Cloudways vs HCLTech: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Cloudways and HCLTech 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.
HCLTech
6.4/10
Global IT services firm that offers enterprises managed multicloud, hybrid infrastructure, private cloud and data center outsourcing services across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7/10 | 6.4/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 3/10 |
| Customization | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Reliability | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 3/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| Features | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| API and CLI | Not listed | |
| Automatic Backups | Not listed | |
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Cloudways vs HCLTech cost by team size
| Team size | Cloudways | HCLTech |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| 5 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| 10 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| 25 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
| 50 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | Contact for pricing |
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 Ease of Use score (8/10 vs 3/10)
- Higher Cost score (6/10 vs 3/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 1/10)
Why choose HCLTech
- Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Integration score (8/10 vs 7/10)
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.
HCLTech
Pros
- Managed services partner of all three major hyperscalers (AWS, Azure and Google Cloud), which helps with multicloud estates.
- Covers private cloud and data centers as well as public cloud, through VMware Cloud Foundation and Red Hat OpenShift and Ansible.
- Its FinOps practice includes rightsizing, reserved-instance advice, tag management and budget alerts.
- HCLTech reports Customers' Choice placements in several Gartner Peer Insights infrastructure markets, including data center outsourcing and hybrid infrastructure managed services. These placements are cited in HCLTech press materials.
Cons
- No public pricing, so costs are known only after a sales-led scoping exercise.
- No self-service hosting product, so developers and small businesses cannot sign up and deploy on their own.
- Runs on partner clouds rather than its own platform, so customers pay both hyperscaler fees and HCLTech's service fees.
- Much of the evidence for its quality comes from HCLTech's own press releases and sponsored media, and few independent reviews are available.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudways scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7/10 against 6.4/10 for HCLTech. The largest gap is in Ease of Use: 8/10 for Cloudways and 3/10 for HCLTech.
No, neither Cloudways nor HCLTech lists a free plan.
Cloudways is the better fit for small business: we rate it 7/10 for them, against 1/10 for HCLTech.
