Flywheel vs Cloudways
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Flywheel and Cloudways.
Quick Verdict
3.8/5
Flywheel
0 reviews
3.9/5
Cloudways
0 reviews
Cloudways is rated higher (3.9 vs 3.8). Flywheel is managed WordPress hosting designed for designers and agencies. Blueprint feature creates site templates. Client billing management, free site migrations, and bulk management for multiple sites. 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.
Flywheel Managed WordPress for designers and agencies | Cloudways Managed cloud hosting on your choice of provider | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.8 (0 reviews) | 3.9 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $25/mo | From $11/mo✓ |
| Best for | Web design agencies and freelancers managing multiple client WordPress sites who want agency-specific tooling, free migrations and managed updates over raw price | Agencies, freelancers and SMBs running WordPress/WooCommerce/Magento/Laravel who want managed cloud hosting with provider choice and no ops staff |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | 10 GB | 25 GB✓ |
| Bandwidth | 0 TB/mo | 1 TB/mo✓ |
| SLA uptime | 99.9% | 99.99%✓ |
| Data-center count | 7 | — |
| €/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 States, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Singapore | United StatesUnited KingdomGermanyNetherlandsSingaporeAustralia+1 |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | managed optionbackups includedteam featuresus datacenter | managed optionddos protectionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit Flywheel → | Visit Cloudways → | |
Flywheel
Pros
- + Agency workflow built in: Blueprints, billing transfer, Organizations, collaborators, one-click staging
- + Nightly backups stored offsite for 30 days with one-click restore, included on all plans
- + Google Cloud platform with FlyCache, Fastly CDN, free SSL, free malware cleanup and WordPress updates
- + Seven data center choices including EU locations; free migrations handled by their team
- + 24/7/365 WordPress-specialist support and a 60-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- - WordPress-only — no other runtimes or static hosting
- - Visit and bandwidth metering with tier jumps; additional sites cost $20/month each
- - No first-party uptime SLA we could find; 99.9% is third-party reporting
- - WP Engine ownership brings consolidation pressure and WordPress-ecosystem dependency risk
- - Bulk plans pin all sites to one server; less enterprise headroom than WP Engine proper
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
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