Cloudways vs Coolify
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Cloudways and Coolify.
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
Cloudways
0 reviews
4.2/5
Coolify
0 reviews
Coolify is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.9). Managed hosting layer that sits on top of DigitalOcean, AWS, GCP, Vultr, or Linode. You get managed control with one-click staging, Breeze caching, and 24/7 support. Coolify is a free, open source self-hosted platform for deploying apps, databases, and services on your own servers. Supports any Docker image, one-click databases, and automated SSL.
Cloudways Managed cloud hosting on your choice of provider | Coolify Self-hosted open source Heroku/Netlify alternative | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews) | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | freemium |
| Starting price | From $11/mo | Free tier available✓ |
| Best for | Agencies, freelancers and SMBs running WordPress/WooCommerce/Magento/Laravel who want managed cloud hosting with provider choice and no ops staff | Solo developers and small teams with Linux skills who want Heroku-style deploys on their own cheap servers without per-app PaaS pricing |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 1 vCPU | — |
| RAM | 1 GB | — |
| Storage | 25 GB | — |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB/mo | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.99% | — |
| Data-center count | — | — |
| €/vCPU/mo | €11.00 | — |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €11.00 | — |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | United StatesUnited KingdomGermanyNetherlandsSingaporeAustralia+1 | Bring your own servers; Cloud control plane on Hetzner in Falkenstein, Germany |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | managed optionddos protectionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter | free tieropen sourceself hostable |
| Visit Cloudways → | Visit Coolify → | |
Cloudways
Pros
- + Choose the underlying cloud (DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, GCP) and region per server
- + Entry pricing from $11/month on DigitalOcean with hourly billing and no contract
- + Managed stack with free migration, staging/cloning, automated backups, caching and 24/7 human support
- + Unlimited sites and visits per server on Flexible plans
- + Autonomous line adds real autoscaling, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN and a no-credit-card 3-day trial
Cons
- - Management markup of roughly $5-$35/month over buying the same server direct
- - No formal uptime SLA on the Flexible line
- - AWS/GCP plans include only 1-2 GB transfer; overage at $0.12/GB (AWS) adds up fast
- - Root-level control is limited — no custom kernels, bare metal, GPUs or own object storage
- - Owned by DigitalOcean since 2022 while reselling competing clouds — a roadmap consideration
Coolify
Pros
- + Self-hosted is free forever with the complete feature set — unlimited servers, deployments and team members, Apache 2.0, no feature paywall
- + Coolify Cloud is $5/month including 2 connected servers ($3/month per extra server) — a flat fee that takes no margin on your compute
- + Deploys apps, databases and 280+ one-click services with automatic Let's Encrypt TLS and git push workflows on any SSH-reachable Linux host
- + Open codebase with a large, active community (20k+ Discord members) and near-daily development
Cons
- - You own server security, patching, firewalling and workload backups — the platform only removes deployment tedium
- - No uptime SLA, no enterprise support tier, SSO or compliance package; support is community plus limited email on Cloud
- - Fast-moving project: frequent releases and occasional upgrade friction, with a busy issue tracker
- - Cloud base plan covers only 2 servers and each team needs its own subscription
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