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Cloudways sells managed hosting on other companies' clouds, DigitalOcean among them. That makes one comparison unusually clean: the same server size, bought directly or through Cloudways. The difference is the price of having someone else run it.
The same hardware, two prices
| Server size | DigitalOcean droplet, bought directly | Same size through Cloudways | Extra per month | Extra per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB SSD | $6.00 | $11.00 | $5.00 (83% more) | $60 |
| 1 vCPU, 2 GB, 50 GB SSD | $12.00 | $24.00 | $12.00 (100% more) | $144 |
| 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB SSD | $24.00 | $46.00 | $22.00 (92% more) | $264 |
These are Cloudways' Standard plans on DigitalOcean. Its Premium plans use NVMe disks and cost $14, $28 and $54 for the same three sizes. Cloudways bills by the hour with no term, as DigitalOcean does, so neither side needs a commitment.
What the extra money buys
From Cloudways' pricing page on 2 Oct 2026:
- A managed platform for WordPress, Magento, Laravel and PHP applications, in the company's words: "customizable managed hosting for WordPress, Magento, Laravel & PHP apps".
- Support by live chat and tickets around the clock on every plan.
- Backups, staging, free SSL and a free migration. Offsite backup storage is charged separately at $0.033 per GB.
- A 3-day trial without a credit card.
Two things follow. First, the comparison only applies if your application is one Cloudways runs. A Node, Python or Docker workload is not what the platform is built for. Second, what you are buying is mostly time and a number to call: updates, security patches and backups are someone else's job.
What running it yourself takes
The times are from our own server, a $6 droplet:
| Task | What it takes |
|---|---|
| Create the server and add swap | about 2 minutes |
| Install Coolify | 172 seconds |
| First app live | 210 seconds after clicking Deploy |
| n8n with Postgres live over HTTPS | 7 minutes 24 seconds |
| Firewall | not on by default: a cloud firewall with five rules, free at DigitalOcean |
| Backups | not on by default: you schedule them, and you test the restore |
The time to get going is small. The cost that does not show up on day one is ownership: nobody patches the server unless you set up automatic updates, nobody notices a full disk unless you monitor it, and a backup you have not restored is a guess. The details are in the install guide, the ports and firewall post and the n8n test, where the backup turned out to be the part the template leaves to you.
The middle option: Coolify Cloud
Coolify also sells a hosted control plane. On 2 Oct 2026 it cost $5 a month for up to two connected servers and $3 for each additional one, or $4 and $2.70 on annual billing. You still rent and own the servers; the dashboard is run and updated for you. Self-hosted Coolify stays free with all features.
That gives three ways to run the same 2 GB server:
| Setup | Monthly cost | Who keeps it running |
|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean droplet, self-hosted Coolify | $12 | You, including the dashboard |
| DigitalOcean droplet, Coolify Cloud | $17 | You run the server, Coolify runs the dashboard |
| Cloudways on DigitalOcean | $24 | Cloudways, for the applications it supports |
Which one fits
- Your own VPS with Coolify when you deploy more than PHP, want several apps on one server for one price, and someone on the team is willing to own updates and backups. The saving is $5 to $22 a month per server.
- Cloudways when the application is WordPress, Magento or Laravel, nobody on the team wants to be the server person, and support on chat is worth more than the difference. At 1 GB that difference is $5 a month, which is less than an hour of most people's time.
- Coolify Cloud when you want the Coolify way of working without hosting the dashboard yourself.
The arithmetic most teams skip: at 4 GB the managed layer costs $264 a year. If keeping the server healthy takes you less than a few hours a year, doing it yourself wins on money. If one bad night costs more than that, it does not.
What we tested and what we did not
Tested by us: the do-it-yourself column, on DigitalOcean's $6 plan, with the times above. Not tested: Cloudways. Its numbers here are prices and statements from its own pricing page. We plan to use the trial and put the same small app on both; when that is done this post gets the results and a new date.
Buying a plain server instead? The cheapest plans at 15 providers are in the VPS price per GB of RAM comparison, and the sizes that fit Coolify are in Which VPS for Coolify.
FAQ
How much more does Cloudways cost than DigitalOcean?
On 2 Oct 2026, for the same server sizes: $11 against $6 for 1 GB, $24 against $12 for 2 GB and $46 against $24 for 4 GB. That is $5, $12 and $22 more a month.
Is Coolify free?
The self-hosted version is free and open source with all features. Coolify Cloud, the hosted dashboard, cost $5 a month for up to two servers on 2 Oct 2026; the servers themselves are extra.
Can Cloudways run Node or Docker apps?
Cloudways describes its Flexible platform as managed hosting for WordPress, Magento, Laravel and PHP apps. For Node, Python or container workloads a plain VPS with Coolify is the closer fit.
Does Cloudways include backups?
Automated backups are a feature of every plan, and the offsite backup storage is billed at $0.033 per GB per server.
Sources
Read on 2 Oct 2026:
- Cloudways pricing: plans on DigitalOcean, Standard and Premium, backup storage price, trial, supported applications.
- DigitalOcean droplet pricing: Basic droplets, Regular.
- Coolify pricing: self-hosted and Cloud.
Used in this article
- CloudwaysVisit Cloudways
- DigitalOceanThe $6 Basic droplet (1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 25 GB SSD) our test server runs on.Visit DigitalOcean
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