Cloudways vs Pressidium (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Cloudways grades higher than Pressidium: 2.2 against 1.6 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 17, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 17, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Cloudways grades higher on value for money, the free plan and platforms. They get the same grade on features and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Cloudways
Managed cloud hosting on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google
Pressidium
Managed WordPress hosting on an Akamai-backed edge platform
Which one is for you
Pick Cloudways if
- Fits if your site has outgrown shared hosting but you don't want to run a server
- Works for agencies hosting WordPress, Laravel or other PHP apps on servers they control
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want email included, as it's a paid add-on, like the CDN and malware protection
- Skip it if picking a server size sounds like homework, since you choose it yourself
- Tight if you want a proper look before paying, as the free trial lasts 3 days
- Watch out: offsite backup storage is $0.033 per GB per server on top, and prices exclude tax
- Pricey if you want autoscaling, as Autonomous starts at $99 a month for one site
Pick Pressidium if
- Fits if you run one busy WordPress or WooCommerce site and want engineers on call
- Works for agencies hosting up to 40 client sites
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want a free plan or trial
- Pricey if you run a small site, at $25 a month
- Watch out: extra CDN traffic is $0.10 per GB and extra sites on entry plans are $15 a month
- Not for you if you need multisite on the first plans
- Watch out: Starter is $299 paid up front on annual billing
How we grade them
| 2.2GPACloudwaysFair | 1.6GPAPressidiumWeak | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BGraded against the managed hosts it's weighed against. A 1 GB DigitalOcean server is $11 a month, billed hourly with no intro price to expire, so two years cost $264. Rocket.net and Kinsta run $25 to $29 a month, though here you size the server yourself. | C$25 a month for 1 site on Starter, $50 for 3, $75 for 5. Between the dearer quarter ($19) and the dearest tenth ($30). Annual is 2 months free. |
| Free plan and trial | DA 3-day free trial with no credit card. Three days is less than a week, too short to judge a host properly, so it lands at D. | FNo free plan or trial on record; every plan is paid from day one. |
| Features | CManaged servers on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud, with SSL, backups, staging, Object Cache Pro, Copilot and free migration. The gaps the listing names: email, the CDN and the malware protection service are paid add-ons. | CEdge caching, WAF, 30 days of backups, staging, malware removal and free migrations. The gaps: multisite isn't supported on the first plans and extra sites cost $15 each. |
| Ease of use | CNo app store rating to go on. You choose and size the server yourself, which is more decisions than a shared hosting plan asks of you. | CNo store rating on record. Migrations are included, but you still run a WordPress site and its plugins. |
| Platforms and integrations | BA web console with no app on record, plus a published API and a choice of five cloud providers, with WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento and Laravel apps on top. | CWeb only, with WooCommerce, Akamai and Redis named but no integrations list. |
| Best for | managed cloud servers without running them yourself | managed WordPress hosting with 24/7 engineers |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Cloudways and Pressidium. How we grade
Price against what you get
Cloudways starts at $11 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Pressidium starts at $25 a month and scores 2.0.
Cloudways scores higher and starts $14 a month lower. Of the other web hosts on the chart, 3 score higher than Cloudways for less, and 29 score higher than Pressidium for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Cloudways also covers malware protection.
- Pressidium also covers managed WordPress and page speed.
At a glance
| Cloudways | Pressidium | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Paid |
| Starts at | $11 per month for a 1 GB DigitalOcean server, billed hourly | $25 per month (Starter, 1 WordPress site, billed monthly) |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | 3-day free trial, no credit card required | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Cloudways, LLC | Pressidium |
| Price read from | cloudways.com | pressidium.com |
| Checked | Oct 17, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Cloudways
- Offsite backup storage is billed at $0.033 per GB per server on top of the server price, and listed prices exclude tax.
- Email hosting, the Cloudflare CDN and the malware protection service are paid add-ons rather than part of the server price.
- You choose and size the server yourself, which takes more decisions than a shared hosting plan.
Pressidium
- There is no free plan or trial; the cheapest plan is $25 a month for one site.
- Entry plans are sized by visits, and extra CDN traffic is billed at $0.10 per GB.
- Extra WordPress sites on entry plans cost $15 a month each, and multisite is listed as not supported on the first plans.
