Cloudflare vs Cloudways Comparison
Compare Cloudflare vs Cloudways features, pricing, and more.
Last updated: November 2026
Cloudflare
7.6/10
Cloudflare is a global edge network. It offers CDN, DNS, DDoS protection and a WAF, plus serverless compute and storage (Workers, R2, D1) for developers and businesses.
Cloudways
7/10
Managed cloud hosting platform that runs WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Laravel and PHP apps on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud servers.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.6/10 | 7/10 |
| Integration | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 4/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 9/10 | 6/10 |
| Customization | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Reliability | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 9/10 | 7/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $5/mo Workers Paid | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) |
| Features | ||
| Content Delivery Network | ||
| DDoS Protection | ||
| Free SSL Certificates | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Multiple Regions | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Cloudflare vs Cloudways cost by team size
Cloudflare costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Cloudflare | Cloudways |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) |
| 5 users | FreeFree | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) |
| 10 users | FreeFree | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) |
| 25 users | FreeFree | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) |
| 50 users | FreeFree | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Cloudflare
- Has a free plan (Cloudways does not)
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $14/mo
- Higher Cost score (9/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 6/10)
Why choose Cloudways
- Higher Support score (6/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Reliability score (8/10 vs 7/10)
Pros & Cons
Cloudflare
Pros
- The free plan includes unmetered DDoS protection, a CDN, a WAF and universal SSL.
- R2 object storage charges no egress fees.
- Workers has very low entry pricing: a $5 monthly minimum and $0.30 per additional million requests.
- The Business plan adds a 100 percent uptime SLA and PCI DSS compliance for $200 a month billed annually.
Cons
- Reviewers report slow support on Free and Pro, which have no chat or phone support.
- Global outages in November and December 2025 disrupted many sites at the same time.
- Reviewers report billing problems, such as charges after cancelling add-ons.
- It offers no traditional shared hosting, VPS or dedicated servers, so you still need an origin host for conventional workloads.
Cloudways
Pros
- You can choose from five cloud providers and more than 50 locations from one control panel.
- Hourly pay-as-you-go billing, with a 5-day trial that needs no credit card.
- Every server includes free SSL, Layer 3 and 4 DDoS mitigation, a firewall and offsite backups.
- Agencies get one-click staging, cloning and Git auto-deployment for many client sites.
- Ratings are strong, at about 4.7 on G2 and 4.6 on Trustpilot.
Cons
- Email hosting and domain registration are not included.
- Billing gets hard to track once add-ons and bandwidth overages are added, and some reviewers report charges after cancelling.
- Some reviewers say support quality has dropped since the DigitalOcean acquisition.
- Power users report limited low-level control.
- Phone support requires a paid premium support add-on.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudflare scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.6/10 against 7/10 for Cloudways. The largest gap is in Cost: 9/10 for Cloudflare and 6/10 for Cloudways.
Cloudflare costs less for 10 users: free on its Free plan, against about $14/mo on its Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) plan for Cloudways, billed monthly.
Cloudflare has a free plan; Cloudways does not list one.
Cloudflare is the better fit for developers: we rate it 9/10 for them, against 6/10 for Cloudways.
