Features |
| – Users can deploy applications like WordPress and WooCommerce with a single click |
Pros | ✅ 300+ data centers worldwide speed up content delivery and reduce latency. | ✅Great for businesses that need scalability |
Cons | ❌No live support or ticketing for free users; only access to community forums and self-help articles. | ❌ Cloudways can be more expensive |
Ease of Use | – More complex, with a steeper learning curve. |
Choosing between CloudWays and CloudFlare can be tough, especially if you’re new to web hosting and security. I remember when I first built my website.
I wanted something fast, secure, and easy to manage, but the options were overwhelming. CloudWays is ideal for managed cloud hosting, providing powerful servers without the hassle of setup and maintenance.
On the other hand, CloudFlare is a top choice for enhancing your website’s security and speed, offering features such as a content delivery network (CDN) and DDoS protection.
Both have unique strengths that can greatly benefit your site. Let’s dive into the details to help you decide which one is the best fit for your needs.
CloudWays Vs CloudFlare: Overview
CloudWays CDN is exclusively compatible with CloudWays hosting, but Cloudflare CDN is compatible with any hosting provider.
CloudWays Overview
CloudWays CDN is exclusively accessible as an add-on for websites hosted on CloudWays, while Cloudflare can be used with any other hosting provider.
CloudWays CDN teamed with StackPath CDN, formerly known as MaxCDN, to provide a worldwide CDN network to its clients. Cloudflare operates its infrastructure and maintains a worldwide CDN.
Cloudflare may be utilized as a content delivery network (CDN) for any site hosted by CloudWays. Cloudflare does not provide site hosting. StackPath, a typical content delivery network (CDN) that caches requests, is not accessible.
CloudWays CDN does not reroute requests that are not cacheable, which reduces costs for bigger websites. On the other hand, Cloudflare requires all requests to be proxied through their CDN.
CloudFlare Overview
Because queries may transit regardless of whether they are cacheable, the overhead is significantly greater.
Cloudflare optimizes your website’s assets without requiring any changes to your cache settings. HTTP/2 and TLS 1.3 are supported, along with static images optimized for mobile devices. CloudWays CDN does not have this optimization capability.
However, WordPress users may achieve a similar outcome by using cache plugins. Additionally, CloudWays provides comprehensive cache management and intelligent cleaning.
CloudWays Vs CloudFlare: Pricing
CloudWays Pricing
| Plan | Price (USD per month) | Hourly Rate (USD) | RAM | vCPU | NVMe Storage | Transfer Bandwidth | Visits | Websites |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | $14 | $0.0208 | 1GB | 1 | 25GB | 1TB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Small | $28 | $0.0417 | 2GB | 1 | 50GB | 2TB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Medium | $54 | $0.0804 | 4GB | 2 | 80GB | 4TB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Large | $99 | $0.1473 | 8GB | 4 | 160GB | 5TB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
CloudFlare Pricing
🔐 Zero Trust & Security
| Plan | Price (USD) | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Zero Trust Free | $0/month | Basic access control and secure DNS filtering. |
| Zero Trust Paid | Starting at $7/user/month | Advanced threat protection, device posture checks, and more. |
🌐 Cloudflare Core Plans
| Plan | Price (USD) | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | Basic DDoS protection, CDN, shared SSL, and global CDN. |
| Pro | $20/month per site | Enhanced security, image optimization, and mobile acceleration. |
| Business | $200/month per site | Advanced security, 100% uptime SLA, and prioritized support. |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | Tailored solutions with 24/7 support, custom SLAs, and enterprise-grade features. |
🛠️ Developer & Serverless Platform
| Service | Free Plan | Paid Plan (Starting at $5/month) |
|---|---|---|
| Workers | 100,000 requests/day, 10ms CPU time | 10M requests/month, 30M CPU ms included; $0.30 per additional million requests, $0.02 per additional million CPU ms. |
| Pages | Unlimited sites, 500 builds/month | 20 concurrent builds, 20,000 builds/month. |
| R2 Storage | 10 GB storage free | $0.015/GB-month (standard), $0.01/GB-month (infrequent access). |
| D1 Database | Prototype access included | Additional reads/writes/storage billed per usage. |
📦 Media & Content Services
| Service | Free Tier | Paid Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Images | 5,000 transformations/month | $5/month for 100,000 images stored; $1 per 100,000 images delivered. |
| Stream | 100 minutes video storage/delivery | $5/month for 1,000 minutes stored; 10,000 minutes delivery included. |
🔐 Zero Trust & Security
| Plan | Price (USD) | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Zero Trust Free | $0/month | Basic access control and secure DNS filtering. |
| Zero Trust Paid | Starting at $7/user/month | Advanced threat protection, device posture checks, and more. |
Cloudflare’s CDN solution is available in three premium tiers: Enterprise, Business, and Pro.
The Pro plan is designed for web designers and optimizers, while the Business plan is intended for agencies and enterprises that require high availability to support mission-critical business processes.
