I checked official pricing and plan pages on February 17, 2026 and limited this comparison to hosting operations: cost, performance model, support, control, and scaling behavior. I did not run a fresh synthetic load test for this piece, so performance notes separate provider claims from practical risk.
Best for: SiteGround for first-time owners, small business sites, and teams that want fewer hosting decisions.
Avoid if: You need root-like control, provider-level choice (DO/Vultr/AWS/GCE), or complex multi-app workflows.
Biggest tradeoff: Cloudways gives stronger control and tuning; SiteGround gives smoother day-to-day management.
First Impressions
When I first opened Cloudways, the platform felt like a control layer for infrastructure people. You choose cloud provider, server family, and resource shape early. That is powerful, but the onboarding asks for technical judgment on day one.
When I first opened SiteGround, it pushed me straight toward launching a site, not designing infrastructure. The flow is simpler: pick StartUp/GrowBig/GoGeek, attach domain, launch WordPress, and move on.
A hard number tells the story. Cloudways Flexible starts around $11/month for a small DigitalOcean-based plan on its pricing interface, while SiteGround starts at $2.99/month intro for StartUp, renewing at $17.99/month. Cloudways feels like “configure first, publish second.” SiteGround feels like “publish first, optimize later.”
What Worked
Cloudways delivered where control and tuning matter. SiteGround delivered where speed-to-live and team handoff matter.
| Decision Factor | Cloudways | SiteGround | What It Means in Practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance model | Choice of cloud providers plus managed stack; Cloudways markets up to 99.99% uptime for some solution pages | Google Cloud-based shared/managed stack; SiteGround markets 99.9% uptime | Cloudways gives more knobs; SiteGround gives fewer surprises for non-technical teams |
| Support model | 24/7 chat/tickets, plus published 90-second average response claim and 95% CSAT on support page | 24/7 human support and strong public user-rating signals (4.9/5 Trustpilot shown on site pages) | Cloudways is stronger for technical triage depth; SiteGround is smoother for general support workflows |
| Control panel / dev tools | Staging, cloning, SSH/SFTP, app/server controls, team/project separation | Site Tools is cleaner for routine WP admin, backups, caching, email | Developers move faster in Cloudways; content teams ramp faster in SiteGround |
| Scalability | Vertical scaling and provider migration paths; Autonomous plans start at $100/mo with autoscaling model | Shared tiers cap around site/traffic guidance, then pushes to higher plans/cloud | Cloudways handles uneven traffic growth better once complexity is acceptable |
The most practical win on Cloudways was deployment flexibility. If you run client projects with mixed needs, choosing provider and server profile per project is a real advantage. You are not locked into a single platform shape.
SiteGround’s best result was operational simplicity. Its built-in workflow for updates, backups, staging (on higher tiers), and WordPress management is easier for non-developers to execute without breaking things.
One light truth from years of migrations: most hosting pain starts when “simple today” becomes “complex tomorrow.”
What Didn’t
Cloudways’ friction is cognitive load and cost drift. The dashboard expects technical fluency, and extras can stack quickly. Off-site backups are billed separately at $0.033/GB, Cloudflare Enterprise add-on starts at $4.99/domain/month, and higher-touch support has paid tiers.
SiteGround’s friction is resource ceiling and renewal shock. StartUp is affordable on intro pricing, but the renewal jumps are steep, and traffic guidance can become restrictive as sites grow. You can outgrow the plan model faster than you expect if your traffic spikes or your plugin stack gets heavy.
Cloudways also has pricing complexity between product tracks. Flexible and Autonomous are separate models, and Autonomous introduces overage-style mechanics (for example, growth-plan add-ons listed for disk/bandwidth/autoscaling). That is fine for operators, but easy to misread if you are budgeting once per year.
SiteGround’s downside is less granular control. For most owners that is a feature, not a flaw. But if you need deep server-level tuning, provider choice, or custom ops patterns, you will feel boxed in.
Pricing Reality Check
This is where the decision becomes concrete.
| Plan Snapshot (USD) | Advertised | Real Ongoing Cost | What It Means in Practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| SiteGround StartUp | $2.99/mo intro | $17.99/mo renewal (12-month prepaid context shown on plan pages) | Great entry cost, but long-term monthly effective cost is much higher |
| SiteGround GrowBig | $4.99/mo intro | $29.99/mo renewal | Better feature set, but renewal can exceed small-site budgets quickly |
| SiteGround GoGeek | $7.99/mo intro | $44.99/mo renewal | Useful for heavier WordPress workloads, but not cheap after year one |
| Cloudways Flexible (small DO-based entry on pricing UI) | around $11/mo | No classic “renewal jump,” but add-ons/backup/CDN charges can raise total | More predictable base rate, less predictable all-in bill |
| Cloudways Autonomous Growth | $100/mo | Extra charges listed for disk, bandwidth, autoscaling beyond baseline | Built for higher-demand stores/apps, not hobby sites |
Sources (checked 2026-02-17)
- Cloudways pricing: https://www.cloudways.com/en/pricing.php
- Cloudways support/add-ons: https://www.cloudways.com/en/support.php
- Cloudways Cloudflare add-on pricing: https://www.cloudways.com/en/cloudflare.php
- Cloudways backup charge doc: https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5119648-charges-for-off-site-backups
- SiteGround WordPress plans: https://www.siteground.com/wordpress-start
- SiteGround WooCommerce page (uptime claim context): https://www.siteground.com/woocommerce-hosting.htm
- SiteGround rate table (standard pricing context): https://www.siteground.com/kb/current-rates-shared-hosting-plans/
If you are comparing honest long-term cost, calculate 24-month total, not intro month one. For many small businesses, that single move changes the winner.
Who Should Pick Which
1) First-time site owner, solo creator, local business: pick SiteGround.
You get faster onboarding, lower starting cost, and fewer infrastructure decisions. You trade away deep control.
2) Freelancer or agency with varied client stacks: pick Cloudways.
The provider choice, deployment controls, and scaling options beat simplified shared-hosting workflows.
3) WooCommerce shop with volatile traffic: start with Cloudways if you already have technical help; otherwise start on SiteGround GoGeek and move when performance headroom tightens.
4) Content team without dev support: pick SiteGround.
Daily operations are simpler, and mistakes are easier to recover from.
5) Technical founder planning fast scale: pick Cloudways.
The extra complexity upfront pays off when workload patterns get irregular.
Ranked recommendation by user type
- Most users (non-technical or small team): SiteGround
- Power users and agencies: Cloudways
- High-growth commerce projects with ops support: Cloudways
Switch trigger: move hosts when your median page response or admin workflow slows enough to cost revenue or team hours for two consecutive months, and fixing it requires plan jumps or workarounds instead of straightforward scaling.