Cloudways vs Kinsta (2026): Server Control or Hands-Off WordPress?

Cloudways vs Kinsta: The Quick Answer

Cloudways and Kinsta are both strong managed hosts, and both are partners we recommend. They solve the same problem, fast and reliable websites without running servers yourself, in two different ways.

Kinsta is our #1 overall host and the better choice if you want WordPress handled for you. You buy a plan sized to your site, and Kinsta takes care of the infrastructure, the CDN, security cleanup and migrations. Cloudways is the better choice if you want control and flexibility. You pick a cloud provider and server size, then run as many WordPress, Magento, Laravel or PHP apps on that server as it can handle.

• Choose Kinsta for business sites, stores and agencies that want premium, hands-off WordPress hosting with expert support.
• Choose Cloudways for developers and agencies running many sites, non-WordPress apps, or projects that need hourly billing and a choice of cloud.

For more depth, read our Kinsta review and Cloudways review.

The Core Difference: Managed WordPress vs Managed Cloud Servers

Kinsta is a managed WordPress platform. It runs on Google Cloud (C3D machines, according to Kinsta's changelog), and each site runs in its own isolated LXD container. You never choose a server size; you choose a plan based on visits or bandwidth, storage and the number of sites.

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform. It manages the server stack on infrastructure you choose from DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud, and you can switch provider later. You decide how much RAM, CPU and storage the server has, and you can resize it vertically as traffic grows. Cloudways is a DigitalOcean company.

That one difference shapes almost everything else: how you pay, what is included, and how much you decide yourself.

Cloudways vs Kinsta Side by Side

As listed by each provider in October 2026. Cloudways prices vary by cloud provider and server type.

Pricing Models Explained

Kinsta and Cloudways charge for different things, so their headline prices are not directly comparable.

How Kinsta Prices Its Plans

Kinsta sells per-site plans. Single plans host one WordPress install, and you choose whether the plan is measured by monthly visits or by bandwidth. The entry plan is Single 35k (or Single 20GB), at $35 a month or $30 a month billed annually, with 10 GB of storage, 125 GB of CDN bandwidth and the first month free for new customers. Multi-site WP plans start with WP 2 at $70 a month for two sites. Annual billing gives two months free.

If a site goes over its visit, storage or CDN limit, Kinsta keeps it online, notifies you at 80% and 100%, and bills an overage fee. Kinsta counts a visit as each unique IP in a 24-hour period. See our Kinsta pricing guide for the full plan table.

How Cloudways Prices Its Servers

Cloudways Flexible plans are priced per server and billed hourly, month to month, with no long-term commitment. As shown by default on Cloudways' pricing page, Micro costs $14 a month (1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 25 GB NVMe, 1 TB transfer), Small $28, Medium $54 and Large $99. Prices vary by provider and server type, and exclude taxes.

Every Flexible plan includes unlimited visits and unlimited websites per server, as many as the server can support. The cost to watch is add-ons: Cloudflare Enterprise, malware protection, email and offsite backup storage are billed separately. See our Cloudways pricing breakdown.

Cost Scenarios: 1, 5 and 10 Sites

Here is how the two compare at typical sizes, using listed monthly prices. On Cloudways, server sizing is your call; the sizes below are reasonable starting points rather than a rule, and add-ons cost extra.

Kinsta annual billing lowers these to $30, $96 and $188 a month. Cloudways prices exclude add-ons such as Cloudflare Enterprise ($4.99/domain), malware protection ($4/app) and email ($1.50/mailbox).

On raw price, Cloudways is lower, especially as the number of sites grows. Kinsta's price includes services that are add-ons on Cloudways, plus the time you would otherwise spend choosing, sizing and monitoring a server. For a single business site, the gap is smaller once you add a CDN and malware protection to Cloudways.

Performance and Infrastructure

Both hosts are built for speed, and both publish performance claims worth attributing.

Kinsta runs every site in an isolated container on Google Cloud, with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.4 through 8.5. Server-level full-page caching and edge caching are built in, and HTTP/3 is on by default. Kinsta says turning on edge caching can cut page load times by 49%, and its performance page says sites can be up to 200% faster after migrating.

Cloudways runs its Lightning Stack, built on NGINX and PHP-FPM, which Cloudways says delivers up to 65% faster load times. Flexible plans include free Redis and, on 4 GB servers or larger, free Object Cache Pro. Because you choose the server, performance scales with the resources you buy, and you can scale vertically when you need more. Cloudways also offers Autonomous, a fully managed autoscaling WordPress product from $99 a month for high-traffic stores and LMS sites.

