Lately I've been getting a lot of questions from beginners asking which VPS to start with — and my consistent answer is: go managed. Today I want to break down two of the better options in that category. But first, a piece of context that surprisingly few people know: Cloudways was acquired by DigitalOcean in 2023 and is now part of the DO ecosystem. That's worth keeping in mind when you're evaluating — if you're already on DigitalOcean or planning to stay in that orbit long-term, Cloudways integrates more naturally with the underlying platform.
These Two Products Are Doing Fundamentally Different Things
Cloudways is essentially a cloud management layer. They don't sell bare VPS infrastructure — instead, they sit on top of DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, Google Cloud, and others, handling the operational complexity on your behalf. Your bill has two components: the underlying cloud provider's server cost, plus Cloudways' management fee. The upside is a unified interface and automated ops. The downside is an extra layer between you and the metal — higher price than buying the same specs directly, and limited control over the underlying system.
ScalaHosting operates on a more traditional model: they provision KVM VPS directly, pair it with their in-house SPanel control panel, and provide managed support. You get a real server with full root access, freedom to configure it however you need, and a technical support team to catch you if things go wrong. That architectural difference drives almost every conclusion in this comparison.
Getting Started: The Day-One Experience
Cloudways has one of the cleaner managed hosting dashboards I've come across. SSL certificates, Redis caching, PHP version switching, automated backups — most of it is a few clicks, no command line required. For someone who just wants WordPress running and has zero interest in learning Linux server administration, that experience is genuinely smooth. The tradeoff is control. Anything that requires root access, system-level parameter tuning, or non-standard service installation runs into permission limits pretty quickly. Cloudways is more honestly described as an advanced WordPress cloud host than a true VPS.
ScalaHosting ships with SPanel — their own cPanel alternative, developed in-house and included at no extra cost. Feature coverage is comparable to cPanel, and the learning curve is slightly steeper than Cloudways, but you get full root access by default. For anyone with basic Linux experience, that combination is meaningfully more flexible.
WordPress Hosting
This is where Cloudways is most comfortable. Breeze caching plugin, Redis object caching, Cloudflare integration, one-click staging environments — the WordPress-specific tooling is comprehensive and well thought out. Multi-site management is another genuine strength: handling multiple WordPress installs under one account, with GUI-based migration and cloning, is the kind of thing that saves real time if you're running a content operation, an SEO blog portfolio, or managing client sites as an agency. If WordPress is your primary workload, Cloudways' experience is genuinely polished.
ScalaHosting runs WordPress fine — SPanel includes a one-click installer, and performance is solid. But the overall feeling is a VPS that happens to run WordPress, rather than a platform built specifically around it. If WordPress is all you need, Cloudways has the more mature experience here.
Docker, AI Deployment, and Technical Workloads
This is where ScalaHosting pulls clearly ahead.
Cloudways' Docker support is limited. Deep customization runs into permission walls quickly. Trying to run Ollama, Open WebUI, or a custom AI inference service on Cloudways gets frustrating — the platform is designed around the assumption that you don't need to touch the underlying system. AI and Docker workflows are precisely the cases where that assumption breaks down.
ScalaHosting gives you root. Installing Docker is standard:
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
After that, running Ollama or any containerized service works without restriction. For anyone looking to self-host an LLM, build out an AI tool stack, or run production containers on a managed VPS — ScalaHosting's model gives you the freedom to do it properly.
Performance
Cloudways' performance is only as good as the underlying cloud provider you select. Pick Vultr High Frequency and you get strong single-core throughput. Pick a basic DigitalOcean Droplet and you get baseline performance. That flexibility is real — but so is the premium. The same specs cost more through Cloudways than buying direct, and that gap is the price of reduced operational overhead.
ScalaHosting's own VPS infrastructure is stable and well-suited for long-running production workloads. It won't necessarily beat Vultr HF on raw benchmarks, but for projects measured in months rather than hours, consistency and predictable uptime often matter more than peak single-core numbers.
Pricing
Cloudways is expensive — that's just the reality. To put numbers on it: a 4GB RAM DigitalOcean Droplet runs around $24/month if you buy directly. The equivalent configuration managed through Cloudways comes out to roughly $40+/month. That premium is the management fee, and whether it's worth paying depends entirely on how you value your own time and operational headache.
ScalaHosting's pricing is closer to traditional VPS market rates. For long-term deployments, especially as your resource requirements scale up, the cost difference becomes more significant. Check both providers' current pricing pages before committing — promotional rates can shift the real-world numbers considerably.
Technical Support
Cloudways support handles platform-level issues well: control panel operations, application deployment, billing questions. Where it gets thin is anything involving the underlying Linux system — that's deliberately outside the scope of their product, and their support team's helpfulness reflects that boundary.
ScalaHosting's managed support goes deeper. They'll engage with actual VPS-level problems: service configuration, performance troubleshooting, security hardening. For users who don't have a strong Linux background but still want the flexibility that a real VPS provides, that depth of support is a meaningful practical difference — not just a marketing bullet point.
How to Choose
| Use Case | Recommended |
|---|---|
| WordPress multi-site management | Cloudways |
| No command line, ever | Cloudways |
| Launching a content site quickly | Cloudways |
| Docker / self-hosted AI deployment | ScalaHosting |
| Full root access required | ScalaHosting |
| Long-term project, cost-conscious | ScalaHosting |
| SaaS / technical development environment | ScalaHosting |
| Deep managed support requirements | ScalaHosting |
Neither of these is a bad choice — the question is whether you're matching the right tool to your actual situation. Cloudways is a bet that outsourcing operational complexity is worth the premium. ScalaHosting is a proper VPS with a reasonable managed support layer on top. If your project has any chance of evolving toward Docker or AI infrastructure down the line, ScalaHosting's architecture gives you a cleaner path forward. If you genuinely just want WordPress running reliably without learning anything about servers — Cloudways' convenience is the real deal.