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Cloudways vs Vultr
This is not a like-for-like contest.
Cloudways
$14/mo entry
Cloudways pricingFreelancers and small agencies hosting several client sites on one managed server.
Vultr
$3.50/mo entry
Get $300 free Vultr creditLatency-sensitive projects that need a specific city, and price-driven builders comfortable alone.
New Vultr accounts opened through our link get $300 of credit to use within 30 days. A card or PayPal is required; duplicate accounts are not eligible. Vultr pays us a referral fee if you stay a paying customer.
Vultr sells raw compute and hands you the operating system; Cloudways sells a managed service and charges for the work you no longer do. Compare them only if you genuinely have not decided whether to run the server yourself.
Specification differences
Entry plans compared line by line. Rows marked with a dash are preferences rather than measurable wins, so we do not pick a side on them.
| Attribute | Cloudways | Vultr | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan price / month | $14 | $3.50 | Vultr |
| Entry plan vCPU | 1 | 1 | |
| Entry plan RAM | 1 GB | 0.5 GB | Cloudways |
| Entry plan storage | 25 GB | 10 GB | Cloudways |
| Included transfer | 1 TB | 0.5 TB | Cloudways |
| Listed regions | 25 | 32 | Vultr |
| Management model | Managed | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | |
| Support | 24/7 live chat and tickets; premium support tiers cost extra. | Ticket support; documentation is sparse relative to competitors. | |
| Billing | Hourly metering billed monthly, pay-as-you-go. | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price. | |
| Free tier | Free trial available for new accounts; no permanent free tier. | No free tier. |
Same size, side by side
The cheapest plan from each provider that meets each size, so the comparison is between equal servers rather than two entry plans. Prices include a separately-billed IPv4 address where the provider charges for one.
| Size | Cloudways | Vultr | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU / 1 GB | no plan this size | $5Regular 1GB · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 25 GBEntry plan with a public IPv4 address and 1GB of RAM. | — |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | no plan this size | $20Regular 4GB · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GBDirect competitor to the DigitalOcean 4GB Droplet, priced below it. | — |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | no plan this size | $40Regular 8GB · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 160 GBFour cores at a lower list price than most rivals here. | — |
| 8 vCPU / 16 GB | no plan this size | $160Regular 32GB · 8 vCPU · 32 GB · 640 GBEight shared cores and 32GB on the Regular Performance line. | — |
Every provider at these sizes, ranked: 1 GB RAM · 4 GB RAM · 8 GB RAM · 16 GB RAM
Where each one wins and loses
Cloudways
Cloudways does not own data centers. It provisions servers on underlying clouds such as DigitalOcean and Vultr and adds the managed layer on top: stack configuration, caching, staging, automated backups and one-click server maintenance. You pay a premium over the raw instance for not having to be a sysadmin, while keeping the ability to move up in size.
Strengths
- Managed stack, caching and staging without full agency pricing
- Choice of underlying cloud provider and region
- Unlimited sites per server within the resources you buy
- Vertical scaling without rebuilding the server
Weaknesses
- Clear markup over provisioning the same instance yourself
- You are dependent on two vendors rather than one
- Email hosting is a paid add-on, not included
Support: 24/7 live chat and tickets; premium support tiers cost extra.
Billing: Hourly metering billed monthly, pay-as-you-go.
Free tier: Free trial available for new accounts; no permanent free tier.
Vultr
Vultr competes on footprint and price rather than on hand-holding. It lists more data center locations than any other cloud server provider we track, which matters if latency to a specific city is your binding constraint. The trade-off is a thinner documentation library and a support experience aimed at people who already know what a kernel panic is.
Strengths
- Largest region list here, including several markets rivals do not cover
- High Frequency instances put NVMe and faster clocks at a low price point
- Hourly billing with no minimum commitment
Weaknesses
- Unmanaged, with noticeably less tutorial content than DigitalOcean
- Support is functional rather than educational
- Cheapest plans are IPv6-only in some regions - check before you commit
Support: Ticket support; documentation is sparse relative to competitors.
Billing: Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price.
Free tier: No free tier.
The full cost stack
What a server costs beyond its sticker price. Only figures read from each provider's own documentation appear; a gap says “not captured yet”.
| Item | Cloudways | Vultr |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | n/a | n/a |
| Automatic backups | not captured yet | Automatic backups add 20% of the instance price. |
| Outbound traffic beyond the allowance | not captured yet | $0.01/GB over allowance |
| Smallest managed load balancer | not captured yet | $10/mo |
Sources: docs.vultr.com · docs.vultr.com · www.vultr.com
Price changes we have logged
No tracked price change for either provider yet.
Full record at the change log.
Every plan
The complete plan ladders, with the date and source of every price, are on each provider's page: Cloudways and Vultr.
These are the providers' own list prices, shown in US dollars and last updated 23 Oct 2026. Where a provider bills a public IPv4 address on top, it is added to the monthly price, the ranking and every cost per vCPU or per GB, and the row shows the parts: the server, any disk priced apart, and the IPv4 charge. Each row says when we read its price, and whether it excludes VAT or needs a term. Check the provider's page before you buy.
Related comparisons
Cloudways vs Vultr — frequently asked
Every answer is computed from this pair's own prices and costs.
- How many data center locations do Cloudways and Vultr have?
- Cloudways lists 25 and Vultr lists 32.
- What do backups add at Cloudways and Vultr?
- Cloudways: not captured yet; Vultr: 20% of the plan price.