Cloudways

Why we chose Cloudways

We tend to change our cloud hosting service every two years due to new services offering faster speeds. Currently, we are utilizing Cloudways with Vultr servers.

After doing thorough research on the biggest names in the Cloud hosting network we decided on this configuration for a few different reasons.

Speed

This is always going to be our main concern when choosing who to host our servers with and we are always keeping an eye out for better services as we grow. That means we will always offer you top-tier hosting that when paid for directly through a similar managed WordPress host, would cost you nearly double what we charge (compared to services like WPengine and Kinsta).

So you are getting the same if not better speed for a lower price. Hesitant? We can test the speed before we move your live site, to verify it’s the right decision for you.

We keep an eye on current trends or requirements laid out by industries like Google and strive to offer services that exceed these requirements (please read up on Core Web Vitals to understand the current requirements beyond speed.)

When choosing a server type we went with Vultr over the other options like AWS and digital ocean due to uncached speed, cost efficiency, and development capabilities. We wanted to be able to turn off the caching on specific pages (like sales pages that rely on timers and redirects that if cached would break the redirect system) but still offer a superior user experience in regard to page load times for these uncached pages. This specific issue has come up for us in the past so we kept it in mind when choosing a server.

A note about AWS

AWS is a great server type and one used by services such as WPEngine but it is starting to lag behind the newer competitors like Vultr. There will always be something newer and faster and that’s why we make these migrations frequently.

Ownership

If you haven’t heard us moan and groan about Godaddy Hosting, you haven’t ever been on a hosting service bought out by them. Every. Single. Time. Godaddy buys out all or part of a hosting company their service disintegrates, their speeds drop and they generally inflict a plague of locusts onto the previous fabulous host. First Godaddy themselves, followed by BlueHost and most recently WPEngine has fallen victim to the vermin that is GoDaddy. (Now I am talking about hosting, NOT domains, they are perfectly fine to use for your domain registrar hub and offer great packages).

Development

We host a variety of sites in our network and even (gasp) build pure HTML and CSS sites on occasion so we required a host that offered more than just a Managed WordPress option. Cloudways is 100% developer-friendly and vertically scalable. Meaning the moment we see our servers being overwhelmed (or even getting semi-close to maxing out) we upgrade all of the systems. That means your site will never go down due to too much traffic. Note: Please let us know if you will have a large influx of traffic due to a launch so we can increase the server allocation to compensate.

Security

Because they are in the top tier for hosting, they offer top-tier security. This means your site is protected against bots, brute-force attacks, etc. at the server level. We monitor the more specifics of your site by monitoring all activity but your hosting is your first line of defense and the main reason many users’ sites get hacked.

The Main Con for Some and Pro for Others

You will lose access to your server-side files and databases but that is for the security of your site and the other sites in your network. Although each site lives in a separate environment (like an impenetrable bubble) we still don’t want anyone breaking the code on your site. So we lock down the access. This keeps your site secure. Any changes at a server level will be implemented through us at no additional fee. This is how we keep your site safe.

Now, this doesn’t mean you’re locked into hosting with us forever with no access to your site files. As long as you have admin access to your website you have the ability to move your site to a new host through a plug-in.

If you hire a developer/designer to redo your site we can either import the site for them or grant them SMTP access to transfer the files. Luckily Cloudways also offers a fabulous migration plug-in that will port any new sites over to your hosting effortlessly. We know you won’t always want us to be the designer for marketer for all of your sites and are readily available to accommodate as needed.

But we always recommend you do your own research. There are many many articles comparing the various hosting, just pay attention to affiliate links, who’s writing them and what they have to gain, etc. before trusting every article.