WP Buzz vs Cloudways: Expect Faster, Simpler
In 2023 we both entered the independent benchmarks, and we both lost. We were resellers back then, and our provider refused to lift a security measure for the load test, citing competition concerns. The difference is what happened next. We rebuilt from the ground up, came back in 2026, and took Top Tier at all three price tiers. Cloudways didn’t return. Ten sites from $15, all included. Expect faster. Not at least on par with the premium hosts? The coffee’s on us.
“I’ve tried Cloudways, Closte, Rocket, Kinsta and many others over 17 years. WP Buzz beats them all. Sites are zippy, support outstanding, and I had the best migration experience. Dashboard has everything, includes email, all for a reasonable price.”
Diane B
webdesignwithlove.com
“Been using TSO Host for my websites and when tested they scored F on GT Metrix. Migrating to WP Buzz and removing plugins that weren’t needed got me an A score! You can get rid of plugins such as ShortPixel and WP Rocket, that functionality is baked in.”
Mark D
reviewify.co.uk
The speed at WP Buzz is unreal, pages load faster than any host I’ve tried. Even better, their support team actually talks to you, not a bot. They guided my migration seamlessly. For anyone chasing performance and real human support, WP Buzz nails it.
Rod P
moncoachdata.com
WP Buzz
Cloudways
Worldwide page-load (lower = better)
240 ms
–
US page-load avg (lower = better)
227 ms
–
UK page-load (lower = better)
193 ms
–
Cached response (lower = better)
7.7 ms
–
Performance under load (uncached)
Flawless
–
Raw PHP Compute (lower = better)
4.87 s
–
Hardware score out of 10 (higher = better)
9.8-9.9
–
CPUs Clock Speed (higher = better)
5.7 GHz
Depends on cloud provider
Webservers
LiteSpeed Enterprise
Apache + Nginx hybrid
Caching setup
LiteSpeed Cache + Redis
Varnish + Breeze plugin
CDN (edge = faster)
Built into the stack
Paid add-on ($4.99/domain)
Price
From $15
From $14 (plus add-ons)
Number of sites
10
Unlimited (droplet resources)
Email included
Included
Paid add-on ($1/mailbox)
Independently benchmarked
Yes, Top Tier 3X
Didn’t enter 2026
Renewal price lock
Yes
Pay-as-you-go
Free migrations
Yes, all of them
First one free, then paid
White-label for agencies
Yes, included
No
PHP Workers
No limits
Limited by droplet size + provider
The blanks are Cloudways sitting out the 2026 benchmarks. Our figures come from that same independent round at wphostingbenchmarks.com.
Two Halves to Every Visit. We Own Both.
When your visitor clicks, the page should load instantly. That’s edge cache. Cloudways’ Cloudflare edge is a paid add-on. Our full page edge cache CDN is built for WordPress, globally tested and fastest, with instant purges and nothing extra to buy.
The work is everything after that click, logins, WooCommerce, LMS, CRM forms, AI agents. Cloudways runs on general-purpose VMs from DigitalOcean or Vultr, no bare metal, and not theirs to tune. WordPress is single-threaded, so clock speed decides it, and that’s where our 5.7 GHz bare-metal with LiteSpeed Enterprise and Redis wins.
Our Team’s Honest Take
Cloudways deserves real credit for 2023. They entered six separate tests, more than almost any host, while most big names entered none. That takes confidence.
At $12 it buckled around 80 users, at $50 around 700, at $96 around 1300. A bigger droplet each time, failing later but always failing, and the reviewer named the pattern himself.
Here’s why, and it isn’t incompetence. Cloudways is a panel on virtual machines from DigitalOcean or Vultr, hardware they don’t own and can’t tune.
A virtual machine shares physical hardware with other tenants, so under sustained load it can’t match bare metal. You’re contending for resources that were never solely yours. And the fix sits with a third party that has never heard of your website.
Our 2023 was rough too. A security measure our upstream provider wouldn’t lift, citing competition concerns, cut our load test short, and we went home with nothing.
Same lesson from the other side. when someone else controls your stack, their limits are yours. So we stopped reselling and built our own dedicated bare-metal machines.
In 2026 we came back on our own machines and took Top Tier at all three tiers, with the fastest worldwide load times of any host tested. Cloudways didn’t return.
