How to set up WordPress on Cloudways, step by step

To set up WordPress on Cloudways, you launch a server with WordPress selected, point your domain's A record at the server's IP address, and install a free Let's Encrypt certificate from the dashboard. The whole process takes about fifteen minutes plus however long your DNS takes to update. You can do all of it on the 3-day free trial without entering a card.

This guide follows the order the Cloudways dashboard expects, flags the three or four places where people usually go wrong, and covers the settings worth changing before the site goes live. Menu names follow Cloudways' current interface; the older "classic" interface uses the same names in a top menu rather than a side bar.

Before you start

You need three things: an email address for the Cloudways account, access to your domain's DNS settings (at your registrar or at Cloudflare), and a decision about server size. For a single new site, Cloudways recommends 2 GB or more for anything live and treats 1 GB as a testing size. On the trial you cannot scale a server up later, so launch at the size you would actually use. A 2 GB DigitalOcean server costs $24 a month once you upgrade.

If you are moving an existing site rather than starting fresh, follow our WordPress migration guide instead. It uses the same server but brings your content across.

Launch a server with WordPress

1. Create the account. Sign up on the Cloudways site with your email and verify it. No card is needed for the trial.
2. Choose the application. When you launch your first server, pick WordPress from the application list. There are separate options for WooCommerce and WordPress Multisite. Pick WooCommerce only if you are building a shop, since it installs the plugin for you.
3. Name three things. The application (the site), the server, and the project, which is just a folder for organising servers. Use names you will recognise in six months, such as "client-bakery-live" rather than "test1".
4. Pick provider, size and region. DigitalOcean Standard is the cheapest; Vultr High Frequency and DigitalOcean Premium are faster per dollar for busy stores. Choose the region nearest your visitors. AWS and Google Cloud are not available on the trial.
5. Launch. Provisioning takes several minutes. When it finishes, the server and application appear in your lists.

Our provider comparison goes into the size and region choice in more detail.

Find your login and temporary address

Open the application and go to Access Details. You will see the admin panel URL, a generated username and password, and a temporary address ending in cloudwaysapps.com. Log in and change the password, and the admin email under Settings, General, before you do anything else.

The temporary address is useful: you can build the whole site on it before your domain points anywhere. When you later add your real domain, WordPress needs to switch its stored URLs from the temporary address to the real one. Cloudways handles that when you set the primary domain, but check the WordPress Address and Site Address under Settings, General afterwards.

Choose the web stack before you build

In Application Settings there is a Stack tab with two choices. Hybrid runs NGINX in front of Apache with Varnish caching and supports .htaccess files. Lightning runs NGINX alone, which Cloudways' own tests show handling more requests, but it ignores .htaccess entirely and replaces it with dashboard Web Rules. Cloudways' help centre says new applications default to Hybrid.

For a new site built with standard plugins, Lightning is the better default. For a site that will use a security plugin which writes .htaccess rules, or that needs complex redirects, stay on Hybrid. Decide now, because switching later is possible but means re-testing everything. Our Lightning Stack explainer has the full checklist.

Connect your domain

1. Add the domain in Cloudways. In the application, open Domain Management, add your domain (for example, example.com) and make it the primary domain.
2. Copy the server's IP. It is shown on the server's page as the Public IP.
3. Create the DNS records. At your DNS provider, set an A record for @ pointing to that IP, and either an A record for www to the same IP or a CNAME for www pointing to your root domain.
4. Wait for DNS. Most changes show up within an hour; some registrars take longer. A tool such as dnschecker.org shows when the new IP is visible.

If your domain's DNS is on Cloudflare, set both records to "DNS only" (grey cloud) for now. You can switch the proxy back on after the certificate is installed. Our domain and SSL guide covers the Cloudflare cases in more depth, and our Cloudflare Enterprise review looks at the $4.99 add-on as an alternative to running Cloudflare yourself.

Install the free SSL certificate

Open SSL Certificate in the application, choose Let's Encrypt, enter your email, and add both example.com and www.example.com. Leaving out www is the most common mistake: anyone who types it gets a certificate warning. Install the certificate, accept the prompt to force HTTPS, and leave auto-renewal on.

If the install fails, it is almost always DNS. Either the records have not updated yet, or a proxy such as Cloudflare or Sucuri is answering instead of your server. Wait, check the records point to the server's IP, and try again.

Settings to check before launch

Caching

The Breeze caching plugin is installed on Cloudways WordPress applications and handles page caching, minification and database clean-up. Keep its defaults at first. On Hybrid servers, Varnish adds a second page cache in front.

For object caching, open the server's Settings & Packages, go to Packages, and make sure Redis is installed. On servers with 4 GB of RAM or more, Cloudways includes Object Cache Pro, which uses that Redis service from inside WordPress. Object caching is what helps logged-in users and WooCommerce carts, which page caching cannot serve. Our speed guide goes through each layer and how to check it is working.

Backups and PHP settings

Off-site backups are already on: daily, kept for one week, taken between 1 and 5 am UTC. In the server's Backups section you can change frequency (anything from hourly to weekly), retention (one to four weeks) and the time. For a site that changes daily, daily backups kept for two weeks is a sensible starting point. Remember backup storage is billed at $0.033 per GB.

Under Settings & Packages you can raise the PHP memory limit, upload size and execution time if a theme or page builder asks for more. The defaults suit most sites.

Outgoing email

WordPress sends password resets, form notifications and order emails through the server, and mail sent straight from cloud servers is frequently rejected or lands in spam. Some providers, including Vultr and Google Cloud, block port 25 entirely. Before you launch, connect a sending service: the server's SMTP section offers Cloudways' Elastic Email add-on or a free SMTP add-on where you enter details for SendGrid, Mailgun or Gmail. You can use one of them per server.

Then add the SPF and DKIM records your sending service gives you to your domain's DNS. Our email guide explains the difference between sending mail from WordPress and having mailboxes, which Cloudways does not provide.

When a step does not work

• The site still shows the old host after you changed DNS. Your computer has cached the old address. Try a phone on mobile data or flush your DNS cache.
• Redirect loop after forcing HTTPS. Usually Cloudflare's SSL mode set to Flexible. Set it to Full (strict) once the Let's Encrypt certificate is installed.
• Images or links still point to cloudwaysapps.com. Run a search-and-replace on the database for the temporary address. The Better Search Replace plugin works, or WP-CLI over SSH.
• "Error establishing a database connection". Usually a server out of memory. Check the server's Monitoring graphs and restart MySQL from Manage Services.

Cloudways' live chat handles all four of these on Standard support, so if you get stuck on the trial, ask. Once the site works on your domain, upgrade the account with a card before the three days run out; the trial server and everything on it carries over.