How to Set Up Cloudways: Complete Beginner's Guide (2026)

Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that gives you the power of cloud providers like DigitalOcean, AWS, and Google Cloud with a simplified interface that doesn't require server administration knowledge.

Why Choose Cloudways?

• Performance: NVMe SSD + Cloudflare Enterprise CDN + object caching = among the fastest hosting available
• Flexibility: Choose your cloud provider, scale server resources instantly
• No long-term contracts: Pay-as-you-go, cancel anytime
• Staging environments: Built-in, one-click staging for every app
• Starting price: $11/month (DigitalOcean 1 GB RAM)

Before You Start

You'll need:

• A credit card (or use the 3-day free trial without one)
• A domain name
• About 20 minutes

Step 1: Create Your Cloudways Account

1. Go to cloudways.com
2. Click Start Free or Get Started
3. Fill in your name, email, and password
4. Verify your email address
5. Complete the account verification (phone number or payment method for full access)

3-day free trial: You can explore Cloudways fully without a credit card for 3 days. You'll need to add a payment method to continue after the trial.

Step 2: Launch Your First Server

After logging in, you'll see the main dashboard.

1. Click Launch in the top navigation (or the big + button)
2. A launch wizard appears with these choices:

Select Application: WordPress (for a standard WordPress site) Other options include WooCommerce, Laravel, Magento, or PHP.

Select Server:

• DigitalOcean 1 GB — $11/month — Best for new sites and small blogs
• DigitalOcean 2 GB — $22/month — Recommended for growing sites
• AWS — More expensive but enterprise-grade (from ~$36/month)
• GCP — Google Cloud, excellent performance (from ~$33/month)

Server Size Recommendation: | Site Stage | RAM | Monthly Cost | |-----------|-----|-------------| | New site / blog | 1 GB | ~$11 | | Growing site (10K visitors/mo) | 2 GB | ~$22 | | Established site (50K+ visitors/mo) | 4 GB | ~$44 |

Select Server Location: Choose the region closest to your primary audience.

Application Name: Enter a name for your WordPress app (e.g., mysite-wordpress)

Server Name: A name for the server (e.g., myserver-do-nyc)

3. Click Launch Now
4. Server provisioning takes 3–5 minutes — you'll see a progress indicator

Step 3: Access Your WordPress Application

Once the server is ready:

1. Go to Applications in the top menu
2. Click on your WordPress application name
3. You'll see the Application Management panel

Key information here:

• Application URL: A temporary .cloudwaysapps.com URL for testing before domain setup
• Access Details: WordPress admin URL, username, and password
• Application IP: The server IP you'll need for DNS

Log in to WordPress: Click WP Admin in the Access Details section. You'll see a pre-generated admin username and password. Change the password immediately in Users → Your Profile.

Step 4: Configure Application Settings

In the Application Settings panel, configure:

General Settings:

• Note the MySQL database name, username, and password for reference
• Under Application Settings → PHP Settings, set PHP version to 8.1 or 8.2 (recommended)

Enable Redis Object Cache (Recommended):

1. Go to Application Settings → Packages
2. Enable Redis toggle
3. In WordPress, install the Redis Object Cache plugin
4. Go to Settings → Redis and click Enable Object Cache

This dramatically speeds up database queries — particularly important for WooCommerce.

Step 5: Connect Your Domain

1. In Application Management, go to Domain Management
2. In the Domain field, enter your domain (e.g., yourdomain.com)
3. Click Save Changes

Update your domain's DNS:

1. Log in to your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.)
2. Find your domain's A Record settings
3. Point the A Record for @ (root domain) to your Cloudways server IP
4. Point the A Record for www to the same IP
5. Wait 1–4 hours for DNS propagation

Note: Cloudways doesn't use nameservers for domains — you always use A Records pointing to your server IP.

Step 6: Install SSL Certificate

Cloudways installs free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates in seconds.

1. In Application Management, go to SSL Certificate
2. Under Custom SSL, choose Let's Encrypt
3. Enter your Email address and Domain (including www)
4. Click Install Certificate

The certificate installs in about 30 seconds. Cloudways also handles automatic renewal before expiry.

Force HTTPS: After SSL is installed, return to SSL Certificate and toggle Force HTTPS Redirection to ON. This redirects all HTTP traffic to HTTPS automatically.

Step 7: Enable CloudwaysCDN

Cloudways includes Cloudflare Enterprise CDN at no extra cost.

1. Go to CloudwaysCDN in Application Management
2. Click Enable CloudwaysCDN
3. Follow the setup wizard
4. Once enabled, all static assets (images, CSS, JS) serve from Cloudflare's edge network

Step 8: Set Up Automated Backups

1. Go to Application Backups
2. Toggle Application Backups to ON
3. Set Frequency: Daily (recommended)
4. Set Retention: 7 days (free) or more (paid)
5. Click Save Changes

Backups run at your chosen frequency and retain for the set period. You can also take manual backups anytime before major changes.

Step 9: Configure SMTP Email (Important)

Cloudways servers don't send email by default for spam prevention reasons. Configure an SMTP service for WordPress email to work.

Free option — Brevo (Sendinblue):

1. Create a free account at brevo.com
2. Get your SMTP credentials
3. In WordPress, install WP Mail SMTP plugin
4. Configure with your Brevo SMTP credentials

Cloudways option — Elastic Email Add-on:

1. In Cloudways console, go to Add-Ons
2. Enable Elastic Email
3. Configure SMTP credentials in WP Mail SMTP plugin

Step 10: Test Your Setup

Before going live, verify:

• [ ] Domain loads your WordPress site over HTTPS
• [ ] WordPress admin (/wp-admin) is accessible
• [ ] Contact forms send email (test SMTP)
• [ ] All pages load correctly
• [ ] SSL certificate shows as valid (green padlock)

Run a speed test: Go to gtmetrix.com and test your new Cloudways site. You should see TTFB under 300ms and overall load time under 2 seconds for a basic WordPress install.

Cloudways Performance Tips

Stack configuration for best WordPress performance:

• Web Server: Nginx (faster than Apache for most use cases)
• PHP Version: 8.1 or 8.2
• Object Cache: Redis enabled
• CDN: CloudwaysCDN (Cloudflare Enterprise) enabled
• Caching Plugin: WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache with full-page caching

When to scale your server:

• CPU usage consistently above 80%: upgrade to next RAM tier
• TTFB increasing over time: often means Redis cache is filling up — restart Redis or upgrade
• Multiple sites: consider separate 1 GB servers per high-traffic site rather than one large server

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Ready to get started? Cloudways offers a 3-day free trial — no credit card required. Try DigitalOcean 1 GB for your first server and experience managed cloud hosting.