Cloudways and Rocket.net are two hosting services I use for my WordPress projects. Before this, I was a SiteGround user and I no longer recommend it due to its terrible support.
Both Cloudways and Rocket.net are not perfect, but they are way better than SiteGround in almost all areas.
The main difference between Cloudways and Rocket.net is that Cloudways is a cloud VPS while Rocket.net is a managed hosting built specifically for WordPress.
Well, Cloudways also has a managed hosting service (called Cloudways Autonomous), but what I will compare here is the VPS version (Cloudways Flexible) because this is the hosting version I use.
Cloudways vs Rocket.net: At a Glance
I have created the following table to make it easier for you to compare Cloudways and Rocket.net in some areas — side by side.
In case you want to learn more about the two individually, I have published dedicated review posts of both Cloudways and Rocket.net.
I also have a post covering why I don’t recommend SiteGround in case you are wondering.
| Cloudways | Rocket.net | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting type | VPS | Managed hosting |
| Data centers | 40+ | 8 |
| Bandwidth | 1TB | 50GB |
| Storage | 25GB | 10GB |
| Monthly visits | Unlimited | 250,000 |
| Number of websites | Unlimited | 1 |
| Migration | 1 free then $25/site | Always free |
| Core features | Firewall, SSL, multi-layer caching, PHP manager, FTP, SSH, staging, Git, WP CLI | File manager, firewall, SSL, caching, PHP manager, FTP, SSH, automatic backup, staging, CDN, WP CLI |
| Support | Ticket, live chat, private Slack | Ticket, live chat |
| Pricing | Starts from $11/month | Starts from $30/month |
| Learn More | Learn More |
Please note that what you see on the table above are the specs of the lowest plan of each hosting service. The higher the plan, the higher the specs as well.
Bandwidth and Storage: Cloudways Has More Bandwidth and Storage than Rocket.net
If you are looking for a hosting service to host multiple WordPress projects at a lower price, then you can go to Cloudways.
Cloudways has more storage space than Rocket.net on its lowest plan (see the table above). You can use this storage space to install as many websites as you want.
However, it’s crucial to note that Cloudways recommend you to use a RAM of at least 2GB for live websites instead of 1GB.
The 1GB RAM is only recommended for staging sites. But still, Cloudways is still more affordable than Rocket.net for multiple sites.
Cloudways itself offers a Vertical Scaling feature to allow you to increase a specific resource on your server. For instance, you increase RAM while persisting the current storage space.
Apart from storage, Cloudways also has more bandwidth than Rocket.net. The lowest plan of Cloudways offers 1TB, compared to 50GB on Rocket.net’s lowest plan.
Migration: Rocket.net Offers Unlimited Free Migration, Cloudways Charge $25 Per Site
If you already have multiple WordPress projects and want to move away from your current hosting, then Rocket.net is a better solution than Cloudways. That’s because Rocket.net offers unlimited site migration for free.
Cloudways also offers a free migration feature, but only for one site. To migrate two sites or more, you need to pay a migration service of $25 per site.
Or, if you want to handle the migration process yourself, you can use Cloudways WordPress Migrator. It’s a free plugin from Cloudways designed specifically to help its customers to migrate to its platform.
You can use the plugin to migrate your WordPress sites from your current hosting to Cloudways without downtime. I have published the guide if you want to learn more.
Auto Update: Cloudways Requires an Add-on
Rocket.net is a managed hosting service designed specifically for WordPress. One of the core features it offers is auto update. With this feature, you no longer need to perform the updates manually. Be it WordPress core or plugins.
If you prefer to perform the updates yourself, Rocket.net also offers options to turn off the auto update feature on each component (core, plugin, and theme).
Cloudways also has the auto update feature, but you need to enable an add-on to use it. The add-on is not free, by the way.
You need to pay an extra fee of $3 per month per application to use the add-on. You can enable this add-on on individual applications, not necessarily on all applications.
The add-on supports auto update for plugins and themes hosted on third-party hosting (for premium plugins and themes). Not limited to those hosted on WordPress.org.
