DigitalOcean
Best for: DIY serversPros
- Flexible cloud building blocks
Cons
- You manage the server
Cloudways
Best for: Developers and agenciesPros
- Monthly, no contract
- Choose cloud provider
Cons
- More knobs to manage
Cloudways can place your app on a DigitalOcean server and run the panel, backups and support. A DigitalOcean Droplet is the machine. You install the stack, patch it and restore it. Prices below were read on 6 November 2026. We have not hosted a site on either.
Side by side
| Cloudways Flexible on DigitalOcean | DigitalOcean Droplet | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry we paired | $14 a month. The card next to that price said 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 25 GB NVMe, 1 TB transfer, and $0.0208 an hour. | Basic Regular 1 GiB: $6 a month ($0.00893 an hour), 1 vCPU, 1,000 GiB transfer, 25 GiB disk. A 512 MiB Basic is $4. | Not the same product. One includes a managed layer. |
| A larger Basic we could price | Larger Flexible amounts are on the pricing page. We only tied specs to the $14 card, so we are not calling another dollar amount a 4 GB plan. | 4 GiB Basic, 2 vCPU: $24 a month. | Do not subtract $54 or any other Cloudways card from $24. |
| Backups | Offsite backup storage is $0.033 per GB. The gigabytes are yours to estimate. | Weekly backups are 20% of the Droplet price, or 30% for daily. Usage-based backups start at $0.01 per GiB. Snapshots are $0.06 per GB a month. | |
| Bandwidth past the allowance | The page lists DigitalOcean transfer overage at $0.02 per GB, and separately $0.02 per GB for CDN bandwidth past the plan's CDN allowance. Do not add those together until you confirm they are different meters. | Included transfer is on the Droplet row. Overage past that is not reprinted here. | |
| Who patches and answers at night | Cloudways. The pricing page advertises a 5-day trial. We did not confirm whether a card is required. | You, unless you buy a managed database or another DigitalOcean product. | |
| Billing | Monthly card with an hourly figure beside it. | Per-second billing since 1 January 2026, with a minimum of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher. | |
| A different Cloudways product | Autonomous is a separate WordPress line on the same page. Do not use its price as the Flexible price. | Not applicable. | |
| Our link | Affiliate link | Official site, not an affiliate link |
Illustrative month, not a benchmark
Assumptions: one WordPress site, a full month, tax ignored, US list prices, and you choose DigitalOcean's weekly percentage backups. Backup gigabytes on Cloudways are unknown, so they stay as a formula.
| Line | Arithmetic |
|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Basic 1 GiB | $6 |
| Weekly backups at 20% | 0.20 × $6 = $1.20 |
| DIY list total | $6 + $1.20 = $7.20 |
| Cloudways Flexible 1 GB | $14 + $0.033 × backup GB |
| Known list gap | $14 − $7.20 = $6.80 before backup GB and before your time |
That $6.80 is the managed premium we can show. It is not evidence that one stack is faster.
Who should open which site
- You want a panel, staging and someone else on call: Cloudways. The button uses the approved affiliate link.
- You are comfortable with SSH and you want the $6 machine: DigitalOcean. That button is not an affiliate link.
- You want WordPress with no server choices at all: this comparison is the wrong pair. See Kinsta or the managed-hosting guide.
- You need AWS or another cloud specifically: Cloudways lists more providers. Confirm the region price on its page. We did not copy those cards.
Questions to answer first
- Who applies PHP and OS updates, and who answers at 2am?
- Do you need one-click restore and staging?
- Will 1 GB be enough for six months? The 4 GiB Droplet is $24, and we did not match a Cloudways card to it.
- Are you billing hourly experiments or a server that stays up all month?
- Is Autonomous the product you were quoted? If yes, do not use the $14 Flexible price.
Related: Cloudways vs Kinsta · Hostinger vs Cloudways · Managed WordPress hosting · Managed vs shared · Methodology
Plans and prices change. Check current pricing on the official page: www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php.
Plans and prices change. Check current pricing on the official page: www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets.
See Cloudways plans →Affiliate link
See DigitalOcean pricing →Official site, not an affiliate link
How this page was made: from each provider's official product and pricing pages and its public documentation, read on the date named in the page. We have not run a hands-on test, lab benchmark, or paid user study for this page. A step-by-step section describes the vendor's published flow. It is not a test we performed.