What Each Platform Actually Is
WP Engine and Cloudways are fundamentally different products that often get compared because they occupy a similar price range. Understanding what each actually is makes the comparison much clearer.
WP Engine is a managed WordPress hosting platform. You pay for a service that handles server management, WordPress core updates, automated backups, security patching, staging environments, and WordPress-expert support. You don't manage the infrastructure — that's the point.
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that sits on top of cloud infrastructure providers (DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud, Vultr, Linode). It gives you a cleaner interface to manage cloud servers without using raw cloud provider dashboards. You're still responsible for more server-level decisions than you would be on WP Engine.
Pricing — What You Actually Pay
WP Engine starts at around $25–$30/month for one site, 25,000 monthly visits, and 10GB storage. Plans scale quickly — the Growth plan ($75/month) covers up to 5 sites and 100,000 visits. Prices are per-site at the entry level and can become expensive if you're managing multiple sites.
Cloudways starts at $14/month on a DigitalOcean 1GB server. This gets you a raw server — you install and manage WordPress yourself. More practically, a 2GB server ($28/month) is the minimum for a stable WordPress site with any real traffic. Bandwidth overages are billed separately. The cost is lower but scales with actual usage in ways that are harder to predict.
For a single business WordPress site with moderate traffic, both platforms land in the $25–$40/month range in practice. WP Engine is more predictable. Cloudways can be cheaper but requires more active cost management.
Performance
Both platforms deliver significantly better performance than shared hosting. WP Engine runs on Google Cloud infrastructure and includes their proprietary EverCache system optimized for WordPress. Cloudways lets you choose your underlying cloud provider — AWS and Google Cloud options on Cloudways can match or exceed WP Engine on raw speed metrics depending on configuration.
In real-world testing, the performance difference between a well-configured Cloudways server and WP Engine is marginal for most WordPress sites. The bigger performance lever is usually your theme, page builder, and plugin stack — not the host.
Where WP Engine has a meaningful edge: their CDN integration and out-of-the-box WordPress caching configuration requires zero setup on your end. Cloudways requires you to configure caching and integrate your own CDN separately.
Management Overhead
This is where the two platforms diverge most significantly.
WP Engine handles WordPress core updates, plugin updates (optionally), security patching, and server maintenance. Their support team knows WordPress deeply — when something breaks, you're talking to people who can actually fix it. The tradeoff is less control: WP Engine prohibits certain plugins (caching plugins, some security plugins) because they conflict with their managed infrastructure.
Cloudways handles the underlying cloud server management but leaves WordPress management to you. Updates, backups (configurable), security hardening, and performance optimization are your responsibility or require add-on services. Their support is good for server-level issues but less specialized for WordPress-specific problems.
Plugin Restrictions
WP Engine maintains a list of prohibited plugins — primarily caching plugins and a handful of security tools that conflict with their managed environment. For most sites this isn't a problem, but if you rely on a specific plugin that's on the list, it's worth checking before you migrate.
Cloudways has no plugin restrictions. You run whatever you want. This is more flexible but also means more responsibility for managing conflicts and performance impacts from your plugin choices.
Support Quality
WP Engine's support is genuinely strong for a hosting company — 24/7 live chat and phone, staffed by people with real WordPress knowledge. Response times are fast and the support team can handle WordPress-specific issues, not just server questions.
Cloudways support is available 24/7 but is more infrastructure-focused. For WordPress-specific issues — plugin conflicts, theme problems, performance optimization — you're often on your own or need to escalate to their WordPress add-on support tier.
When to Choose WP Engine
- You want to hand off server and WordPress management entirely
- You're running a business site where downtime has direct revenue impact
- You value strong, WordPress-expert support over cost savings
- You don't need plugins on their prohibited list
When to Choose Cloudways
- You're comfortable managing WordPress yourself or have a developer who does
- You want more control over server configuration
- You need to run plugins WP Engine prohibits
- You want to start cheaper and scale server resources as needed
The Third Option — A Complete Managed Platform
Neither WP Engine nor Cloudways includes your theme, page builder license, or enterprise CDN. You're still sourcing those separately and paying for them separately. For a business site using Astra Pro, Elementor, and Cloudflare Enterprise CDN — the total monthly cost on either platform is considerably higher than the hosting price alone.
CriticalWP's $50/month plan includes all of it — managed WordPress hosting, Astra Pro, Elementor, a custom child theme, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, plugin updates, and security monitoring. It's designed for business owners who want to build their own site without assembling and managing the stack themselves. See exactly what's included →