To be fair, their pay-as-you-go has no renewal bait, and choosing your cloud provider is real flexibility. But email costs extra, the CDN costs extra, migrations after your first cost extra, and it all stacks toward what you’d pay us for everything included, on hardware we own and answer for.
With us you get 5.7 GHz bare-metal performance with LiteSpeed Enterprise and Redis, and email, a full-page CDN, daily backups, and white-label all in the box. Migrations are free and staged, run by expert engineers, not bots, so nothing goes live until you say yes.
Both of us learned what third-party infrastructure costs in 2023. Only one of us changed it.
Team: Adam, Omar, Daniel, Sam, Kosar, Marina and Danny, led by Haider and supervised, of course, by Spark.
If you manage client sites, read this bit
Most of our customers are agencies, so plans are built around how agencies bill. Every plan includes the full white-label package. Your logo, your branding, your nameservers, your control panel URLs, backups and email included. No add-ons waiting behind it.
Free migrations for your whole portfolio, staged before anything goes live. No hard limits on CPU, RAM, or PHP workers, so a busy client site slows nobody down. The price you sign at is the price you renew at. On Cloudways, email is $1 per mailbox, the CDN is $4.99 per domain, and every client site multiplies both. Here it’s all in the plan, one price.
Don’t Just Take Our Word For It
They switched. Their sites got faster. They stayed.
“Honestly, WP Buzz is just really good. Two of the most important attributes good technology underpinning the service and great customer support to back it up. I could switch to one of the bigger names, but why would I? 100% recommend and worth a try.”
Matt
Trustpilot review
“I’ve used many hosting providers over the years, but WP Buzz stands out. My sites are super-fast and always up, and support replies almost instantly. Honestly, I hesitated to post this. I’d rather my competitors not find out how good they are.”
Travis H
Trustpilot review
“With hundreds of hosting companies to choose from, WP Buzz is #1. Not the cheapest, but definitely affordable. What sets them apart is customer service, I opened my first ticket and had a reply within minutes. Fast sites, great support, great price.”
Alex A
Trustpilot review
“WP Buzz is outstanding. Not only is their platform FAST, but their customer support is arguably the best I have experienced thus far. Every time I have questions they promptly answer and carefully explain the steps I need to take to resolve my issues.”
Chris M
Trustpilot review
“We host several high-traffic sites with WP Buzz and have been very impressed. Pages load instantly, even under heavy traffic, and support always responds quickly and helps effectively. I’d rate both speed and support 10/10. Extremely happy with WP Buzz.”
Miguel S
Trustpilot review
“I’ve been with WP Buzz for years and stayed for their great pricing and fast speeds. Recently needed help with migrations, and the support team was incredible, responsive, friendly, and professional. Highly recommended for performance and service.”
Andrew N
Trustpilot review
Got Questions?
Can’t find what you are looking for?
On the machines that do the work, yes. Cloudways runs on virtual machines from DigitalOcean or Vultr; ours are dedicated 5.7 GHz bare-metal servers we own and tune. WordPress is single-threaded, so that clock speed is what carries logins, carts, and checkouts. We won’t claim a shared-race result, we weren’t in the same 2026 round. So test it yourself. Try us for $1 for 30 days and judge it against what you’re running now.
Yes. It’s $15 a month for ten sites with everything in the box, and it locks at that renewal, so year two costs what year one did. Credit to Cloudways here, their pay-as-you-go has no renewal bait either. The difference is what you’re budgeting for. With them, email, CDN, and backups arrive as separate line items. With us there’s nothing else to add.
Smoothly, and our engineers do it often, so they know Cloudways well. You open a ticket, they copy your site to a staging URL, and you click around until everything works. Nothing goes live until you say go. Cloudways gives you one free migration then charges for the rest; with us, migrations for the sites your plan covers are free and staged. Expert engineers handle it, not a bot and not a plugin you run alone.
You lose the dials, not the outcome. Picking DigitalOcean versus Vultr and sizing a droplet is work you do to chase performance Cloudways can’t guarantee on shared hardware. We skip that step by running dedicated bare-metal tuned for WordPress, so the speed is there without you managing it. If your site outgrows a plan, you move up a tier, same as any host.
Try Us. Expect Faster.
Ready to put us to the test? Contact us for a FREE test migration and see exactly how your site performs on our infrastructure. All on a temporary URL with zero risk to your live site. And the floor is guaranteed: at least on par with the premium hosts, or coffee’s on us.