Cloudways
You run WordPress or PHP sites and do not want to maintain the server.
Kamatera
You need root, Windows, Docker or Node.js, or an unusual hardware shape.
Rounds won
| Round | Cloudways | Kamatera |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $24/mo for a live 2 GB server | $4/mo for 1 vCPU and 1 GBWins |
| Root access | No | YesWins |
| Patching and backups | Done for youWins | Yours, or the $50 managed tier |
| What it runs | WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Laravel, PHP | Anything, Windows includedWins |
| Support inside the server | 24/7 on your serverWins | The platform only, unless managed |
| Hardware and locations | Fixed sizes from five providers | CPU, RAM and disk set separately, 18 locationsWins |
| Free trial | 3 days, no card | 30 days, one server up to $100Wins |
| Five small WordPress sites | About $24.50/mo with everything includedWins | Similar money, plus an evening to build |
These are two different products, and the choice is about who runs the server. Cloudways installs, patches, backs up and supports a PHP hosting stack for you, and gives no root. Kamatera gives you root on a server you shape yourself, from $4 a month, with Windows images and dedicated cores available, and leaves the administration to you. Pick Cloudways for WordPress and PHP sites you do not want to maintain; pick Kamatera for anything that needs root, Windows, or unusual hardware shapes.
Cloudways vs Kamatera: managed hosting or your own server?
Cloudways vs Kamatera: a managed WordPress and PHP platform from $24/mo against a configurable unmanaged server from $4/mo. Root, cost, trials and fit.
How we pay for this
We buy the hardware and pay for the subscriptions we write about. Claim a deal through our link and we may earn a commission — our readers sometimes get a discount or a freebie out of it too, but it never pushes the price up, and it never changes what the review says.
Cloudways is a managed hosting platform that runs WordPress and PHP sites on a server it maintains for you; Kamatera rents you a cloud server you configure and administer yourself. Cloudways' practical starting point is $24 a month for a 2 GB server with the stack, backups and support included, and no root access. Kamatera starts at $4 a month for 1 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM, with root, and everything above the operating system is your job.
We cover both companies in depth, and both are partners of this site, so this is less a contest than a sorting exercise. The question is whether you want to run a server or only use one.
Cloudways vs Kamatera at a glance
| Deciding factor | Cloudways Flexible | Kamatera |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A managed PHP hosting stack on a cloud server | A cloud server with an operating system |
| Entry price | $11/mo (1 GB); $24 for a 2 GB live server | $4/mo (1 vCPU, 1 GB, 20 GB NVMe, 5 TB traffic) |
| Root access | No | Yes |
| Operating systems | Debian, chosen by Cloudways | Linux distributions and Windows |
| Who patches and backs up | Cloudways | You, or Kamatera's managed tier at $50 per server |
| What it runs | WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Laravel, PHP | Anything that runs on the OS |
| Free trial | 3 days, no card | 30 days, one server up to $100 |
What you pay for a WordPress site
For a single production WordPress site, a self-managed Kamatera server realistically costs $12 to $20 a month once you give it enough memory and storage, as our WordPress on Kamatera guide sets out. A 2 GB Cloudways server is $24, and Cloudways recommends at least that size for live sites. The direct cost gap is modest; the real difference is the work.
On Kamatera you install a web server, PHP, a database and a cache, set up TLS renewal, a firewall and backups, and keep all of it patched. A free control panel such as CloudPanel or HestiaCP shortens that a lot. On Cloudways all of that exists when the server finishes launching, with daily off-site backups, staging and Redis already in place. Kamatera does sell a managed tier at $50 a month per server, covering OS monitoring, firewall, networking and application installs, but that is server management, not a WordPress platform, and on a small server it costs far more than the server itself.
A worked example: five small WordPress sites
Take a freelancer hosting five brochure sites with modest traffic. On Cloudways, a 2 GB DigitalOcean server at $24 a month carries all five, and Cloudways' own guidance puts four or five small sites on that size. Add about 50 cents of backup storage and the bill is roughly $24.50, with staging, Redis, SSL and patching included.
On Kamatera, a server with two general-purpose cores and 4 GB of RAM, comfortable for five sites plus a database, lands in the low thirties per month by our Kamatera pricing breakdown, or less with a smaller CPU class. Add a free control panel, set up off-site backups to your own storage, and the money is similar. The difference is the evening it takes to build, and the hour a month to keep it patched. Add Kamatera's managed tier at $50 and the Kamatera build costs about three times as much, without a WordPress-aware dashboard.
The sum changes for bigger or stranger workloads. A database that needs dedicated cores, a server with an unusual amount of RAM for its CPU, or a machine in Tel Aviv or Bucharest is easier and often cheaper on Kamatera. A portfolio of ordinary PHP sites is easier on Cloudways.
Hardware, locations and storage
Kamatera lets you set vCPUs, RAM and disk independently and choose between four CPU classes, from shared availability cores up to dedicated ones, all on NVMe storage, across 18 locations. Cloudways offers fixed sizes from five providers. DigitalOcean's Standard servers use regular SSDs, its Premium and Vultr's High Frequency servers use NVMe, and between them the providers cover around 9 to 30 locations each. Our Cloudways provider comparison lists them.
Disk growth works the same way on both: a boot disk can be enlarged but not shrunk. On Kamatera the usual answer is a separate data volume you can remove later; on Cloudways it is DigitalOcean Block Storage, or cloning to a smaller server.
Control and what you can run
Kamatera wins outright on control. You get root on the operating system you choose, so you can run Docker, Node.js, Python, a mail server, a game server or a Windows application. Kamatera is one of the few low-cost hosts with Windows Server and Windows Desktop images where licensing is handled, which matters for software that only ships as a Windows program. It also lets you set CPU, RAM and disk independently, with four CPU classes including dedicated cores, rather than picking from a ladder of fixed sizes.
Cloudways gives you SSH as a non-root user and a menu of packages, and runs PHP applications. That is enough for WordPress, WooCommerce, Laravel and Magento, and not for much else. Our root access guide lists what fits inside those limits.
Support and responsibility
Cloudways' standard support works on your server around the clock: a failed SSL renewal, a database that will not start, a PHP limit that needs raising. Kamatera's standard support covers its platform and your account, and anything inside the operating system is yours unless you pay for the managed tier. Neither will debug your WordPress plugins for free.
Responsibility for security follows the same line. On Cloudways, operating-system patches and the server firewall are Cloudways' job, and nobody, including a compromised plugin, has the root access needed to undo them. On Kamatera, hardening SSH, setting the firewall and applying updates are your tasks from the first login, which our Kamatera setup guide walks through.
Trials and billing
Kamatera's trial is the more generous: 30 days on one server configured up to $100 a month, with 1 TB of traffic, enough to test a production-sized machine. Cloudways' trial is three days on one server with no card, enough to migrate a copy of a site and judge the platform. Both bill by usage, and both charge for a server that is switched off but not deleted, so on either one, deleting is the only way to stop the meter.
Which one to choose
- WordPress or WooCommerce sites you do not want to maintain: Cloudways. The stack, backups, staging and support are the product.
- A Windows application or remote desktop: Kamatera. Cloudways does not run Windows.
- Node.js, Python, Docker or self-hosted tools: Kamatera, with root.
- Laravel or a PHP application with queues: either. Cloudways if you want it managed, Kamatera if you need root for Octane or custom daemons.
- A mix: both. Keep the PHP sites on Cloudways and run the odd service that needs root on a small Kamatera server.
For the full picture of each, read our Cloudways review and Kamatera review.
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