Additionally, the Enterprise package offers advanced security and performance capabilities, along with prompt support.
CloudWays Vs CloudFlare: Features
CloudWays Features
Managed Cloud Hosting
Cloudways offers a fully managed cloud hosting platform that abstracts the complexities of server management. It provides users with a simple, centralized dashboard for deploying, configuring, and maintaining cloud servers, eliminating the need for deep technical expertise.
Multiple Cloud Providers
Users can choose from five leading cloud infrastructure providers—DigitalOcean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, Linode, and Vultr. This flexibility enables you to choose a provider that meets your performance needs, budget, and geographical preferences.
Pay-As-You-Go Pricing
Cloudways employs a flexible billing model where you pay only for the resources you consume. This includes hourly and monthly payment options, which are ideal for startups, growing businesses, or projects with variable resource requirements.
Easy Server & Application Management
The intuitive Cloudways control panel lets you launch servers and deploy applications quickly. It also provides features such as server monitoring, resource usage statistics, and integrated tools for managing databases, caches, and SSL certificates.
Optimized Performance
Cloudways integrates several performance-enhancing technologies, including built-in caching layers (Varnish, Redis, Memcached) to reduce load times. It supports modern protocols, such as HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, for faster and more efficient data transfer. Additionally, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN is included for global content delivery and improved site speed.
One-Click App Deployment
Deploy popular web applications, such as WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Laravel, Drupal, and Joomla, with just one click, saving you setup time and effort.
Automated Backups
Cloudways offers automated backup scheduling with options for daily, weekly, or custom intervals. Backups can be restored easily, ensuring your data is protected against accidental loss or corruption.
Security Features
Security is a major focus, with features including dedicated firewalls, two-factor authentication (2FA), free SSL certificates provided by Let’s Encrypt, regular OS and application updates, and IP whitelisting to restrict server access.
Team Collaboration Tools
The platform supports multiple team members with role-based access control, enabling you to effectively delegate tasks and manage permissions within your development or management team.
24/7 Customer Support
Cloudways provides 24/7 customer support through live chat and a ticketing system, complemented by a comprehensive knowledge base and tutorials to assist users at any time.
CloudFlare Features
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Cloudflare operates a global CDN that caches your website content across numerous data centers worldwide. This reduces latency by serving content from locations closest to your visitors, improving load times and user experience.
DDoS Protection
Cloudflare offers advanced Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation, automatically detecting and blocking malicious traffic to protect websites from downtime and attacks of all sizes.
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
The WAF filters and monitors HTTP traffic to block common threats such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and other OWASP top vulnerabilities, keeping your web applications secure.
DNS Management
Cloudflare provides fast and reliable DNS services, featuring built-in security measures such as DNSSEC to prevent DNS spoofing, thereby ensuring quick domain resolution and enhanced uptime.
SSL/TLS Encryption
Cloudflare offers free SSL certificates and supports modern encryption standards, including TLS 1.3, which enables secure HTTPS connections to protect data in transit and foster user trust.
Load Balancing
Cloudflare’s load balancing distributes traffic efficiently across multiple servers or data centers, improving availability, reducing latency, and preventing overloads.
Bot Management
Intelligent bot detection identifies and mitigates malicious bots while allowing legitimate crawlers and users, helping to reduce spam, fraud, and scraping activities.
Rate Limiting
This feature limits the number of requests a user or IP can make within a certain time frame, protecting your website from brute-force attacks and abuse.
Image Optimization (Polish & Mirage)
Cloudflare automatically optimizes images for faster delivery by compressing files and adjusting image sizes according to visitor devices and network conditions.
Workers (Serverless Computing)
Cloudflare Workers enable you to run JavaScript code at the network edge, allowing for custom logic, APIs, and modifications to requests and responses without requiring traditional servers.
Analytics and Insights
Provides detailed real-time analytics on traffic, threats, performance, and visitor behavior to help you monitor and improve your website.
Access Control
Cloudflare Access enables you to secure internal applications by enforcing identity and access policies, integrating with popular identity providers to support zero-trust security models.
Argo Smart Routing
This feature utilizes optimized routing paths across the Cloudflare network to minimize latency and enhance performance for web traffic.
Why Choose CloudWays Over CloudFlare?
1. WooCommerce:
WooCommerce is another popular shopping platform that CloudWays hosting supports. The organizing organization has gone above and above to make setup as simple as possible, with a one-click setup procedure and free automated relocation assistance.
Meanwhile, the host’s WooCommerce hosting plans offer features such as WP-CLI support and one-click server scaling to ensure that your business has some more resources during busy periods.
2. Magento:
CloudWays offers one-click Magento installation in a move designed to eliminate the burden associated with installing the open-source eCommerce platform.
Additionally, the hosting provider is geared to operate Magento shops quickly, which results in increased conversions for your business. Additional features include a multi-SSL release, as well as built-in SSH and Git environments.
Additionally, a free shipping option is available for your online business.
