts with webmail and spam protection | Not stated |
| Staging | GrowBig and GoGeek; GoGeek adds Git | Advanced staging and cloning on every plan |
| Free migration | Automatic WordPress migrator on every plan; expert transfer by staff | Free migration of existing sites |
| Caching | Multilevel caching with the Speed Optimizer plugin | Lightning Stack (NGINX), Object Cache Pro and Redis included on every plan |
| WP-CLI and SSH | Yes | Not stated |
| Fair-use limits | CPU seconds per hour 1,000 / 2,000 / 4,000; inodes 200k / 400k / 600k; 768 MB RAM per process; databases up to 1 GB | Not stated |
| Uptime guarantee | 99.9% per month; 5% of that month's fee as a service-extension credit | No |
| Choice of data center | 11 locations on Google Cloud, chosen at signup | Not stated |
| Phone support | No | No |
| Windows hosting | No | No |
| Backups | Not stated | On-demand and scheduled server backups with one-click restore; offsite storage billed at $0.033 per GB per server |
| Free CDN | Not stated | No |
| Not stated | No | |
| Resource limits | Not stated | 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 |
| Data center choice | Not stated | The provider's regions, chosen per server: DigitalOcean 9, Vultr 30, Linode 25, AWS 28, Google Cloud 28 |
| Security | Not stated | Built-in firewall with IP blocking, WordPress vulnerability scanner, bot protection and dedicated firewalls per the pricing page |
| Free trial | Not stated | 3 days without a credit card |
Company facts
| SiteGround | Cloudways | |
|---|---|---|
| Control panel | Site Tools (SiteGround's own panel) | Cloudways platform (its own console); no cPanel |
| Data centers | 11 (better) | 1 |
| Support channels | chat, ticket, knowledge-base | chat, ticket, knowledge-base |
| Founded | 2004 | 2011 |