Cloudways vs. Liquid Web – both hosts are two of the best on the market today so it may be hard to choose. I compared the overall features of both hosting providers, and I personally think Liquid Web is better than Cloudways. However, depending on your needs, Cloudways may still be the better option for you. Read on so you can decide for yourself.
Overall Comparison Cloudways vs. Liquid Web
| Cloudways | Liquid Web | |
| Features | Managed WordPress Hosting With 5 Cloud Providers; 4/5 | Managed WordPress; VPS; Dedicated; Cloud; Reseller; Enterprise Hosting 5/5 |
| Pricing | Starts at $7.20/month; 3-Day-Trial (no CC) 5/5 | Starts at $13.30/month; 30-day money-back guarantee 5/5 |
| Performance | 99.9% uptime; 354 ms response time Cache; SSD Cloudflare CDN 4.5/5 | 100% uptime; 225 ms response time SSD Storage Cloudflare CDN 5/5 |
| Support | 24/7/365 support; Phone; Live chat; Community Support; Blog; Knowledgebase; 5/5 | 24/7/365 support; Phone; Live chat; Helpdesk; Blog; Knowledgebase; Webinars; 5/5 |
| Ease of use | Free Migration Unlimited Apps 1-Click settings Real-time Collaboration 5/5 | cPanel Integration 1-Click CMS Installation eCommerce Integration Website Builders 5/5 |
| Security | Free SSL 2FA Security Patching 24/7 Real-Time Monitoring Backups; Firewalls 5/5 | Automatic SSL Anti-virus Protection Malware scans DDoS protection Firewalls Auto-backups 5/5 |
| Server location | North America; South America; Europe; Asia; Australia 5/5 | Lansing, Ml Phoenix, AZ Amsterdam, NL 4/5 |
Winner: Liquid Web
Altogether, Liquid Web trumps Cloudways in its performance and multiple server options. However, Cloudways has a larger customer base and is the best choice if you want the freedom of the cloud at a low cost. Keep reading to decide what features you want for your unique business.
About Cloudways and Liquid Web
 | Cloudways is a hosting provider founded in 2011 and was acquired by DigitalOcean in 2022. It provides exclusive cloud hosting services and is backed by cloud servers like Google, Vultr, DigitalOcean, Linode, and AWS. Cloudways has 80,000+ customers worldwide and hosts 570K+ websites for agencies, SMBs, and Individuals. Cloudways won the High-Performance accreditation from G2 in 2022. |
 | Liquid Web is a hosting company founded in 1997 and serves 45,000+ customers from 150 Countries. They have 250+ experienced team members to provide a humane touch to each of your business needs. They are accredited A+ rating from BBB and ranked #1 for dedicated servers by Hosting Advice. |
Round 1: Hosting features – Key Hosting Features and Services
| Hosting Feature | Cloudways | Liquid Web |
| Disk space and bandwidth | Managed Cloud Hosting: DigitalOcean: 1-8 GB RAM; 25-320 GB Storage; 1-6 TB Bandwidth Vultr: 1-48 GB RAM; 32-768 GB Storage; 1-8 TB Bandwidth Linode 1-192 GB RAM; 25-3840 GB Storage; 1-20 TB Bandwidth Google Cloud 1.70-120 GB RAM; 20 GB Storage; 2 GB Bandwidth AWS 2-384 GB RAM; 20 GB Storage; 2 GB Bandwidth | Managed WordPress Hosting – 15-800 GB storage; 2-10 TB Bandwidth Managed VPS Hosting – Linux: 2-16 GB RAM; 40-200 GB SSD Storage; 10 TB Bandwidth Windows: 4-16 GB RAM; 100-200 GB SSD Storage; 10 TB Bandwidth Cloud Dedicated Servers – 16-128 GB RAM; 3.8-7.6 TB NvMe SSD; 5 TB Bandwidth Dedicated Server Hosting – 16-64 GB RAM; 2 x 240 GB – 2 x 480 GB Primary SSD; 1 x 1 TB – 1 x 2 TB SATA Backup Disk; 5-8 TB Bandwidth |
| high-performance SSD storage | Yes | Yes, Automatic Backups |
| Free daily backups and restore | Yes | Yes |
| Free WordPress installation | Yes | Yes |
| Free site migration | Yes | Yes |
| Free website builder | No | Yes, Beaver Builder |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes, Automatic SSL |
Key Cloudways Features
Cloudways offers only cloud hosting with 5 different providers. However, they have unlimited application installation options, including WordPress. You get free daily backups, SSL certificates, and site migration on all plans. Plus their servers are NvMe-based and with a dedicated environment. The host also provides 1-click installs for over 10+ applications.
