Cloudways vs DreamHost
Cloudways and DreamHost compared on measured uptime, response time, pricing and features from our own tests. Cloudways scores higher overall.
By Jennifer T. · Updated
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Verdict
CloudwaysWins overall
DigitalOcean's managed cloud layer: servers from $11 a month on five clouds, billed hourly, staging and caching included
Independent since 1997: three shared plans with renewals printed on the card, daily backups and a 100% uptime credit
Cloudways wins 4 of the six sub-scores and comes out ahead overall (7.8 vs 7.6).
How do the scores compare?
Cloudways leads on 4 sub-scores, DreamHost on 1. Higher is better.
Which one is faster and more reliable?
Which one costs less?
On renewal, DreamHost is cheaper ($10.99/mo vs $14.00/mo). Intro prices need the listed term.
| Cloudways | DreamHost | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan | DigitalOcean Premium Micro | Web Hosting Launch |
| Intro price | $14.00/mo | $2.89/mo (better) |
| Renewal price | $14.00/mo | $10.99/mo (better) |
| Required term | 1 months (better) | 12 months |
| Websites | unlimited | 25 |
| Storage | 25 GB | 25 GB |
| Money back | 0 days | 30 days (better) |
What does each include?
| Cloudways | DreamHost | |
|---|---|---|
| Free domain | No | First year, on annual and multi-year terms only |
| Free SSL | Let's Encrypt certificates on every application | Unlimited certificates on every plan |
| Backups | On-demand and scheduled server backups with one-click restore; offsite storage billed at $0.033 per GB per server | Daily automated backups on every plan, restored from the panel |
| Free migration | Free migration of existing sites | The product page links a migration path for existing sites; terms not read |
| Free CDN | No | No |
| Caching | Lightning Stack (NGINX), Object Cache Pro and Redis included on every plan | No |
| Staging | Advanced staging and cloning on every plan | No |
| No | 20, 40 or 60 mailboxes free for the first three months, then billed separately | |
| Resource limits | A whole server per customer: 1 to 8 GB RAM and 1 to 4 vCPU on the listed sizes, larger sizes and other providers available | No |
| Data center choice | The provider's regions, chosen per server: DigitalOcean 9, Vultr 30, Linode 25, AWS 28, Google Cloud 28 | Oregon, Virginia, Amsterdam and Singapore per the product page and help center; the panel shows where each service lives |
| Uptime guarantee | No | 100% in the terms, with a credit of one day of hosting per hour of qualifying downtime, up to 10% of the next renewal, counted from the support ticket |
| Security | Built-in firewall with IP blocking, WordPress vulnerability scanner, bot protection and dedicated firewalls per the pricing page | Not stated |
| Free trial | 3 days without a credit card | Not stated |
| Phone support | No | No |
| Windows hosting | No | No |
| Performance scans | Not stated | Automated and on-demand performance scans on every plan |