Cloudways does it their way, not yours

Nexcess is the easiest alternative to Cloudways, delivering the top-notch performance you crave, without expensive support or unstable pricing

Snapshots of a sophisticated fashion store hosted on Nexcess, drop down cart descriptions, dynamic product pages, with $20,452 revenue today.

Why you should consider an alternative to Cloudways

Bare-bones support
No plugin management
Weak in ecommerce
Easy to overpay
No money-back guarantee

Compare Cloudways to Nexcess

Key features
Nexcess
Advanced support included
Free expertise by phone
Free WordPress migrations
Free migrations for other PHP-based applications
Application-optimized servers
Independent infrastructure
Vendor agreements
Latest PHP version
PHP compatibility assistance
Per site PHP version
Proactive investigation
Dedicated servers
Resource usage alerts
Configuration assistance
Pre-spun servers
Bare metal options
Cloudways
Advanced support included
Free expertise by phone
$500 per month
Free WordPress migrations
One, then $25 each
Free migrations for other PHP-based applications
One, then $99 - $199
Application-optimized servers
Independent infrastructure
Vendor agreements
Latest PHP version
PHP compatibility assistance
Per site PHP version
Proactive investigation
At least $100/month
Dedicated servers
Resource usage alerts
Configuration assistance
At least $100/month
Pre-spun servers
Requires work
Bare metal options

Quality support is held hostage

Web vitals are mission-critical for online businesses. Even small errors can affect conversions and rankings. If you expect responsive, expert support from Cloudways, you may need to choose an alternate provider.
Cloudways policy states if your business has an urgent issue, you’ll have to wait in line. Or, you can pay Cloudways $500/mo for the deep expertise that solves problems fast.
At Nexcess, we don’t hold premium support hostage. Our deep expertise is available free of charge 24/7/365. We escalate urgent issues, respond promptly, and resolve your concerns thoroughly.
Shop hosting products
Young man in a Nexcess shirt and an over-ear headset smiles as he talks to a customer, he says hi, I’m here to help with anything you might need.
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You won’t get the most out of WordPress

WordPress runs on plugins. Cloudways offers tools to help you manage and monitor plugins — for an extra fee. If a plugin update goes wrong and you’re not paying, you’re doing damage control.
Managed hosting is supposed to solve problems, not create more. Making WordPress run at its best shouldn’t be out-of-pocket.
At Nexcess, our expertise extends to plugin management. Use free tools like Plugin Performance Monitor and visual compare to safely update your site. Plus, fast and free plugin conflict resolutions 24/7/365.

Stuck in a Cloudways contract?

Nexcess will buy out your remaining contract up to $1,000 when you switch

Cloudways WooCommerce isn’t mission-critical

Ecommerce on WordPress has a multitude of moving parts — caching, concurrent users, speed, checkout ease, and more. Cloudways accommodates the basics, but nothing more.
For example, you pay separately for domains (essential to shoppers remembering your brand) and email hosting (for cart abandonment and drip campaigns). Not to mention, there’s no sales monitoring.
As the first WooCommerce host in the industry, Nexcess knows what it takes to run a successful store. That’s why we include sales tools, checkout monitoring, and unlimited email. Plus, free plugins for cart abandonment, advanced variations, and much more.
An ecommerce growth graph sits behind four rectangles with revenue, performance, and insights between August 10 and August 12.
A site performance graph with an upward arrow in speed, cart, and checkout.

Working with Magento?

Magento stores have specific performance requirements, all of which need to be monitored closely. While Nexcess goes above and beyond for Magento, Cloudways benefits are limited.

It’s easy to overpay Cloudways

As a pay-as-you-go provider, Cloudways is at the whim of their vendors. That means if Google, AWS, DigitalOcean, or Vultr raise their prices, Cloudways will too. And in an economy of tough choices, that may happen sooner than you think.
There’s more. You’ll pay when you need a backup or bots burn through your bandwidth. It’s up to $558.49/mo if you want to use their add-ons. Before taxes.
Nexcess uses independent infrastructure to maintain better cost control. We own our servers, so email, DNS, and CDN are free. No vendors, no outrageous expenses. Just stable, reasonable billing.
A graphic of gray stacked shapes, including circles, pills, hexagons, and squares. The topmost circle, the topmost square, and the hexagon in the center are a light green.
A graphic of three boxes that include the numbers 3, 2, and 1 from left to right. An arrow moves from the box with 3 in it, through to box with two in it, ending at the box with 1 in it. The box with one in it is orange.

Three days, then you pay

Cloudways offers a three-day free trial. That means you have 36 hours to spin up your server, optimize it for your application, set up credentials, proof your migration (and fix any errors), propagate DNS, integrate your workflow, check version compatibility, set up email accounts, start staging, configure scaling, monitor performance analytics, and decide if it’s right for you.
On top of everything else you have to do every day, that’s … a lot.
Nexcess, on the other hand, has a 30-day money-back guarantee. You have plenty of time to experience our premium hosting and unbeatable expert support. If you’re not satisfied, you receive a full refund.

Plenty of Cloudways customers seek an alternative

Unreliable managed hosting provider

Unreliable managed hosting provider. They update the OS of your server (without prior notice). They had issues during that (automated?) process and it took more than 24 hours to fix the problem they committed.To avoid for production environments.

- Jozef, Trustpilot

Pricey and over-hyped

Unless you select the most basic plans (1 GB RAM and 1-core processor), the cost of the service is expensive for what you get. You choose the PHP version at the server level, so all applications on any one server will have the same PHP version. Having only one PHP version for all applications was a problem.

- Armindo Pereira, G2

Very bad service, poor quality of service

After many hours, they didn't even start the migration, installed the migration plug and that's it, another few hours nothing. I could have done more and faster myself. Someone else replies to my e-mails, does not read what was previously in the correspondence, writing another big nonsense. I believe it is a waste of time and money for this terrible company!

- Norbert, Trustpilot

Nexcess as a Cloudways alternative FAQ

If you have the time and money to invest in optimizing your own servers, yes. Cloudways is a better choice for users who are familiar with the terminology, tasks, and maintenance of dedicated server hosting. For a platform that offers seamless functionality and performance for users of all experience levels, Nexcess is the better choice.

Let us show you why Nexcess is the best Cloudways alternative

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