Comparison of Cloudways and Liquid Web: Overview
Cloudways and Liquid Web are both widely recognized, but Cloudways holds greater popularity due to its long-established presence in the industry. Cloudways is renowned for its performance. In contrast, Cloudways offers $14 for an initial plan as compared to Liquid Web, which is on the higher side. Their initial plan starts from $20/ month.
Cloudways
Liquid Web
Cloudways Overview
Cloudways Hosting is a leader in controlled cloud hosting, presenting a superior online experience with professional 24/7 assistance, one-click solutions, and extremely good overall performance.
Boasting a first-rate 99.99% uptime and international-elegance server protection, it ensures constant accessibility and safeguarding of your statistics. With an impressive 90-second average reaction time, Cloudways prioritises swift customer service.
Recognized as G2’s top-rated SMB website hosting provider with a 4.7-star score, it powers websites in over 200 nations and keeps an industry-main NPS of 73. With 50 international statistics facilities and over 840,000 turbocharged websites, Cloudways is the type of excessive-performing and reliable hosting for the ultimate online presence.
Liquid Web Overview
Liquid Web Hosting, your gateway to a remarkable hosting experience. With an exceptional 99.999% uptime, 24/7 aid from the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting, and 10 global record facilities, we redefine reliability. Our group of 500 on-web site professionals, along with licensed directors, ensures top-grade security and performance.
Recognized as #1 for Dedicated Servers by Top5HostingProviders.com. Enjoy problem-free hosting with speedy, steady offerings and benefit from our dedication to constant innovation and hardware updates, preserving you at the leading edge of generation. Join us for a web hosting partnership that goes beyond expectations.
Plans Pricing Comparison
Cloudways
Liquid Web
Cloudways and Liquid Web offer managed hosting services, but they cater to slightly different audiences with distinct pricing models and service offerings. Below is a general comparison of their pricing and plans to help you understand the differences.
Cloudways Pricing and Plans
Cloudways is known for its flexibility and pay-as-you-go pricing model, which is based on the choice of cloud provider. They don’t own their servers but instead allow you to choose from five major cloud providers: DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
- DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr Plans usually start at a lower price point, suitable for small to medium-sized projects. Prices can start as low as $10 to $13 per month for the most basic plan, which typically includes 1 GB of RAM, 1 Core Processor, 25 GB of storage, and 1 TB bandwidth.
- AWS and GCP Plans are more expensive, reflecting the pricing of these more premium providers, and are better suited for businesses with larger budgets and scaling needs. The starting price for AWS might be around $36.51 per month, and for GCP, around $33.18 per month for their most basic configurations.
- Cloudways’ pricing increases with server size and specifications, and you pay monthly for the resources you use.
- All Cloudways plans include features like free migration, 24/7 support, automated backups, free SSL certificates, and more.
Liquid Web Pricing and Plans
Liquid Web caters more to enterprise-level hosting needs with a focus on dedicated, VPS, cloud dedicated, and managed WordPress hosting solutions. Their services are known for premium support, high performance, and more comprehensive managed hosting features.
- Managed WordPress Hosting starts at around $19 per month for a single site, with more extensive plans available that support additional sites and traffic.
- VPS Hosting plans are robust, starting from around $25 per month for the entry-level option, which typically includes 2 GB RAM, 40 GB SSD disk space, and 10 TB bandwidth.
- Dedicated Hosting and Cloud Dedicated servers are at the higher end of the pricing spectrum, starting at a few hundred dollars per month, reflecting their enterprise-level capabilities and resources.
Each of these plans includes various features such as plugin performance monitoring, WooCommerce automated testing, and Solid Security Pro. These plans include features like DDoS Attack Protection, local site backups, enhanced security, CloudFlare CDN, and more.
Cloudways is more flexible and can be a better fit for both small projects and scalable cloud solutions, whereas Liquid Web focuses more on premium, managed hosting for businesses and professionals requiring high performance and dedicated resources. Also, Cloudways offers a pay-as-you-go model that can be more cost-effective for those looking to scale resources up or down based on demand.
Hosting Features Comparison
Cloudways
Liquid Web
Cloudways Features
Cloudways specializes in cloud hosting, offering services through three distinguished providers: AWS, DigitalOcean, and Google Cloud. Users benefit from unlimited application installation choices, complimentary daily backups, SSL certificates, and seamless site migration across all subscription plans.
Moreover, Cloudways distinguishes itself with NvMe-based servers and a dedicated environment, ensuring optimal performance. The hosting platform facilitates easy 1-click installations for over 10 applications. Notably, users can replicate fully configured servers, conduct migrations, and consolidate all their sites into a unified platform without incurring additional expenses.
Cloudways goes beyond by allowing users to modify data center locations, switch cloud providers, expand storage capacity, and engage in real-time collaboration with team members. While lacking a native website builder, Cloudways stands out as an excellent choice for those seeking the adaptability and scalability inherent in cloud server solutions.
Liquid Web Features
Liquid Web offers a diverse range of hosting options, including VPS, Cloud, Managed WordPress, and Dedicated hosting.
Their services include automatic SSL installation across all plans, streamlined website migration at no extra cost, high-performance SSD/NvMe hybrid storage, complimentary WordPress installation, and effortless one-click access to automatic daily backups.
Cloudways emerges as a superior choice over Liquid Web due to its expansive feature set and unmatched versatility. Cloudways not only provides cloud hosting through major providers like AWS, DigitalOcean, and Google Cloud but also offers unlimited application installations, daily backups, SSL certificates, and seamless site migration on all plans. With NvMe-based servers and dedicated environments, Cloudways ensures optimal performance.