Backup: Both Offer Automatic and On-Demand Backup
As I mentioned in the opening section, I use both Cloudways and Rocket.net for my WordPress projects. I don’t install a backup plugin for all of my projects because Cloudways and Rocket.net already have the feature.
Be it Cloudways or Rocket.net offers both automatic backup and on-demand backup.
you don’t need to worry about your hosting storage because they store the backup files to a separate server than your server (a.k.a off-site backup).
Cloudways stores the last 12 versions of your website, while Rocket.net stores the 14 last versions of your website.
You can restore a version with a single click.
In Cloudways, you can set the frequency of the automatic backup, as well as the backup retention. Rocket.net doesn’t offer options to control automatic backup.
Apart from automatic backup, Cloudways and Rocket.net also offer on-demand (manual) backup in case you want to have an offline backup of your website on your computer.
They allow you to backup both site files and databases.
Although this feature (on-demand backup) is quite useful, I strongly recommend you to use FTP if you want to perform a manual backup. Especially for a large sized site.
FTP is more reliable to download a large file than HTTP.
CDN: Cloudways and Rocket.net Are Integrated with Cloudflare Enterprise
Cloudways and Rocket.net are integrated with Cloudflare Enterprise. The difference is that Rocket.net offers the integration as a core feature, while Cloudways offers it as an add-on.
In Cloudways, you need to pay $4.99 per month per domain to enable the Cloudflare Enterprise add-on. The more domains you enable the add-on on, the less money you need for the add-on.
In Rocket.net, the Cloudflare Enterprise integration is already included in the pricing structure. No extra fee involved to use Cloudflare Enterprise on your websites.
Security: Cloudways Offers More Security Features
When I was still using SiteGround, I moved one of my sites to it. The site was infected by malware. They alerted me via email.
After contacting the support team (which is terrible), they asked me to make a payment to remove the malware.
The same experience will not happen in Rocket.net. At least if what they say below is true.
As you can read above, Rocket.net comes with a malware scanner and removal feature. This feature is available as a core feature, not add-on.
Cloudways also comes with a malware scanner and removal. However, an add-on is required to use it. To enable this add-on, you need to pay $4 per month. At least it is not as expensive as SiteGround.
By the way, both Cloudways and Rocket.net use Imunify360 to power their malware protection feature.
Another security feature offered by Cloudways and Rocket.net is a firewall.
In Rocket.net, your sites are protected by two firewalls. The first one is on the CDN servers, which is powered by Cloudflare. The second one is on the origin server, which is powered by Imunify360.
You can monitor the firewall activity via the control panel.
Rocket.net offers no feature to block traffic manually.
Same as Rocket.net, Cloudways also uses Imunify360 for its firewall feature. But Cloudways offers manual traffic blocking. Something that is not available in Rocket.net
You can block traffic by IP address and country.
Apart from malware protection and firewall, Cloudways also has a vulnerability scanner which is powered by Patchstack. This feature makes sure your site components (WordPress core and plugins) are up to date.
Security Features of Cloudways and Rocket.net:
| Cloudways | Rocket.net | |
|---|---|---|
| SSL | Let’s Encrypt | Cloudflare |
| Firewall | Imunify360 | Imunify360 and Cloudflare |
| Manual traffic blocking | ✅ | ❌ |
| Malware scanner and removal | Imunify360 (requires an add-on) | Imunify360 |
| Vulnerability scanner | Patchstack | ❌ |
File Access and Database Access: Rocket.net Offers Built-in File Manager
Rocket.net is a better option if you are looking for a hosting service that has a built-in file manager. With this feature, you can easily access your WordPress files without needing to configure FTP.
The file manager feature of Rocket.net comes with a text editor, which is super useful if you need to add a minor change to a certain file (like adding a single line to the wp-config.php file, for instance).
Cloudways doesn’t offer a file manager feature. You need to set up FTP before you can access your files.
Alternatively, you can install a file manager plugin like WP File Manager, Filester or Bit File Manager. These plugins offer file management experience similar to macOS’s Finder.
For database access, both Cloudways and Rocket.net offer PhpMyAdmin.
