Cloudways vs Fly.io: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Cloudways and Fly.io to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
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.
Fly.io
5.9/10
Fly.io is a developer cloud that runs containerized apps as fast-booting Machines in regions worldwide, billed by usage, with managed Postgres and object storage.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7/10 | 5.9/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Customization | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Reliability | 8/10 | 4/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 5/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $2/mo Pay-as-you-go (Machines) |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $2/mo Pay-as-you-go (Machines) |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Automatic Backups | ||
| Cloud Compute | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Cloudways vs Fly.io cost by team size
Fly.io costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Cloudways | Fly.io |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $2/moPay-as-you-go (Machines) |
| 5 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $2/moPay-as-you-go (Machines) |
| 10 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $2/moPay-as-you-go (Machines) |
| 25 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $2/moPay-as-you-go (Machines) |
| 50 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | $2/moPay-as-you-go (Machines) |
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 Cloudways
- Higher Reliability score (8/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Analytics score (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 4/10)
Why choose Fly.io
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: $2/mo vs $14/mo
- Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Cost score (7/10 vs 6/10)
- Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 6/10)
Pros & Cons
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.
Fly.io
Pros
- Very low entry cost: a small shared Machine is about $2.19 a month, and invoices under $5 are waived.
- Apps can run in many regions with Anycast routing and global load balancing included at no extra cost.
- Per-hour billing and one-year reserved blocks that save 40 percent give flexible ways to manage cost.
- Managed Postgres plans include high availability, automated backups and connection pooling.
- A HIPAA package with a pre-signed BAA costs $99 a month on any paid plan.
Cons
- Status trackers show recurring network and API incidents through 2025 and 2026, and the CEO admitted reliability problems in 2023.
- The 99.9% uptime SLA is available only with Enterprise support, which starts at $2,500 a month.
- Bills spread across Machines, volumes, egress, IPs and support, which makes costs harder to predict.
- Apps need a Dockerfile and a fly.toml, which adds setup work compared with buildpack-style PaaS products.
- Compute costs more in some regions, up to 1.615 times in Sao Paulo.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudways scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7/10 against 5.9/10 for Fly.io. The largest gap is in Reliability: 8/10 for Cloudways and 4/10 for Fly.io.
Fly.io costs less for 10 users: about $2/mo on its Pay-as-you-go (Machines) plan, against about $14/mo on its Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) plan for Cloudways, billed monthly.
No, neither Cloudways nor Fly.io lists a free plan.
Fly.io is the better fit for developers: we rate it 9/10 for them, against 6/10 for Cloudways.