CDN

Kinsta includes the Kinsta CDN, powered by Cloudflare with 300+ locations, on every plan, along with edge caching. Each plan has a CDN bandwidth allowance, starting at 125 GB a month on Single 35k.

Cloudways offers Cloudflare Enterprise as an add-on from $4.99 per domain a month, which adds edge page caching and Argo smart routing. Cloudways' Autonomous plans include Cloudflare Enterprise. If a CDN matters to you, budget for it on Cloudways Flexible. For background, see what is a CDN.

Backups

Kinsta takes automatic daily backups on every plan, plus manual backups and system restore points. Retention is at least 14 days on entry plans and 20 to 30 days on larger plans. More frequent backups are available as add-ons: every six hours for $20 per site a month, or hourly for $100.

Cloudways includes automated and on-demand backups with one-click restore. Offsite backup storage is billed at $0.033 per GB per server. Both approaches cover most sites well; Kinsta's is simpler to reason about, while Cloudways' scales with how much you store.

Security and Malware Removal

Kinsta includes Cloudflare enterprise DDoS protection and firewalls, 24/7 malware monitoring, uptime checks every three minutes and free SSL including wildcard certificates. Malware removal is free under Kinsta's Malware Security Pledge. Kinsta also lists SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 compliance, SAML SSO and two-factor authentication.

Cloudways includes an Imunify360 server-level firewall with IP and country blocking, bot, brute-force and DoS protection, malware scanning, a free WordPress vulnerability scanner and free Let's Encrypt SSL. Automated malware removal is a paid add-on, Malware Protection, from $4 per app a month.

Support

Kinsta offers 24/7/365 support from WordPress engineers in a single tier, with live chat in eight languages. Kinsta states an average first response under two minutes and a 47-minute median resolution time.

Cloudways offers 24/7/365 expert support on all plans and states a 90-second average response time and 96% CSAT. For deeper help with plugins, themes and performance tuning, Cloudways sells an Advanced Support add-on for $100 a month.

Dashboard and Developer Tools

The MyKinsta dashboard covers one-click staging and push to live, cache and CDN controls, a redirects manager, PHP version selection, search-and-replace, analytics and built-in APM at no extra cost. Developers get Git, SSH, WP-CLI, one-click site cloning and DevKinsta, a free local development tool. Teams get unlimited users with granular permissions and an activity log.

The Cloudways platform is built around servers and applications. It includes free advanced staging and cloning, multiple PHP versions, server and app monitoring across 15+ metrics, auto-healing servers, team collaboration and CloudwaysBot notifications. It is approachable for developers, while beginners face more choices than on Kinsta.

Non-WordPress Apps

This is one of Cloudways' clearest advantages. Alongside WordPress and WooCommerce, Cloudways supports Magento, Laravel and PHP applications, with one-click or supported setups for frameworks and CMSs such as Symfony, CodeIgniter, Drupal, Joomla and Craft CMS. Cloudways is our #1 pick for Magento hosting and PHP hosting.

The Kinsta plans covered in this comparison are WordPress hosting plans. If WordPress is all you run, that focus is a strength.

Email

Neither host includes email hosting. With Kinsta, you use a separate email provider. Cloudways offers Rackspace Email as an add-on at $1.50 per mailbox a month, which keeps billing in one place.

Migrations

Kinsta offers free, unlimited migrations handled by its migration team, scheduled around you with no downtime. Kinsta says it completes about 1,100 migrations a month and offers expedited migrations in as little as eight hours. It also cleans up malware for free if any is found during a migration.

Cloudways migrates your first website for free with its engineers. For additional sites, check Cloudways' current migration terms or move them yourself. For moving sites yourself, see how to migrate a WordPress site.

Free Trial vs First Month Free

Cloudways offers a 3-day free trial on Flexible and Autonomous plans with no credit card required. It is a quick way to launch a server and see the platform before you pay.

Kinsta offers the first month free on its entry Single plan for new customers. After any free period, Kinsta's 30-day money-back guarantee applies.

Try Cloudways Free

Who Should Choose Kinsta or Cloudways?

Still comparing managed hosts? See our guides to managed WordPress hosting and the best WordPress hosting, or compare Kinsta with a lower-cost managed option in WPX vs Kinsta.

Cloudways vs Kinsta FAQs