Well, Cloudways doesn’t offer PhpMyAdmin. Instead, it offers a custom GUI-based database manager that is extremely similar to PhpMyAdmin. Hardly any difference between Cloudways’ database manager with PhpMyAdmin.
Development: Cloudways Offers More Development Features than Rocket.net
Cloudways is a bit better than Rocket.net in this area. Especially if you are a professional developer who uses GitHub.
In Cloudways, you can develop your website on your local computer and deploy it once it is ready via Git.
If you want to have a backup of the application hosted on Cloudways, you can also connect it to your GitHub account.
This integration is especially useful if you want to develop a custom plugin because you can develop it (the plugin) on your local computer and simply make a new commit every time you want to deploy new changes.
Unlike Cloudways, Rocket.net doesn’t support Git.
Other development features that Cloudways and Rocket.net offer are:
— Staging
Both Cloudways and Rocket.net allow you to create a staging website off of your live site. With this feature, you can test a certain change on a staging site and push it to the live site when everything is good.
The staging site feature offered by Cloudways is better than Rocket.net.
In Cloudways, once a staging site is created and you want to make a new change (e.g. testing a new design), you can always get the latest version of your live website thanks to its ability to pull the data from the live site.
Rocket.net doesn’t have the same ability. If you want to get the latest version of your live website, you need to delete your current staging site and create a new one (staging site).
When you are done making the changes on the staging site and want to pull them to the live site, Cloudways also gives you more options than Rocket.net.
Instead of pulling the entire data of the staging website and overriding the data of your live site, you can pick the incremental push. You can even exclude specific folders during the process.
— WP CLI
If you often use WP CLI to manage your WordPress websites on your current hosting, you can also do it on Cloudways and Rocket.net.
In Rocket.net, you can launch WP CLI on every website on your account.
What about WP CLI in Cloudways?
In Cloudways, you need to login to your server via SSH to access WP CLI. Plus, you need to go to the folder of an application that you want to manage. Or, you can enter the full path of application.
— Cron Job
WordPress already has a native crop job feature, but it is not reliable enough because it works based on page view.
If you need a more reliable cron job, you can replace the native cron job of WordPress with a cron job manager of your hosting provider if it offers it.
Cloudways comes with a cron job manager feature. You can use it to run PHP scripts or other scripts.
Unlike Cloudways, Rocket.net has no cron job manager.
Here are the development features available in Cloudways and Rocket.net:
| Cloudways | Rock.net | |
|---|---|---|
| Git | ✅ | ❌ |
| Staging site | ✅ | ✅ |
| WP CLI | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cron job manager | ✅ | ❌ |
Support: Both Offer Live Chat Support Handled by a Human
I personally recommend you to use a hosting service that offers live chat support that is handled by a human, not a bot.
Why?
There are two main reasons.
First, human staffed live chat allows you to fix your issues more quickly when compared to, for instance, ticket. You don’t need to wait for hours to get a better insight about the issue you are experiencing (e.g. the root cause).
Second, human staffed live chat indicates that a hosting service really cares about its customers.
Today, there are many businesses that switch to AI to handle support. But as a human, you want to be served by a fellow human when experiencing an issue. Don’t you?
That’s the exact reason I no longer recommend SiteGround. They don’t care about you!
Both Cloudways and Rocket.net offer human staffed live chat support. Cloudways uses Intercom for its live chat support, while Rocket.net uses LiveChat.
Well, Cloudways also uses AI for its live chat support. You will be greeted by an AI bot on initial chat. But you can bypass it by typing “I want to talk to a human” or a similar phrase. And a human staff will welcome you.
Rocket.net is even better. You will be greeted directly by a human, not a bot. Each staff member also always provides super helpful solutions to fix your issues.
Apart from live chat, Cloudways and Rocket.net also offer ticket-based support. They use the same platform for this support: Zendesk.
