Leave Cloudways WordPress Hosting

Cloud hosting made easy — but modern frameworks make it unnecessary.

Start Migration

Why People Leave Cloudways

Common frustrations that drive users to look for alternatives.

Monthly costs add up — $14-46/month for basic servers, plus add-ons for email, CDN, and backups

Server management complexity — you still need to handle scaling, security patches, and PHP updates

Performance depends on your server choice (DigitalOcean, AWS, GCP) and configuration

No built-in email — requires third-party integration (Rackspace add-on at $1/mailbox/month)

Acquired by DigitalOcean — pricing and feature changes create uncertainty

What You Gain by Leaving

The benefits of migrating to a modern deployment platform.

Eliminate server management entirely — no more SSH, PHP updates, or security patches

Pay-per-deploy instead of pay-per-server — no idle server costs

Faster global delivery via CDN edge vs. single cloud server region

Simpler workflow — git push deploys vs. managing server infrastructure

No more worrying about server sizing, scaling, or resource allocation

How to Migrate Away from Cloudways

Follow these steps to move your WordPress site to a modern platform.

Export WordPress content using LeaveWP from your Cloudways-managed WordPress instance

Download media via SFTP (Cloudways provides SSH/SFTP access for all servers)

Build your new site with Next.js or Astro, import content

Deploy to Vercel or Cloudflare Pages

Update DNS records at your domain registrar

Test all functionality and verify SEO preservation

Terminate your Cloudways server to stop billing (hourly billing stops immediately)

Recommended Alternatives

Modern platforms that replace Cloudways with better performance and lower costs.

Vercel

Serverless deployment — no servers to manage. Auto-scales with traffic.

Free tier, Pro at $20/monthBest for: Replacing managed WordPress hosting

Netlify

JAMstack deployment with serverless functions for backend logic.

Free tier, Pro at $19/monthBest for: Static sites with some server-side needs

Cloudflare Pages

Edge computing with Workers for dynamic functionality.

Free tier, unlimited bandwidthBest for: High-performance sites globally

DigitalOcean App Platform

If you want to stay on DigitalOcean without the Cloudways layer.

Free for static sites, $5/month for appsBest for: Existing DigitalOcean users

Related Migration Guides

Migrate WordPress → Next.js Migrate WordPress → Astro

Frequently Asked Questions

Cloudways uses real cloud providers — isn't that already good?

Cloudways provides a management layer on top of DO, AWS, or GCP. That's helpful for WordPress PHP hosting. But modern frameworks deployed to Vercel or Cloudflare Pages don't need a traditional server at all — they're inherently simpler and faster.

I like choosing my server location — can I still do that?

Vercel and Cloudflare Pages deploy to ALL locations simultaneously. Your site is served from the nearest edge location to each visitor, which is better than a single server in one region.

What about my databases on Cloudways?

If your new site needs a database, use Supabase (free tier), PlanetScale, or Neon. For most content sites migrating from WordPress, the database is replaced by static content files.