Cloudways vs ScalaHosting: guide for 2024

Cloudways vs ScalaHosting: Final verdict

Comparing Cloudways and ScalaHosting reveals two strong contenders in the web hosting space, each excelling in different areas to meet their users’ needs efficiently.

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  ScalaHosting (Overall grade: 8.8)
  
  offers a comprehensive suite of hosting plans, including shared hosting, that cater to a wide range of users. Renowned for its robust security measures, proprietary SPanel, and ease of use, ScalaHosting shines with features like SShield real-time protection, daily backups, and a user-friendly control panel. It’s an ideal choice for those managing high-traffic websites or seeking a managed VPS option. Users have praised ScalaHosting for its reliable uptime, global data center reach, and high-quality technical support, although some feel the pricing could be more competitive.
• 
  Cloudways (Overall grade: 8.5)
  
  focuses on providing high-performance managed cloud hosting, with strong uptime and speedy server response times. Its platform is designed to be user-friendly, featuring tools like 1-click backups, vertical scaling, and advanced caching solutions for optimal performance. Cloudways excels with advanced security measures, including dedicated firewalls and SSL certificates. Though it does not offer domain registration or email hosting directly and might be complex for users with limited technical knowledge, the robust customer support and performance make it an appealing choice for agencies and ecommerce businesses focused on long-term growth and stability.

Hosting types offered

Both platforms provide a variety of hosting types, each designed to meet the different needs of users.

Although both offer a variety of hosting plans tailored to different needs, in
certain cases, one platform may prove to be more suitable.

Detailed comparison

🏆 Winner Cloudways: Reliable and high-performance managed cloud hosting with a user-friendly control panel.

Cloudways offers an impressive uptime record, ensuring your website remains accessible nearly 100% of the time across multiple years. Its average server response time is swift, and the fully loaded time is under a second, making it a solid option for speed. The hosting provider supports vertical scaling and features such as 1-click backups and website cloning, which can be beneficial for developers and businesses. While lacking domain registration and email hosting, it excels in security with dedicated firewalls and SSL certificates.

ScalaHosting offers strong performance with its 100% uptime in testing and global loading speeds under three seconds. The proprietary SPanel provides easy management, and the SShield security blocks nearly all web attacks. While it guarantees 99.9% uptime with compensation for any additional downtime, the fewer direct cloud infrastructure options compared to Cloudways might be a limitation. The focus on integrated AWS data centers and comprehensive data center coverage provides global reach to users.

🏆 Winner: Cloudways: Exceptional performance with SSD hosting and advanced caching When it comes to general performance, Cloudways takes the lead with its SSD hosting, which is three times faster than traditional HDDs, facilitating quick load times. It also integrates advanced caching solutions like Memcached, Varnish, Nginx, and Redis, ensuring speedy website performance. Cloudways offers PHP 8.2 ready servers and uses an optimized stack with NGINX, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP-FPM. It incorporates Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, which provides layered DDoS protection. In contrast, ScalaHosting uses OpenLiteSpeed and LiteSpeed Enterprise web servers for high performance, along with built-in Mod_security for added security. ScalaHosting ensures uptime with custom-built servers and self-healing cloud setups, coupled with data centers in the US and Europe as well as integrated AWS locations globally.

Cloudways excels in website speed due to its SSD drives and built-in advanced caching mechanisms like NGINX and Redis, ensuring virtually immediate page load times. The hosting stack involving NGINX, Apache, and PHP-FPM further contribute to this, effortlessly managing high traffic and server requests. ScalaHosting also offers impressive speed, supported by OpenLiteSpeed and LiteSpeed enterprise servers, which are optimized for high performance. Both providers offer excellent speed; however, Cloudways edges out with its holistic caching solutions and optimized stack specifically designed for faster website loads.

Website Speed

Cloudways excels in website speed due to its SSD drives and built-in advanced caching mechanisms like NGINX and Redis, ensuring virtually immediate page load times. The hosting stack involving NGINX, Apache, and PHP-FPM further contribute to this, effortlessly managing high traffic and server requests. ScalaHosting also offers impressive speed, supported by OpenLiteSpeed and LiteSpeed enterprise servers, which are optimized for high performance. Both providers offer excellent speed; however, Cloudways edges out with its holistic caching solutions and optimized stack specifically designed for faster website loads.

Scalability

Cloudways provides vertical scaling capabilities, allowing users to scale server resources such as RAM, CPU, and storage with ease. This can be done with 1-click actions, keeping costs low while ensuring high availability. Cloudways does not detail the exact costs for scaling. ScalaHosting supports on-demand scalability, letting users adjust resources as needed, thus paying only for what they use. It offers both managed VPS with dedicated CPU/memory resources and customizable configurations, but specific costs for scaling are not available. Both hostings offer solid scalability options, but Cloudways simplifies the process with 1-click vertical scaling.