- Annual billing is offered as 2 months free; Starter is $299 paid up front.
Key features
Cloudways
- Choice of cloud provider
- Servers run on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, and you pick the provider, size and location, then scale up later.
- Managed server essentials
- Cloudways sets up and maintains the server with free SSL, backups, one-click staging and Object Cache Pro, and moves an existing site over for free.
- Copilot AI monitoring
- Cloudways Copilot watches the server's critical components and uses AI to diagnose issues and suggest fixes.
- Security and malware scanning
- Servers get malware scanning and vulnerability alerts, with a fuller malware protection service and a Cloudflare CDN sold as add-ons.
- Cloudways API
- Cloudways publishes an API, linked from every page, for working with the platform from your own scripts and tools.
Pressidium
- Pressidium EDGE
- The platform lists global edge caching, load balancing and a managed web application firewall, with an HTTP/3 enterprise CDN the page says is backed by Akamai.
- Free migrations
- Each entry plan includes free migrations equal to its site count, from 1 on Starter to 8 on Advanced.
- Backups and staging
- Automated backups keep 30 days of history, and on-demand backups and a staging environment are listed on the entry plans.
- Managed security
- Malware monitoring and removal, vulnerable plugin scanning and free SSL certificates are included.
- Managed updates
- Managed WordPress and PHP updates are listed, and the site names caching with a Redis object cache.
- Enterprise setups
- Enterprise plans start at $750 a month with unlimited sites and visits and a range of disaster recovery options.
Plans
Cloudways
Flexible, 1 GB server$11
per month, billed hourly
DigitalOcean Standard server with 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 25 GB SSD and 1 TB bandwidth, for unlimited sites. $0.0164 an hour; Premium with NVMe is $14.
Flexible, 2 GB server$24
per month, billed hourly
DigitalOcean Standard server with 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD and 2 TB bandwidth. The Premium version with NVMe storage is $28 a month.
Flexible, 4 GB server$46
per month, billed hourly
DigitalOcean Standard server with 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPUs and 80 GB SSD, where Object Cache Pro is included. Premium is $54; an 8 GB server is $88.
Autonomous Growth$99
per month
Autoscaling WordPress for one site, with 150 GB bandwidth and 20 GB disk. Extra disk is $1 a GB, bandwidth $0.04 a GB and extra servers $0.07 an hour.
Autonomous Scale$199
per month
One site on two baseline autoscaling servers, with 250 GB bandwidth and 50 GB disk. Plus, with three servers and 1,000 GB, is $399 a month.
Pressidium
Starter$25
per month for 1 WordPress site, billed monthly
10 GB storage, designed for 50K unique visits a month, 50 GB CDN bandwidth and 1 free migration.
Pro$50
per month for 3 WordPress sites, billed monthly
20 GB storage, designed for 100K unique visits a month, 100 GB CDN bandwidth and 3 free migrations.
Growth$75
per month for 5 WordPress sites, billed monthly
30 GB storage, designed for 200K unique visits a month and 200 GB CDN bandwidth. Marked most popular.
Advanced$99
per month for 8 WordPress sites, billed monthly
40 GB storage, designed for 300K unique visits a month and 400 GB CDN bandwidth.
Agency$150
per month and up, for up to 40 websites
Tiered pricing from $150 to $542 a month for agencies managing client sites.
Premium Site 1$183
per month for 1 WordPress site
50 GB storage, designed for 600K unique visits a month and 600 GB CDN bandwidth. Premium tiers run up to $550 a month.
Ways to pay less
Cloudways
No public discounts listed.
Pressidium
- Annual discount
2 months free with annual billing
Entry plans on annual billing: Starter is $299 (saves $59.80), Pro $599, Growth $899 and Advanced $1,190, paid up front.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Cloudways or Pressidium?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Cloudways is cheaper to start with: $11 a month, against $25 a month for Pressidium. Cloudways starts at $11 per month for a 1 GB DigitalOcean server, billed hourly, and Pressidium starts at $25 per month (Starter, 1 WordPress site, billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, Cloudways or Pressidium?
As of Nov 12, 2026, neither Cloudways nor Pressidium has a free plan. Cloudways has a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.