Cloudways also offers a private Slack channel, but you need to enable a paid add-on to get it.
| Cloudways | Rocket.net | |
|---|---|---|
| Live chat | ✅ | ✅ |
| Ticket | ✅ | ✅ |
| Private Slack channel | ✅ (requires an add-on) | ❌ |
Price: Cloudways Offers Pay-As-You Go Pricing Model
Rocket.net is not a cheap hosting. You need to spend at least $30 per month (the lowest plan) to use the service. Plus, you can only install one WordPress website.
However, it’s worth noting that the Rocket.net hosting service already includes CDN (powered by Cloudflare Enterprise) and automatic updates. These features are available as core features.
Meanwhile, you only need to spend $11 per month (the lowest plan) to use the Cloudways hosting service. However, as I mentioned above, you need at least a server with 2GB RAM for live sites.
To use a server with 2GB RAM, you need to spend $24 per month. Unlike Rocket.net, you can install as many WordPress sites as you want with that amount of money.
Unlike Rocket.net, some Cloudways features are available as add-ons. Such as CDN (Cloudlare Enterprise) and auto update. If you don’t use these features, you will only be charged with the main hosting service fee.
As I mentioned above, Cloudways allows you to increase the specs of your server thanks to its Vertical Scaling feature.
The best part of Cloudways is that you will only be charged based on the resources you use. You can even monitor the estimated invoice for the current month.
| Cloudways | Rocket.net | |
|---|---|---|
| Price of lowest plan | $11/month | $30/month |
| Number of sites | Unlimited | 1 |
| Pricing model | Pay as you go | Fixed |
| Free trial without credit card | ✅ | ❌ |
| Learn More | Learn More |
Pros and Cons of Cloudways and Rocket.net
Cloudways is a great solution if you are looking for a more affordable hosting to host multiple websites. With only $11 per month (well, $24 in reality), you can install as many websites as you want.
Rocket.net, on the other hand, is a more suited solution if you only have one website and need a hosting service that comes with automatic update feature.
Of course, you can also use Rocket.net to host multiple sites, but the money you need to spend is higher compared to Cloudways.
I use both Cloudways and Rocket.net because they offer hosting services that fit my needs.
More importantly, they treat their customers better than SiteGround, my previous hosting.
Pros and Cons of Cloudways
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| More affordable for multiple sites | Registration requires manual approval |
| Flexible pricing model | Requires add-ons for CDN and auto update |
| Extremely easy to scale a server | No file manager |
| Multiple security layers | |
| Multiple cloud provider options | |
| Configurable PHP | |
| Offsite, automatic backup | |
| Clean control panel (the new one) |
Pros and Cons of Rocket.net
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| No add-ons. All features are available as core features | No control to disable/enable CDN |
| Automatic updates for all WordPress components (core, themes and plugins) | Overly rely on Cloudflare |
| Useful file manager | Limited data center locations |
| Excellent support by humans | |
| $1 for the first month | |
| Free WP Rocket plugin |
📝 The Verdict: Should You Use Cloudways or Rocket.net?
Both Cloudways and Rocket.net are great hosting services — which I use on my WordPress projects. The two are great in terms of service quality and how they treat customers.
I moved from SiteGround to Cloudways and Rocket.net because it (SiteGround) no longer the hosting service I knew when I subscribed. Everything is getting worse and worse.
Should you use Cloudways or Rocket.net?
If you have multiple WordPress websites to manage, I strongly recommend you to use Cloudways. You can host multiple websites on it at a lower price.
It’s true that you need to enable paid add-ons to use CDN and auto update, but you can enable add-ons on the websites that really need the features.
Rocket.net is a better suited option if you have a growing website and want to focus on aspects like marketing and content creation instead of maintenance. It comes with an auto update and CDN available as core features.
You can use Cloudways if:
- You need a more affordable hosting to host multiple websites
- You need a dedicated server
- You need Git
- You have adequate knowledge to maintain server
- You need CDN as an optional feature
You can use Rocket.net if:
- You have a growing website and want to focus on growth aspects (marketing, content creation, etc.)
- You need CDN as a core feature
- You hate add-ons
- You hate AI bot support
- You are looking for a hosting service with a file manager feature
In case you prefer using Cloudways, you can use this link to get a 30% discount for 3 months.