🏆 Winner
ScalaHosting: ScalaHosting stands out with its extensive suite of security features and strong compliance measures.

Technical security measures:

Cloudways offers robust technical security measures including free SSL certificates, support for PHP 8, dedicated firewalls, bot protection, and regular security patches. Security measures like Fail2ban and application isolation further enhance protection. ScalaHosting, while charging for SSL certificates, provides real-time malware protection, daily backups, virus and spam protection, and brute-force protection. Their SShield security system claims to block 99.998% of attacks, which is an impressive figure. Both providers support a wide range of PHP versions, up to PHP 8.2.

Operational security measures:

Cloudways incorporates operational security features such as two-factor authentication, IP whitelisting, and automated protection to monitor and block suspicious activities. Additional measures include application isolation and database security via remote access with whitelisted IP addresses. ScalaHosting complements its security with proactive 24/7 monitoring, disaster recovery backups, and anti-SPAM tools. It also offers Gzip compression, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support, and SSH access for secure server management. Both providers maintain frequent updates to their security frameworks.

Compliance and certifications:

Cloudways leverages the PCI-DSS compliant hardware of its cloud providers like AWS and GCE, though it is not PCI-DSS compliant itself. Its GDPR compliance is inferred through robust data protection protocols. In contrast, ScalaHosting assures compliance with several regulatory frameworks including PCI-DSS, HIPAA, NIST, and SOC under its US-based data centers. This distinct level of certification places ScalaHosting at an advantage for businesses needing stringent compliance.

🏆 Winner: ScalaHosting: Offers a robust set of comprehensive web hosting features tailored for various user needs.

Both Cloudways and ScalaHosting offer a variety of features, catering to different user preferences and requirements. Cloudways stands out with its high-performance options, including SSD hosting, built-in caches like Memcached and Redis, and an optimized stack equipped for PHP 8. This makes it an excellent choice for users looking for speed and performance. Moreover, Cloudways emphasizes ease of use with 1-click actions for backup/restore and staging URLs, making it user-friendly for both beginners and advanced users. It also includes features like Cloudflare Enterprise and Git integration, making it well-suited for developers. On the other hand, ScalaHosting provides essential hosting features such as file management, cron jobs, and a versatile PHP version manager. The use of Rocky Linux OS and AlmaLinux OS, along with the latest software and Python support, underscores its adaptability.

ScalaHosting offers a wide array of administrative tools, including account creation and management, SSH access, and server status monitoring, which provide excellent customization and control. This makes it a powerful option for users who need to manage multiple sites or require specific configurations. Its availability of datacenter locations in the US, Europe, and Asia ensures global reach and localized performance optimizations. ScalaHosting includes free migration and always-on security features like Mod_security, which are significant benefits. Free migration services and the ability to manage email addresses and databases effortlessly highlight ScalaHosting’s user-friendly approach. Key differences lie in the unique selling points: Cloudways offers Cloudflare Enterprise and SSH & SFTP access for team collaboration, while ScalaHosting’s PHP version variety and datacenter options cater to custom and localized hosting needs.

Email services:

Cloudways leverages third-party solutions like Rackspace and Elastic Email, offering transactional email capabilities as an add-on. This can be beneficial for users requiring specific email campaign functionalities but comes with additional costs. ScalaHosting provides a native email hosting service, allowing users to create and manage email accounts directly through their hosting plan. This includes setting up email campaigns and utilizing forwarders, auto-responders, and disk quotas without extra charges, making it a more integrated choice for email management.

🏆 Winner ScalaHosting: ScalaHosting offers competitive pricing with enhanced features across its various plans.

Evaluating the pricing of plans among various hosting providers can be complex due to their differing pricing and renewal strategies. Additionally, certain plans require annual commitments, which adds to the difficulty of making comparisons. The prices listed are based on monthly commitments; plans requiring annual commitments are indicated. Additionally, although some providers offer identical plans for WordPress and shared hosting, we have created separate tables for each to enhance clarity.

Cloudways and ScalaHosting provide a range of hosting options with different pricing structures. Cloudways focuses on cloud hosting solutions with detailed specifications, while ScalaHosting offers more diverse options, including shared and cloud hosting with additional security features. Plus, ScalaHosting’s plans generally include more freebies like SSL certificates and domain names, making them an attractive choice for budget-conscious users seeking comprehensive features.

Enterprise plans

Cloudways offers extensive specs for enterprise, such as the DO128GB plan with 128 GB RAM and 24 cores for $729/month, catering to high-demand applications. ScalaHosting, however, provides similar performance in its highest Managed Cloud VPS plan, Build #4, at $94.95/month with guaranteed resources and included features like SShield security and daily backups, positioning itself as a more cost-effective choice for enterprise clients.

🏆 Winner Cloudways: Cloudways provides an intuitive and user-friendly hosting experience, ideal for both beginners and advanced users.