With Cloudways hosting, you can clone fully configured servers, migrate, and add all your sites to one place at no additional costs. Furthermore, you can change your data center location, cloud provider, expand your storage, or even collaborate with other team members in real time. Although they don’t provide a website builder, Cloudways is an excellent option for everyone who wants the flexibility and scalability of a cloud server.
Key Liquid Web Features
Liquid Web provides different types of hosting including VPS, Cloud, Managed WordPress, and Dedicated.
They offer automatic SSL installation on every plan, free and convenient website migration, high-performance SSD/NvMe hybrid storage, free WordPress installation, and automatic daily backups – accessible in just one click.
They also provide the Beaver website builder with their managed WordPress hosting.
And the winner is… Liquid Web
I found Liquid Web a better option for all business sizes because they provide multiple hosting options and a website builder for WordPress users.
Round 2: Prices & Plans
| Managed WordPress Hosting | Cloudways | Liquid Web |
| Entry Level plan | DigitalOcean/Linode 1 GB RAM – $7.20/month Vultr 1 GB RAM – $7.80/month AWS 2 GB RAM – $21.91/month Google Cloud 1.70 GB RAM – $19.91/month | Spark $13.30/month |
| Middle plan | DigitalOcean/Vultr 2 GB RAM – $15.60/month 4 GB RAM – $30/month Linode 2 GB RAM – $14.40/month 4 GB RAM – $30/month AWS 4 GB RAM – $52.06/month 8 GB RAM – $105.76/month Google Cloud 3.75 GB – $44.10/month 7.5 GB – $83.11/month | Maker $55.30/month Designer $76.30/month Builder $104.30/month Producer $209.30/month Executive $384.30/month |
| Highest plan | DigitalOcean 8 GB RAM – $57.60/month Vultr 8 GB RAM – $60/month Linode 8 GB RAM – $54/month AWS 16 GB RAM – $164.60/month Google Cloud 15 GB RAM – $135.56/month | Enterprise $699.30/month |
| Managed VPS hosting | Cloudways | Liquid Web |
| Entry Level plan | N/A | LINUX 2 GB RAM – $25/month 2 GB Value Bundle – $40/month WINDOWS 4 GB RAM – $65/month 4 GB Value Bundle – $100/month |
| Middle plan | N/A | LINUX 4 GB RAM – $35/month 4 GB Value Bundle – $50/month 8 GB RAM – $45/month 8 GB Value Bundle – $65/month WINDOWS 8 GB RAM – $85/month 8 GB Value Bundle – $120/month |
| Highest plan | N/A | LINUX 16 GB RAM – $105/month 16 GB Value Bundle – $145/month WINDOWS 16 GB RAM – $145/month 16 GB Value Bundle – $190/month |
| Dedicated hosting | Cloudways | Liquid Web |
| Entry Level plan | N/A | Intel Xeon 1230V6 $149.25/month |
| Middle plan | N/A | Intel Xeon Gold 6226R SINGLE $224.25/month |
| Highest plan | N/A | Intel Xeon Gold 6226R DUAL $374.25/month |
| Cloud Dedicated hosting | Cloudways | Liquid Web |
| Entry Level plan | N/A | Standard Intel Xeon E3-1230 v6 $149/month High Performance Intel Xeon E5-1650 v4 $579/month |
| Middle plan | N/A | Standard Intel Xeon E3-1230 v6 $189/month High Performance Intel Xeon E5-1650 v4 $629/month |
| Highest plan | N/A | Standard Intel Xeon E5-1650 v4 $219/month High Performance Intel Xeon E5-1650 v4 $699/month |
Cloudways Pricing Plans
Cloudways exclusively provides Cloud hosting to their customers. Their plans are best suited to:
- DigitalOcean/Vultr/Linode – Best for solopreneurs and new business websites
- AWS – High-end cloud solutions fully managed for you – the Cloudways AWS.
- Google Cloud – If you want the roof of Google to leverage your business, Google Cloud is the best and fastest option.
Liquid Web Pricing Plans
Liquid Web is an equally excellent host, if you are looking for a variety of hosting services to upgrade as per need. Liquid Web’s plans are best suited to:
- Managed WordPress Hosting – Multi tiers especially for solopreneurs, freelancers, individual contractors, designers, agencies, and enterprises.
- Managed VPS Hosting – With both Linux and Windows servers and best suited for anyone searching for the alternatives of AWS, DigitalOcean, and Rackspace.
- Dedicated hosting – Don’t want nosy neighbors? Liquid Web’s dedicated hosting plans are just for you.
- Cloud Dedicated hosting – What if you run out of server space? Liquid Web’s cloud dedicated has your back.
And the Winner Is… Liquid Web
Due to its versatile hosting plans, Liquid Web again trumps Cloudways. Still, Cloudways has more affordable pricing options than Liquid Web.
