Laravel Forge vs Cloudways
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Laravel Forge and Cloudways.
Quick Verdict
4.1/5
Laravel Forge
0 reviews
3.9/5
Cloudways
0 reviews
Laravel Forge is rated higher (4.1 vs 3.9). Laravel Forge provisions and manages PHP servers for Laravel applications. Auto-deploys from GitHub, manages Nginx, databases, SSL, and cron jobs. The standard for Laravel deployments. 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.
Laravel Forge Server management for PHP/Laravel deployments | Cloudways Managed cloud hosting on your choice of provider | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.1 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.9 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $12/mo | From $11/mo✓ |
| Best for | Laravel and PHP developers — and agencies running multiple client servers — who want automated provisioning and deployment to any cloud VPS while keeping root access and provider choice | 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 | — | 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 |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | managed optionapi access | managed optionddos protectionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit Laravel Forge → | Visit Cloudways → | |
Laravel Forge
Pros
- + Flat, published pricing ($12/$19/$39) on top of cheap self-chosen servers — strong cost control versus PaaS
- + Zero-downtime deployments, automated SSL, managed databases, queues, cron, monitoring and heartbeats in the box
- + Provider flexibility: Laravel VPS, DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, AWS, Hetzner Cloud, or bring your own server
- + A decade of Laravel deployments behind it; backed by Laravel Holdings with a $57M Series A and active development
- + Agency-friendly: organizations with role-based access and billing separation, unlimited sites and deployments
Cons
- - Monthly fee on top of server costs — poor value for a single small site
- - PHP-first; Node/Nuxt/Next.js support is newer and broader language support is still promised
- - No uptime SLA and community-only support on the Hobby plan
- - Power tool: provisioning existing servers can cause data loss; backups and OS security are your responsibility
- - Reliability of the running app depends on the underlying provider Forge does not control
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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