Cloudways features a custom control panel that emphasizes usability and functionality. The panel is intuitive and offers 1-click actions for backups, restores, and launching applications like WordPress, Magento, and more. It also includes pre-installed Git for auto-deployment, SSH/SFTP access for secure file management, and 1-click server or application cloning. The vertical scaling feature allows users to adjust server resources easily, catering to those who need to scale their operations without much hassle.

ScalaHosting, on the other hand, utilizes SPanel, an all-in-one solution that manages websites, domains, emails, files, and databases. SPanel is designed to be user-friendly, providing an accessible experience for both newcomers and experienced users. It eliminates the need for additional licensing fees which makes it a cost-effective choice. Like Cloudways, ScalaHosting’s control panel also supports comprehensive server management but lacks some of the 1-click conveniences found in Cloudways.

Both Cloudways and ScalaHosting offer free migration services for the first website. Cloudways provides automated tools for migrating websites, making the process efficient and straightforward. ScalaHosting offers manual migration by its team of trained technicians who handle the process and notify users once it’s complete, ensuring a smooth transition. The ease of these migration services enhances the user experience in transferring websites.

Cloudways has a well-rounded Help Center that includes articles, guides, and a ticketing system for prompt responses. It offers 24/7 live chat support and an active community of experts. ScalaHosting’s knowledge base is also comprehensive, with various categories, getting started guides, SPanel tutorials, and 24/7 support via live chat and tickets. Both platforms provide valuable resources for troubleshooting and managing hosting services.

🏆 Winner ScalaHosting: Delivers excellent features and flexibility in managing user roles and permissions securely and efficiently.

Cloudways and ScalaHosting provide comprehensive user management capabilities, but they differ in their flexibility and control over user roles and permissions. Cloudways leverages the WordPress Admin Panel, offering predefined roles such as Super Admin, Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber. This setup is straightforward and suitable for WordPress users looking for granular role-based access. ScalaHosting, on the other hand, allows creating highly customizable user accounts with precise control over disk space, databases, and other server resources, offering greater flexibility. ScalaHosting’s more extensive account control options enable better resource allocation and management.

Cloudways uses the WordPress Admin Panel for user management, providing a familiar and user-friendly interface for WordPress users. This interface allows adding, editing, and deleting users efficiently with a few clicks. Team collaboration features enable team members to work on different tasks, irrespective of their location. ScalaHosting utilizes its SPanel, an integrated control panel that simplifies account and user management. It offers a dedicated Admin Interface for server managers and resellers with extensive functionalities, including the ability to modify server settings and integrate with third-party applications. SPanel’s comprehensive toolset makes managing complex hosting environments more accessible.

For access control measures and scalability, both Cloudways and ScalaHosting offer robust solutions. Cloudways supports user-specific access through WordPress roles, which helps in delegating tasks and managing who can do what on the site. It is particularly useful for blog sites and eCommerce stores built on WooCommerce, ensuring that only authorized users have specific privileges. ScalaHosting excels in handling a growing number of users and managing access through its SPanel, which includes options like two-factor authentication, CAPTCHA, and SSH access. Additionally, ScalaHosting allows for resource adjustments per account, catering to dynamic hosting needs and ensuring secure access control as the user base expands.

Cloudways user roles table:

ScalaHosting user roles table:

🏆 Winner Cloudways: Offers comprehensive customer service with multiple premium support options.

Cloudways and ScalaHosting offer 24/7 customer support with various service channels. Cloudways provides email, live chat, and premium phone support, whereas ScalaHosting also features live chat and email but lacks phone support. Cloudways stands out with proactive monitoring and customization support included in higher-tier support plans.

ScalaHosting has a fast 15-minute response time for support tickets and offers special incentives for web design studios. While Cloudways offers more comprehensive premium support options, ScalaHosting features strong customer ratings and a tangible uptime guarantee. Each has distinct strengths tailored to different customer needs.

Cloudways vs ScalaHosting: User feedback

User feedback for this hosting provider is predominantly positive, highlighting easy-to-use interface and robust customer support as key strengths. Users appreciate the intuitive platform, simplified server management, and various performance-boosting features, making it ideal for both personal and client projects. However, some users noted challenges for those with limited technical knowledge and expressed concerns about pricing, lack of email hosting, and occasional user interface issues. Overall, the strong support and fast, reliable performance make it a favored choice despite minor drawbacks.

ScalaHosting has earned high praise from users for its exceptional customer support, reliable uptime, and innovative SPanel technology. Many reviews highlight the company’s fast and knowledgeable technical support team, which ensures a smooth and efficient experience for users. While some users feel the pricing could be more competitive, the overall sentiment is that the services offered justify the cost. Users appreciate the platform’s ease of use, robust security features, and the flexibility of hosting solutions, making ScalaHosting a top choice for web hosting needs.

Cloudways vs ScalaHosting: FAQ