Cloudways
Your sites need their own server's RAM and CPU, Redis caching, or room to scale a busy store.
SiteGround
One small site on a tight budget, with email included and a beginner-friendly dashboard.
$2.99–$7.99/mo first year, then $17.99–$44.99
Rounds won
| Round | Cloudways | SiteGround |
|---|---|---|
| First-year price | $24/mo | $2.99–$7.99/mo, prepaid for a yearWins |
| After year one | Still $24/moWins | $17.99–$44.99/mo |
| Two years, three sites | About $576 | About $420 on GrowBigWins |
| Resources | Your own server's RAM and CPUWins | A shared server within plan limits |
| Not included, $1.50 per mailbox | IncludedWins | |
| Ease of use | A server-first dashboard | Site Tools, built for beginnersWins |
| WordPress support | Server only; plugins are a paid tier | Covers more of WordPress on standard plansWins |
SiteGround is the easier and cheaper start, with free email and a friendly dashboard, and even after its plans renew at five to six times the introductory price it stays cheaper in total for about four years at comparable tiers. Choose Cloudways for what SiteGround's shared plans cannot give: a server's RAM and CPU for your own sites, Redis object caching, and room to scale a busy store. After the first year, Cloudways' $24 server also costs less per month than SiteGround's $29.99 GrowBig renewal.
Cloudways vs SiteGround: renewal prices, email and speed
Cloudways vs SiteGround: $2.99 shared hosting that renews at $17.99 against a $24 cloud server. Email, resources, ease of use and two-year costs compared.
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SiteGround sells shared WordPress hosting from $2.99 a month that renews at $17.99; Cloudways sells a cloud server from $24 a month that stays $24. SiteGround includes email and a free domain, is easier for a beginner, and stays cheaper in total for years, even after renewal. Cloudways gives your sites a whole server's resources, Redis caching and room to scale, with no renewal jump. The choice is less about price than about whether your sites have outgrown shared hosting.
These are different kinds of hosting, which is why the comparison comes up so often: SiteGround is where many people start, and Cloudways is where many go when a site outgrows it. This piece covers the four things that decide between them.
Cloudways vs SiteGround: the deciding differences
| Deciding factor | Cloudways (DigitalOcean 2 GB) | SiteGround |
|---|---|---|
| First-year price | $24/mo, billed monthly | $2.99 (StartUp), $4.99 (GrowBig), $7.99 (GoGeek), prepaid for 12 months |
| Price after year one | Unchanged | $17.99, $29.99, $44.99 a month |
| Sites included | As many as the server holds | 1 on StartUp, unlimited on GrowBig and GoGeek |
| Resources | Your own server's RAM and CPU | Shared server, storage from 10 GB to 100 GB |
| Not included; $1.50 per mailbox add-on | Included | |
| Staging | Every application | GrowBig and GoGeek |
| Ease of use | Server-based dashboard | Site Tools, built for beginners |
What you pay in year one and year two
SiteGround's introductory prices are real, but they require 12 months paid upfront and apply to the first term only. When we checked in October 2026, StartUp was $2.99 a month for the first year and $17.99 after, GrowBig $4.99 then $29.99, and GoGeek $7.99 then $44.99.
Cloudways has no introductory price beyond a temporary new-customer discount, and no renewal jump. A 2 GB DigitalOcean server is $24 a month in month one and month 24, billed monthly. Over two years for a single site, SiteGround StartUp costs about $252 and a Cloudways 2 GB server about $576. For three sites, SiteGround needs GrowBig at about $420 over two years, still less than Cloudways' $576. Add email for a five-person team on Cloudways ($7.50 a month) and the gap widens.
So SiteGround wins on total cost for several years at comparable tiers. Cloudways' price advantage only appears month by month after renewal, when GrowBig costs $29.99 against Cloudways' $24, and it takes a little over four years for that to make up the first-year discount. If price is your only criterion, SiteGround is the better deal. The case for Cloudways is what the money buys, which the next section covers. Our Cloudways pricing guide lists the add-ons in full.
Shared hosting against your own server
On SiteGround's shared plans, your site lives on a server with other customers and works within usage limits set by the plan. That is fine for most small sites, and SiteGround runs a well-tuned platform on Google Cloud with server caching built in. The limit shows when a site gets busy, runs WooCommerce with many logged-in users, or uses a heavy page builder, because those requests compete for shared resources.
A Cloudways server is a virtual machine whose RAM and CPU belong to your applications alone. You choose its size, and you can scale it up when traffic grows. It also comes with Redis on every server and Object Cache Pro from 4 GB, which matters for stores. The trade-off is that you are responsible for choosing a big enough server: a 1 GB Cloudways server will feel slower than a well-run shared plan. Our scaling guide explains when to step up.
Email, domains and the all-in-one question
This is where SiteGround clearly does better. Every SiteGround plan includes email accounts on your domain and a free domain for the first year, so a small business gets its website and its info@ address from one bill. Cloudways hosts no email at all. You either add Rackspace mailboxes at $1.50 each, or use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, and you buy your domain elsewhere.
For someone moving from SiteGround to Cloudways, email is the step most likely to go wrong. Move your mailboxes to a new provider before changing any DNS, and keep your MX records pointing at the right place. Our email guide walks through it.
Ease of use
SiteGround's Site Tools dashboard is built around the site rather than the server: install WordPress, add a mailbox, turn on caching, all in plain language. Cloudways asks you to think about servers first, choosing a provider, a size and a region, and then about applications on them. Neither is hard, but Cloudways assumes you will make a few infrastructure decisions, and SiteGround deliberately does not.
Both include free SSL, daily backups, free WordPress migrations, SSH and WP-CLI. Both have 24/7 support. SiteGround's support covers more of the WordPress side on its standard plans, while Cloudways' standard support stops at the server and leaves plugin debugging to its paid Advanced tier.
Moving from SiteGround to Cloudways
The usual trigger is a renewal invoice or a site that has outgrown shared hosting. The move itself is free and takes an evening per site:
- Move email first. SiteGround's mailboxes stay at SiteGround, and they stop when the plan ends. Set up Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Rackspace through Cloudways, and switch your MX records before anything else.
- Check where your DNS is. If SiteGround hosts your domain's DNS, you will need to manage the records somewhere you keep, such as your registrar or Cloudflare.
- Copy each site to a Cloudways application with the Cloudways WordPress Migrator plugin, or ask Cloudways to do it for free.
- Disable SiteGround's own plugins on the copy, such as its Speed Optimizer, and use Breeze and Redis on Cloudways instead.
- Switch the A records to the Cloudways server, install SSL, and cancel SiteGround only after a week of normal traffic.
Our migration guide covers each step in detail.
Who should choose which
- One small site, a tight budget and a need for email: SiteGround StartUp, with a note in your calendar for the renewal date.
- A non-technical owner who wants one dashboard for everything: SiteGround.
- Several busy sites, or an agency portfolio that needs room to grow: Cloudways. One server's resources shared only among your own sites, scaled up as they grow.
- A WooCommerce store or a site that has outgrown shared hosting: Cloudways on a 4 GB server, for dedicated resources and object caching.
- Anyone facing a SiteGround renewal invoice for a site that feels slow: price your actual sites on Cloudways before you pay. The 3-day trial lets you migrate a copy and compare speed first.
If neither fits, our Cloudways alternatives guide covers Hostinger, Kinsta, Rocket.net and unmanaged options side by side, and our Cloudways vs Hostinger comparison looks at the other big budget host with the same renewal pattern.
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Spent a few years keeping servers online at an ad-tech company that doesn't exist anymore. Rents GPU time the way other people rent power tools.
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