Kinsta vs. Cloudways Hosting: 7 Must-Know Facts
- Cloudways is a leading cloud hosting service that provides managed WordPress hosting and VPS. It’s been around for over 10 years, offering a wide range of high-quality services at affordable prices.
- Kinsta, on the other hand, is a fully managed WordPress host that includes free migrations and 24/7 support. The company uses only premium SSD storage for all its shared hosting plans and offers automatic backups for your site data.
- Kinsta provides a free demo, whereas Cloudways offers a three-day free trial.
- Kinsta offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, but Cloudways does not.
- Cloudways allows you to host multiple domains, but Kinsta’s Starter Plan does not.
- Cloudways offers cloud hosting, whereas Kinsta offers fully managed WordPress hosting.
- Kinsta offers dedicated hosting, but Cloudways does not.
If you’re running a WordPress site, you know that hosting can be one of the most difficult aspects of managing your website. You have to weigh your options and decide whether you want to go with an inexpensive shared host or go all-in on your own managed VPS.
Both Cloudways and Kinsta are renowned hosting companies that offer cloud-based managed WordPress hosting services to users across the globe.
However, there are quite a few differences between the two, and the best for your website depends on your specific requirements. To help you make an informed decision, this Cloudways vs. Kinsta guide will go over some of the most important aspects of both providers, including pricing, performance, support, and the features most important to you.
Cloudways vs. Kinsta Hosting: A Side-by-Side Comparison
| Cloudways | Kinsta | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2012 | 2013 |
| Address | Cloudways Ltd. 52 Springvale, Pope Pius XII Street Mosta MST2653 Malta | 10880 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1101 Los Angeles, CA 90024 |
| Data Center Locations | Ohio, U.S., Montreal, Canada, London, The United Kingdom | Kinsta’s WordPress hosting lets you choose between 30+ Google Cloud Data center locations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia. |
| Price | From $10.00/month | From $35/month |
| Money-Back Guarantee | 3 days free trial | 30 days |
| Website Migration | 1 free then $25/site | Free |
| Types of Support | Phone, live support, chat, ticket | Phone support and 24/7 live chat |
| Website | www.cloudways.com | www.kinsta.com |
| Bandwidth | 2GB to 20TB | Unmetered, but monthly visits are limited |
| Disk Space | 20GB to 3840GB (more storage is available on custom plans) | 10GB to 250GB |
Cloudways vs. Kinsta Hosting: What is the Difference?
Kinsta and Cloudways are two of the most popular managed cloud hosting providers. They both offer a variety of services, but they also have some key differences. These include:
Pricing
Cloudways and Kinsta offer premium managed cloud services, which are more expensive than standard shared hosting and are primarily aimed at businesses and developers with high-traffic websites or apps.
You cannot select your cloud infrastructure with Kinsta; GCP is the only option. Cloudways, on the other hand, provides several less expensive alternatives, such as Digital Ocean, Linode, and Vultr, and a second premium option, AWS. Using Linode or Vultr can save money on hosting while also getting more storage space and bandwidth.
When it comes to the CMS you use, Kinsta is once again more limited because your only option is WordPress. You can use WordPress, Magento, Drupal, Joomla, Laravel, and a few other applications with Cloudways. Whether you use one of these exclusively, the cost remains the same, or work with several at once.
One of the best things about Cloudways and Kinsta is that their pricing is completely transparent. You don’t have to worry about hidden renewal fees or upsells, and you always know how much you’ll pay for a service.
Their pricing structures, however, differ. Cloudways charges you at the end of each month for the resources you use. There is no money-back guarantee, but you don’t really need one because there are no upfront payments. In addition, you will receive a 3-day free trial to test the platform’s features.
With Kinsta, you pay a set amount for hosting in advance, either for a month or a year. Kinsta provides a 30-day money-back guarantee and, if you cancel after your first month, you’ll receive a refund for the services you haven’t yet used.
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Performance
Website performance is more critical than ever before. A website that performs well reflects positively on your brand. If your website frequently experiences downtime and other issues, you may incur lost sales and even lower SEO rankings.
Kinsta provides an SLA-backed uptime guarantee of 99.9%. Due to their container-based infrastructure, the database runs within the container to avoid running multiple loading balances. In addition, Kinsta monitors the status of all of its websites every two minutes.
If there is a problem, it will be resolved before it causes any harm. However, Kinsta does not provide a perfect uptime—although 99.9% is close.
Cloudways has a healthy platform as well. Since it runs in the cloud, it can utilize Google-powered cluster nodes. If your website experiences an issue, a node cluster will be activated to prevent damage. With Cloudways, more website owners experience minimal downtime.
Security
Kinsta relies on several GCP features to ensure the security of your website. You get Google’s firewall to keep malware at bay, and your websites are separated using LXD technology to keep any security breaches to a minimum.
You’re also covered by Kinsta’s Hack Fix Guarantee. In the unlikely event that one of your websites is compromised, Kinsta will offer to clean it up right away.
Each cloud provider has its security features with Cloudways, and Cloudways uses its dedicated firewalls to keep clients’ accounts secure. It will not clean up a hacked website for free but provides several guides to assist you.
