Cloudways vs WP Engine
Both are WordPress hosts aimed at agencies, freelancers and growing sites. They differ most on value for money, support and staging environments.
At a glance
| Cloudways | WP Engine | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 78/100 | 83/100 Higher |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Paid from | $14/mo (about £10.59) monthly cap; $0.0208/hr | £30/mo (about $39.66) monthly; £24/mo billed annually (£288 first year, promotional) |
| Positioning | managed cloud | premium managed |
| Launched | 2011 | 2010 |
| Best for | Anyone hosting several sites who is comfortable taking on a little more responsibility. | Agencies managing many client sites that need staging and transfers to be routine. |
Where each one leads
| Dimension | Cloudways | WP Engine | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staging environments | 4/5 | 5/5 | WP Engine |
| Multi-site management | 5/5 | 5/5 | Tie |
| Support | 3/5 | 4/5 | WP Engine |
| Performance | 4/5 | 4/5 | Tie |
| Value for money | 5/5 | 3/5 | Cloudways |
| Ease of use | 3/5 | 4/5 | WP Engine |
| Scalability | 4/5 | 5/5 | WP Engine |
Scores are 1–5 per dimension. Cloudways leads on 1 dimension, WP Engine on 4. The overall figure weights these for WordPress hosting generally — see methodology.
Pricing
Plans are listed per tool rather than paired row by row — tiers rarely line up, and putting one vendor's second plan beside another's implies an equivalence that is not there.
| Tool | Plan | Per month | Terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudways | Micro (1GB) | $14 | monthly cap; $0.0208/hr |
| Small (2GB) | $28 | monthly cap; $0.0417/hr | |
| Medium (4GB) | $54 | monthly cap; $0.0804/hr | |
| Large (8GB) | $99 | monthly cap; $0.1473/hr | |
| WP Engine | Essential | £30 | monthly; £24/mo billed annually (£288 first year, promotional) |
| Core | £312 | from; dedicated resources, sales-led |
Pricing checked 23 September 2026 and 24 September 2026 against each vendor's own pricing page. Cloudways: Billed in USD by the hour against a monthly cap, excluding tax. Prices shown are DigitalOcean Basic servers. WP Engine: Shown to UK visitors in GBP. Annual billing saves 20%. WP Engine notes that first-year pricing and coupons apply to new Essential customers only, and that renewal pricing is subject to change. Where the two bill in different currencies, conversions use the European Central Bank reference rate.
Verdict
Cloudways
- +Unlimited sites and unlimited visits per server — far cheaper than per-site pricing once you run several sites.
- +Choice of cloud provider: DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud.
- +Free staging, free migration, and Object Cache Pro included on 4GB servers and above.
- −You are choosing and sizing a server yourself, even if the panel hides most of the work.
- −Offsite backup storage is billed separately, per gigabyte.
WP Engine
- +One-click staging and development environments, and sites that transfer cleanly to clients.
- +Includes ten premium themes and Genesis Blocks at no extra cost.
- +One of the longest track records in managed WordPress hosting, operating since 2010.
- −Essential is £30 a month; the £24 annual rate is a first-year promotion, and WP Engine says renewal pricing is subject to change.
- −The entry Essential plan runs on shared resources — isolated resources start at £312 a month.
Common questions
Is Cloudways cheaper than WP Engine?
Cloudways starts at $14/mo (about £10.59; monthly cap; $0.0208/hr), and WP Engine starts at £30/mo (about $39.66; monthly; £24/mo billed annually (£288 first year, promotional)) — so Cloudways is the cheaper entry point. Converted at the European Central Bank reference rate. Compare what each includes at that tier, and what it renews at, rather than the headline figure alone.
Which is better, Cloudways or WP Engine?
On our weighted scoring across the use cases in this category, WP Engine comes out ahead overall. The honest answer is that it depends on the use case — the tables above break the score down by dimension so you can weight it to your own priorities.
Other comparisons
Sources & verification
- api.frankfurter.app — checked 24 September 2026European Central Bank reference rate, published via Frankfurter.
- wpengine.com — checked 24 September 2026No free plan.
- cloudways.com — checked 23 September 2026No free plan; a 3-day free trial without card details.