3. Quickly Handle Website Traffic Surges:
There is nothing quite like paying for advertising, receiving a flood of traffic, and then seeing your website suffer due to its inability to handle all of those site visitors simultaneously.
With vertical scaling, you can easily switch between allotted web server resources with a few clicks. This is an incredible feature to have as your website’s traffic increases.
If you’re just scaling temporarily, CloudWays’ “Pay as you go” model ensures that you don’t pay for web server resources you won’t need in the future.
4. Surveillance:
Server surveillance is one of the most impressive features that CloudWays includes in its cloud hosting solutions. Cloudflare Vs CloudWays Vps This section includes a graphic that will help you monitor the load on your cloud server.
5. Back-ups:
CloudWays enables you to create scheduled backups of your cloud server images. You may configure the webserver to do daily, two-day, or three-day backups, with a maximum backup frequency of one week.
Additionally, you may manually backup your server at any time with the press of a button.
6. Safety:
This safety feature maintains a track of the IP addresses you use to access your server that is “whitelisted.”
CloudWays vs. CloudFlare: Pros and Cons
CloudWays
Pros
- Live chat & ticket-based support with optional premium add-on.
- Easy control over services, backups, staging, and monitoring.
- Deploy WordPress, Magento, Laravel, etc., instantly.
- Choose from AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode.
- SSD, PHP-FPM, Varnish, Memcached, and Redis stack.
- Vertical scaling, pay-as-you-go pricing.
Cons
- Must use 3rd-party services for domains and email
- Utilizes a custom dashboard, which may feel limiting to some users.
CloudFlare of Miss Hosting
Pros
- Defends against massive attacks at no extra cost.
- Instantly enables HTTPS and has one of the fastest DNS resolvers.
- Web Application Firewall (WAF), Bot protection, rate limiting.
- Serverless Workers, Image optimization, and analytics.
- Excellent value for small-to-mid sites.
Cons
- It can break email delivery if DNS isn’t properly configured.
- You still need a hosting provider like Cloudways.
Quick Links:
- Fully Managed Cloud Hosting By Cloudways
- Cloudways Laravel Hosting Review: Should You Try It?
- Upcloud vs Google Cloud Platform: Which One Should You Choose?
- Cloudways vs WPMU DEV: Which One Should You Choose?
- Cloudways SSL
FAQ’s
♂️ What is CloudWays?
Cloudways is a platform that simplifies access to managed cloud computing services from various providers like Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr, AWS, and Google Cloud. It helps you manage your websites and applications using cloud solutions.
♂️ Where is CloudWays based?
CloudWays is based in Malta, a small Mediterranean island. You can select from various global data centers for hosting infrastructure, choosing the location that best suits your and your customers' needs.
♂️ Just how does CloudWays function?
Cloudways enables you to use major cloud hosting providers and offers enhancements like easy access to the latest PHP versions, backups, caching, application monitoring, and managed security features.
♂️Is CloudWays worth it?
I think Cloudways is worth the investment. It offers premium hosting benefits without the need to handle complex technical issues..
♂️Is CloudWays worth the money?
I haven't tried all of them, but I've worked with a few, and Cloudways is in a league of its own. It may not be the absolute best, but it's definitely a strong competitor. While there are numerous hosting systems available online, some lack customer support, some have limited features, and some charge extremely high prices. On the other hand, others are so inexpensive that they compromise on quality.
♂️When should I purge my web cache in CDN?
When you make a noticeable modification to your website, you should consider deleting your web cache. The CDN data may be outdated, resulting in your users obtaining irrelevant or even wrong information. Therefore, cleanse the data whenever you make a significant modification.
♂️Do CDNs improve security?
Most visitors reach your website through CDNs, reducing the burden on the webserver and increasing security. While most CDNs don't improve security on their own, services like StackPath and Cloudflare do. However, they are insufficient on their own.
♂️ Is it compulsory that I use CDNs?
While not mandatory, I strongly recommend it. Speed is crucial in today's internet market. A faster website attracts more traffic. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) cache and distribute website assets, reducing server contact and improving response time.
♂️What are CDNs?
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are global networks of servers used to store website data. Users can retrieve data from CDNs, which are geographically close and respond more quickly, rather than from the original server, which may be slower to respond.
QuickLinks:
- Best Cloudways Hosting Alternatives
- Best Expression Engine Cloud Hosting
- Top ServerPilot Alternatives
- Best Managed WooCommerce Hosting For Your Online Business
- Best Rackspace Alternatives
Final Verdict – CloudWays Wins 2025
The optimum strategy for picking between CloudWays CDN and Cloudflare CDN is to consider your website’s content and requirements.
CloudWays CDN is an economical service that scales with most small to medium-sized sites, particularly those with static web application content and blogs. It will also perform well for the price, depending on your chosen region.
While Cloudflare’s free CDN is usable, its main capabilities are only accessible with subscription plans, making it ideal for larger businesses that need better uptime.
Additionally, it is better suited for websites and applications with a high volume of dynamic information that need more queries between the user and the server.