All Cloudways and Kinsta plans include automatic daily backups. If disaster strikes, you can quickly restore an earlier version of your website with a few clicks.
SSL certificates are included with both Cloudways and Kinsta, which is critical for protecting your customers’ information if you’re building an e-commerce platform. Padlock protection, even on regular websites, ensures that your site ranks higher in search engines.
Support
Both hosts provide 24/7 specialized support, with a few notable differences. Kinsta has a single support model for all plans, which means you will receive the same level of support no matter which subscription you choose. You can only contact them via live chat or tickets.
Cloudways includes standard live chat and ticket support with all plans, but you can upgrade to advanced support for deeper application troubleshooting and faster response times. You can also upgrade to premium support, which includes two additional channels: a phone and a private Slackline.
Both customer support teams are excellent. Agents are well-trained, courteous, and respond quickly. You won’t have to wait more than a few minutes to speak with someone from Cloudways or Kinsta, and whenever you use the live chat feature, you receive all the required information.
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Features
Kinsta, as a fully managed WordPress hosting service, handles WordPress updates for you. Cloudways does not provide automatic updates, but this won’t be a big deal if you only have one website. If you manage multiple projects, you’ll almost certainly need third-party software like MainWP to update all of your WordPress installations at once.
On all plans, Cloudways and Kinsta provide one free website transfer. You can pay extra for additional migrations performed by the Cloudways support team. Meanwhile, on higher-tier plans, Kinsta includes free premium transfers.
Both hosts include a proprietary control panel that allows you to manage your account and projects efficiently. Both panels are more straightforward to use than the more traditional cPanel, but Kinsta’s is especially useful for managing multiple WordPress websites from a single location.
Kinsta’s control panel and automatic WordPress updates make it a good choice if you only want to work with WordPress, but Cloudways is the only option if you want to work with other frameworks.
Cloudways allows you to run multiple PHP, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and other framework projects on the same server without having to provision a VM (virtual machine) for each one.
When it comes to the resources provided by each host, storage space is fairly balanced, but there are some differences in bandwidth allocations. Cloudways provides a limited amount of bandwidth, and you must pay extra if you use more during the month.
Your bandwidth is not limited with Kinsta, but you can only have a certain number of unique monthly visits before being charged extra. Furthermore, the bandwidth of your CDN (content delivery network) is limited. Regardless of your chosen provider, you’ll need a better plan to support a high-traffic website.
It’s also worth noting that neither Cloudways nor Kinsta provides domain registration or email hosting, so you’ll have to go elsewhere to get these services.
Ease of Use
Both hosts are good for beginner and intermediate-level bloggers, but there’s a difference between them that makes one better than the other.
Kinsta is an excellent choice for beginners who want a simple and easy-to-use WordPress hosting platform. It’s easy to use and has a friendly user interface that won’t overwhelm you with too many options. Kinsta offers unlimited websites, domains, e-commerce suites, and 100% free SSL certificates.
Cloudways is designed for advanced users who want to run their servers without worrying about the technical aspects of running a website. Cloudways hosts have all the features you need to power your blog or business smoothly without any hassle whatsoever!
Pros and Cons of Cloudways
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Low backup fees | The onboarding process is not beginner-friendly |
| Excellent uptime | Support is offered in tiers and is costly |
| 24/7 customer care support | No free CDN |
| Highly secured environment with 2-factor authentication, SSL certificates, and firewall protection features | Scaling down from Digital Ocean, Vultr, and Linode risks downtime |
| Containerized applications using PHP, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and other frameworks | |
| Free site migration for first application | |
| 60+ data centers to choose from | |
| Offers access to various development tools | |
| 3-day free trial |
Pros and Cons of Kinsta
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free migration services | High backup fees |
| Fast and reliable server speed | Ban on some plugins |
| Great customer support | Only supports WordPress |
| 30 days money back guarantee | |
| Smooth and effortless onboarding process | |
| Free hack/malware cleanup | |
| Flexible scalability options | |
| Kinsta uses Cloudflare as their CDN (content delivery network), which gives you a better speed for your site and helps prevent attacks from bots. | |
| Kinsta offers advanced deployment features like PHP and MySQL caching, file uploads, and more. |
Cloudways vs. Kinsta Hosting: Which One Should You Choose?
Cloudways Hosting
©Ralf Liebhold/Shutterstock.com
So, which is better, Cloudways and Kinsta Hosting?
Both providers have strong points, and both brands are leaders in the managed cloud hosting service industry. However, deciding between them ultimately comes down to what you want from your hosting experience and how much you’re willing to spend.
Cloudways hosting is an awesome choice if you’re looking to save a few bucks, but Kinsta hosting is the only way to go if you’re looking for premium performance and reliability. If you want to be sure that your website will stay up, even under extremely high traffic, choose Kinsta.
Kinsta offers a solid cloud hosting service that’s backed by the Google Cloud Platform. Cloudways, on the other hand, is ideal for smaller customers who want to pay less or only need a single server solution.
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