Performance Comparison
Website Speed Comparison
To assess the loading speed of the hosting providers, our team has conducted tests on hosts’ domains through Google Page Insights and analyzed their performance. Liquid Web outperformed Cloudways, demonstrating speeds more than twice as fast.
When evaluating speed, three key aspects were considered:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This metric indicates marks the time at which the largest text or image is painted.
Total Blocking Time (TBT): Sum of all time periods between FCP and Time to Interactive, when task length exceeded 50ms, expressed in milliseconds.
Fully Contentful Paint: This FCP marks the time at which the first text or image is painted.
Liquid Web excelled in all these aspects. The LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) was an impressive 0.7s, well within the acceptable range. The TBT (Total Blocking Time) was 230ms, indicating a not fast-reacting server.
As for the Fully Contentful Paint, marks the 0.7s of time. Achieving a fully built website loading in less than a second is noteworthy, highlighting Liquid Web speed efficiency.
On the contrary, Cloudways lagged in comparison. Its LCP was at 1.1 seconds, meeting the benchmark but showing room for improvement compared to Liquid Web. The TBT for Bluehost was slower at 280 seconds, contributing to the variance in speed.
Both providers demonstrate good speed results, but Liquid Web stands out as significantly faster, thanks to its advanced server optimizations and a global server location selection feature.
On GTMetrix, Liquid Web got an overall performance of 95%
Uptime Monitoring
We also monitored uptime for Cloudways and Liquid Web over the 30-day period before writing this comparison. We found that both Cloudways and Liquid Web provided 100% uptime.
You can check out our current uptime data on all the major hosting providers over at our status page.
Both providers demonstrate good speed results, but Liquid Web outperformed Cloudways and is the clear winner and the faster of the two hosts. On GTmetrix, the performance grades were similar, while on Google PageSpeed Insights, Liquid Web clearly wins
Customer Support Comparison
Cloudways
Liquid Web
Cloudways Customer Support
Cloudways distinguishes itself with responsive customer support, available around the clock through live chat and email. This multilingual support caters to users globally. Despite varying response times, Cloudways’ support team consistently earns accolades for their knowledge and helpfulness. This reliability proves beneficial for users with diverse technical expertise levels, establishing Cloudways as a dependable choice for a wide range of hosting needs.
The host also offers advanced and premium support add-ons like a Slack community, dedicated account manager, and more.
For inquiries before purchase, you can reach out to them via their contact us page.
Liquid Web Customer Support
Liquid Web stands out with its exceptional customer support, offering assistance through various channels such as phone, live chat, and email. Their support team is renowned for its prompt and knowledgeable responses, ensuring a positive user experience. Liquid Web’s commitment to 24/7 support is evident in the accessibility of their services. The availability of multiple support channels and a dedicated team contributes to making Liquid Web a preferred choice for users seeking comprehensive and reliable customer support in their hosting journey.
In the overall assessment, neither provider is flawless in terms of support, as each has unique strengths and limitations. However, for this comparison, the victory goes to Cloudways due to its instant phone support and live chat services.
Hosting Sever Location Comparison
Cloudways Server Locations
Cloudways provides widely spread server locations, offering a global infrastructure for hosting applications and websites. Users can choose from a diverse range of server locations, including prominent regions such as England, Netherlands, India, Germany, USA, Singapore, Australia, and South Africa, among others.
This extensive network allows Cloudways users to strategically position their projects closer to their target audience, optimizing performance and responsiveness. With server locations spanning key regions worldwide, Cloudways ensures that users have the flexibility to cater to diverse geographic needs, delivering reliable and efficient hosting solutions for a truly global online presence.
Liquid Web Server Locations
Liquid Web operates multiple data centers to support its hosting services. Liquid Web’s data center locations are strategically spread across different regions. Some of the known locations include:
- Lansing, Michigan, USA
- Phoenix, Arizona, USA
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
For the most current and accurate information about Liquid Web’s server locations, I recommend checking directly with Liquid Web or visiting their official website. Hosting providers may expand or modify their server locations to improve service performance and meet the demands of their diverse user base.
Cloudways manages its infrastructure globally through partnerships with various IaaS providers. In contrast, Liquid Web operates its own data centers, albeit with a geographical limitation to the United States and Europe. Therefore, Cloudways takes the lead in terms of a more expansive global presence.
Cloudways vs Liquid Web FAQs
Cloudways: Cloudways primarily provides cloud hosting services with infrastructure managed by major IaaS providers such as AWS, DigitalOcean, and Google Cloud.
Liquid Web: Liquid Web offers a range of hosting services, including VPS, Cloud, Managed WordPress, and Dedicated hosting.
Cloudways stands out for its flexibility, scalability, and diverse cloud provider options. It offers unlimited application installations, daily backups, SSL certificates, and seamless site migration.
Liquid Web distinguishes itself with various hosting options, automatic SSL installation, high-performance SSD/NvMe hybrid storage, and comprehensive support services.
Cloudways: Cloudways has a more extensive global presence with server locations worldwide, collaborating with IaaS providers in different regions.
Liquid Web: Liquid Web operates its own data centers, primarily in the United States and Europe, resulting in a more regionally limited footprint.
Cloudways: Yes, Cloudways provides free site migration on all plans.
Liquid Web: Liquid Web also offers free and convenient website migration.