Round 3: Website performance (Uptime & Speed)
32% of your customers will bounce if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load; so it’s important your host’s servers load quickly.
It’s also important to consider your host’s uptime. In Layman’s terms, uptime means the percentage of the time your host servers are online.
To test Cloudways and Liquid Web, I ran both hosts’ domains through GTMetrix and PageSpeed Insights and these were the results:
| Test | Cloudways | Liquid Web |
| GT Metrix | 0.354 s | 0.225 s |
| PageSpeed Insights | 1.2 s | 0.8 s |
Cloudways Uptime & Speed
Cloudways had an overall score of 87% on GTMetrix and a TTFB of 354 ms which is quite decent.
Cloudways performed quite poorly on Google Page Speed Insights with a TTFB of 1.2s with a 64% overall performance.
Liquid Web Uptime & Speed
Liquid Web performed far better than Cloudways on GTMetrix with an overall 95% performance and an excellent 225 ms TTFB.
PageSpeed Insights shows a performance of 98% on Desktop with a TTFB of 0.8s, which is remarkable.
And the Winner Is… Liquid Web
Again Liquid Web outperformed Cloudways and is the clear winner and the faster of the two hosts. On GTmetrix, the performance grades were similar, while on Google PageSpeed Insights, Liquid Web clearly wins.
Round 4: Customer Support – Who Has the Best Support System?
| Type of Support | Cloudways | Liquid Web |
| 24/7/365 support | Yes | Yes |
| Phone Support | Yes | Yes |
| Live chat | Yes | Yes |
| Email/Ticket Support | Yes | Yes |
| Helpdesk support | No | Yes |
| Forum Support | Yes | No |
| Video guides | Yes | Yes |
| Knowledgebase | Yes | Yes |
Cloudways customer Support
Cloudways provides 24/7 support through multiple channels – phone, live chat, slack community, youtube video guides, knowledge base, and a blog section.
The phone and live chat support are especially great if you need to solve urgent problems.
The host also offers advanced and premium support add-ons like a Slack community, dedicated account manager, and more.
The knowledgebase is quite helpful and will help you figure out answers around topics like subscription, billing, account management, website and troubleshooting, etc. and is awesome if you are a DIY learner.
I couldn’t find the live chat option on the home page or the support menu.
However, there’s a Facebook group for support on Cloudways, which is quite great.
For inquiries before purchase, you can reach out to them via their contact us page. 
They have regular updates on their blog and YouTube, which you can use to gain more knowledge throughout your website building and management journey.
You can also see how frequently their content gets updated on YouTube:
Liquid Web Customer Support
As an alternative to Cloudways, Liquid Web also has a strong customer support system – especially, human support. As you can see, they have a live chat option right on their front page.
You will also find a ticket support option on their contact page. When I clicked on the “create a ticket” option, it redirected me to the signup page.
Liquid Web has phone support 24/7, and I contacted the phone numbers for inquiries that were unavailable from my location. 
Like Cloudways, Liquid Web has an in-built search engine in its knowledge base and different categories to check your queries. I searched “DDoS Protection” on the search bar to see the system’s efficiency, and quickly got a list of helpful guides.
In the content hub, I found numerous webinar videos from Cloudways experts. When you click “Watch now,” it will show you to fill in your information to watch the videos. Once you do that, however, they are free to watch. The same videos are available on their youtube channel.
Further, they have an active blog with hundreds of articles to provide knowledge on different product categories.
I decided to try out the live chat. I clicked on the “chat with a human” button, and was redirected to sign up.
After signing up, a live agent joined and I was impressed with how quickly he responded. No long waiting time. You can see the conversation.
And the Winner Is… Liquid Web
This was a tough call as both hosts are closely matched in their support features. However, I’d give Liquid Web this round thanks to how quickly you can get in touch with a live agent. Cloudways is still great as they have a more active Youtube channel and Facebook support.
Round 5: Ease of use – Which Platform Is Easier to Use?
| Cloudways | Liquid Web | |
| Account management dashboard | Easy | Easy |
| Control panel | Easy | Easy |
| Setup process (Install OS) | Easy | Easy |
| Transfer an existing website | Easy | Easy |
| Easy creation of backups | Easy | Easy |
| Emails | Unavailable | Medium |
| Enable Cloudflare | Easy | Easy |
Cloudways Ease of use
Cloudways has a clean website interface and as they provide only cloud hosting, everything is straight to the point.
Once you sign up as a customer, you get access to the host’s customized cPanel. It’s clean and easy to perform all your backend tweaks. Furthermore, they have a help page with guides on using the control dashboard.
Cloudways has great support but their contact information is a little hard to find plus they don’t offer email access.
