Cloudways Premium Vs Standard
If you are looking forward to buying a Cloudways plan but are not sure if you should choose Premium or Standard, this article will provide you with the clarity that you need to select between the two plan types. In this article, I will explain how Cloudways Premium and Cloudways Standard plans differ in terms of performance, CPU and RAM, and pricing.
| Cloudways | Premium | Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $14/month | $11/month |
| Speed | 332 ms | 339 ms |
| Uptime | 99.99% | 99.99% |
A Quick Breakdown of Our Analysis:
- Cloudways Premium and Standard server response time and uptime are pretty close to each other.
- However, Cloudways Premium has a better load-handling capacity than Cloudways Standard, as per our test results.
- Cloudways Premium offers faster read/write speeds than Cloudways Standard, backed by NVMe storage combined with accelerated memory.
- Cloudways Standard is slightly more affordable than Cloudways Premium. However, Cloudways Premium is more powerful in terms of performance and ideal for resource-hungry websites.
- You can use our Cloudways coupon code to get $30 free credits when purchasing a Cloudways plan.
Cloudways Premium Vs Standard: CPU & RAM
I tested the Cloudways Premium and Standard plans for hardware using the WP Benchmark plugin. Cloudways Premium comes with powerful Intel Xeon Second Generation Scalable Processors combined with built-in AI acceleration and Intel mesh architecture. This offers Cloudways Premium a base frequency of 2.50 GHz and a max turbo frequency of 3.90 GHz, enhancing the performance significantly over Cloudways Standard.
Another important point to bear in mind is that Cloudways Premium uses NVMe storage in combination with accelerated memory of 2933 GHz, while the Standard series uses SSD storage. Now, it's a known fact that NVMe offers faster read/write speeds than SSDs.
Cloudways Premium website recorded a server score of 7.7 backed by faster CPU, Memory, and database operations. My Cloudways Standard website scored 6.6. It wouldn't be wrong to say that Cloudways Premium plans have better and more advanced server resources than Cloudways Standard plans.
Cloudways Premium Vs Standard: Performance
Speed & Uptime:
To test the performance of the two plan types, I hosted a WordPress site with Cloudways Premium and another WordPress site with Cloudways Standard. I ensured that both the WordPress Sites have the same WordPress version, the same PHP version, and the same plugins. I used the Pingdom tool to measure the server response time and uptime.
I scanned the two sites using the Pingdom tool and studied the data for the year, 2023. As per the data, there wasn't much difference between the two plan types in terms of server response time and uptime. While Cloudways Standard had an average speed of 332 ms and the premium had an average speed of 339 ms, which means there was only a difference of only 7 ms. Besides, both sites recorded an uptime of 99.99%.
I have been studying the Cloudways service since 2020, and as per my observation, Cloudways Standard had comparatively more outages than Cloudways Premium in 2022. However, things seem way better in 2023 with no major outages.
Load Handling:
Load Handling is another important performance test to determine the capacity of a website to handle traffic spikes. I used loader.io to test the load-handling capability of the two websites. To give you an idea of how I conducted the test, I sent 500 concurrent visitors to the sites and then monitored the server response time of the sites while they handled the traffic.
Interestingly, both websites handled the traffic really well. While my Cloudways Premium website handled the traffic with an average response time of 245 ms, my Cloudways Standard website handled the traffic with an average response time of 275 ms. Hence, you can see the difference isn't much. However, Cloudways Premium has a comparatively better load-handling capacity.
Cloudways Premium Vs Standard: Plans and Pricing
Next, it's important to look at the pricing of the two plan types. Both Cloudways Premium and Cloudways Standard have as many as 6 plans for customers to choose from. Cloudways Premium starts at $14, while Cloudways Standard starts at $11. Both come with 1GB RAM, 1 Core Processor, 25 GB Storage, and 1TB Bandwidth. Besides, you can use the Cloudways coupon to get $30 free credits when purchasing a Cloudways plan.
| Server Size | DO Premium | DO Standard |
|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | $14 | $11 |
| 2 GB | $28 | $24 |
| 4 GB | $54 | $46 |
| 8 GB | $99 | $88 |
| 16 GB | $170 | $149 |
The following features are common in Cloudways Premium and Standard plans:
- Staging Environment
- Dedicated Firewall
- Automated Backups
- Free SSL
- 50+ Global Data Centers
- PHP 8.1 Ready Servers
However, as you can see there isn't much difference in pricing of Cloudways Premium and Standard. Both plan types allow you to start at an affordable price.
Which One to Choose?
As you have seen in the post, Cloudways Premium offers a comparatively faster performance than Cloudways Standard. While both Premium and Standard have nearly the same server response time and uptime, Premium has a leading edge over Standard in terms of Load Handling. Besides, Cloudways Premium offers a faster backend performance backed by NVMe storage and accelerated memory. Hence, if you have a high-traffic website, you must choose Cloudways Premium.
However, if you are just starting with a new website, you can certainly choose Cloudways Standard since it's more cost-efficient. After your website begins to grow and starts generating some good income, you can switch to Cloudways Premium.
Cloudways Premium Vs Standard: FAQs
Can I Switch from a Standard Server to a Premium Droplet?
Yes, you can switch from a Standard Server to a Premium Droplet using the vertical scaling feature. To do this, you need to follow these steps:
- You must log in to your Cloudways account and click on Servers from the top menu bar.
- Next, you must select the server that you want to scale up.
- Once you select the server, you must select Vertical Scaling, which is under Server Management.
- Lastly, you have to specify the server size and click on “Scale Now.”
What are Cloudways Premium Droplets?
Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium Droplets are hosting plans that come with Intel Xeon Second Generation Scalable Processors, built-in AI acceleration, and Intel mesh architecture, offering better performance than Cloudways Standard.
According to my analysis, Cloudways Premium has better Load Handling capacity than Cloudways Standard, making it ideal for resource-hungry websites. Besides, Cloudways Premium offers faster backend performance than Cloudways Standard through NVMe storage and accelerated memory.
What are the important differences between Cloudways Premium and Cloudways Standard?
Here are the crucial differences between Cloudways Premium and Cloudways Standard:
- Cloudways Premium offers better load handling than Cloudways Standard, which makes it ideal for high-traffic websites.
- Cloudways Premium offers faster access to read/write than Cloudways Standard as it uses NVMe storage over traditional SSDs.
- Cloudways Standard is more cost-effective than Cloudways Premium and ideal for new and small websites.