Liquid Web Ease of use
Liquid Web provides versatile products and services and its UI groups it all nicely. The home page is minimal and clutter-free, with easy navigation to the different relevant pages.
Liquid Web has the old-school cPanel – and if you are big on tradition, you’d feel right at home.
Liquid Web’s Account Management Dashboard also has a clean look:
Plus, if you don’t have a website yet, the Beaver website builder included will help you create one with its easy to use drag-and-drop themes.
And the Winner Is… Liquid Web
Cloudways is easy to use and navigate through. However, Liquid Web has a plus for its quick-to-find support features. Liquid Web also provides a website builder that’d help you create your website quickly from the ground up.
Round 6: Security – Which Platform is More Secure?
| Cloudways | Liquid Web | |
| Free SSL certificate | Yes | Yes; Automatic |
| DDoS protection | Yes | Yes |
| Cloudflare | Yes | Yes |
| Daily backups | Yes | Yes |
| Malware scans | Yes – Malcare Plugin | Yes |
| SiteLock Security | No | No |
| WAF (Web Application Firewall) | Yes | Yes |
| Security Features | Free SSL; 2FA; Security Patching; 24/7 Real-Time Monitoring; Malware and DDoS protection – Malcare; WAF; Backups; Cloudflare CDN | Free SSL; Routine Malware Scans; DDoS Protection; Cloudflare CDN; Daily backups; Antivirus Addon; WAF |
Cloudways Security
The extensive security features of Cloudways include a free SSL, 2FA, security patching, 24/7 real-time monitoring, bot prevention with the Malcare plugin, daily backups, WAF, and more with their premium add-ons.
Further, your website will get a boost with their advanced Cloudflare CDN.
Liquid Web Security
Like Cloudways, Liquid Web also provides great security features on all its plans. Some of their no-cost security solutions include DDoS protection, free SSL encryption, Cloudflare CDN, and daily backups and restore.
If you want more, the paid add-ons include firewalls and VPNs, data protection, server protection, routine malware scans and removal, and an anti-virus.
And the Winner Is… Cloudways
Whether you are considering Cloudways or Liquid Web, you’d get great security out-of-the-box. However, Cloudways performs slightly better thanks to its advanced Cloudflare CDN. Liquid Web, still, gives you free DDoS protection for free.
Round 7: Server locations
You want to go for a host with a wide server footprint, especially if you are targeting a global audience. The closer your host’s servers are to the user, the faster your website will load.
Cloudways Server location
Cloudways has widely spread servers in England, Netherlands, India, Germany, USA, Singapore, Australia, South Africa, and more.
Liquid Web Server location
Liquid Web has its own data centers in three primary locations: Lansing, MI; Phoenix, AZ; and Amsterdam, NL.
And the Winner Is… Cloudways
Cloudways has infrastructure managed by their IaaS providers around the world. In contrast, Liquid Web has its own data centers but is limited to the United States and Europe. Thus, Cloudways wins here.
Cloudways vs. Liquid Web: final recommendations
When to Choose Cloudways
Cloudways is a great cloud hosting provider that offers cloud servers at an affordable price. Thus, I’d suggest you take Cloudways if:
- You want a managed cloud hosting plan
- You don’t have the biggest hosting budget
- You want to try Google Cloud or AWS but don’t want to manage it all alone
- You want an easy-to-use interface and are new to hosting
- You want community support
- You want extensive security features
- You target a worldwide audience
Go for Liquid Web if you:
Liquid Web is a robust competitor of Cloudways with multiple hosting plans and extensive add-ons. In a nutshell, you should choose Liquid Web if :
- Your target audience is based in the United States or Europe
- You want a super fast speed and high uptime
- You want a money-back guarantee
- You want real-time and quick human support
- You want a host with security as a priority
The Bottom Line
In the 7-round matchup, Liquid Web trumps Cloudways as the better host.
They offer versatile products, quick support, high performance, impressive server speed, and a 30-days money-back guarantee on all plans.
However, Cloudways is still a great alternative to Liquid Web in terms of budget, security, ease of use, and has a wider server footprint.
FAQs
1. Is Liquid Web better than Cloudways?
Yes. As per our overall results, Liquid Web trumps Cloudways. But if you want a cheap option along with global server locations, Cloudways is excellent too.
2. Who uses Cloudways?
Cloudways is best for small and medium-sized businesses with global customers who have a tight budget but want a fast, flexible, and scalable cloud hosting service with multiple cloud options.
3. What are some great Liquid Web alternatives and Cloudways alternatives?
Some top-notch Liquid Web and Cloudways alternatives are Kinsta, Rocket.net, WP Engine, SiteGound, GoDaddy, etc.
