Hosting
DigitalOcean vs Vultr vs Cloudways: Which Should You Actually Pick?
Two of these are raw servers. One is a management layer that runs on top of the other two. Once you understand that, the choice gets much simpler — and it is not really about price.
Contains affiliate links; I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Pricing checked against each provider's official pages in August 2026 — confirm current rates before buying.
The short version
- DigitalOcean — best documentation, API and ecosystem. From $4/mo. New accounts get $200 credit for 60 days.
- Vultr — cheapest entry at $2.50/mo (IPv6-only) or $5 for a usable 1GB box. More regions.
- Cloudways — not a competitor to the other two; it runs on them and manages the stack for you. From $11/mo. New users get $25 credit.
- The real question is not which is cheapest — it is whether you want to administer a server at all.
Side by side
| Feature | DigitalOcean | Vultr | Cloudways |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $4/mo | $2.50/mo (IPv6-only) | $11/mo |
| Usable entry price | $6/mo (1GB) | $5/mo (1GB) | $11/mo (managed) |
| Root access | ✅ | ✅ | Limited |
| Server management | ❌ You | ❌ You | ✅ Included |
| Control panel | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ Own panel |
| Automatic backups | Paid add-on | Paid add-on | ✅ Included |
| Staging environment | ❌ Build it | ❌ Build it | ✅ One click |
| Signup credit | $200 / 60 days | Varies | $25 |
| Runs on | Own infrastructure | Own infrastructure | DO, Vultr, AWS, GCP, Linode |
Signup credits change; verify on the provider's own page before relying on one.
The thing most comparisons get wrong
Almost every “DigitalOcean vs Cloudways” article treats them as rivals selling the same thing at different prices. They are not. Cloudways is a customer of DigitalOcean. When you buy a Cloudways plan on their DigitalOcean option, your site runs on a DigitalOcean Droplet — the same hardware you could rent directly.
So the comparison is not $6 vs $11 for equivalent things. It is: pay $6 and do the server work yourself, or pay $11 and have it done. Framed that way, $5 a month for someone else to handle patching, caching, SSL renewal and backups is either an obvious yes or an obvious no — and you already know which one you are.
The signup credits are worth more than the price difference
DigitalOcean — $200, 60 days
New accounts get $200 in credit through a referral link. On a $6 Droplet that is over two years of hosting — except it expires in 60 days, so it rewards building, not hoarding. Enough to run and properly load-test a production setup for free.
[AFFILIATE_LINK: DIGITALOCEAN]
Cloudways — $25 credit
New users get $25 in hosting credit via a referral link — roughly two months on the entry plan. Smaller than DigitalOcean's, but it is real credit rather than a discount that vanishes at renewal.
[AFFILIATE_LINK: CLOUDWAYS]
Never sign up to either through the plain homepage. The credit only applies through a referral link, and it is worth more than any price difference you will find between these three.
Pick by what you are building
Learning servers / side projects
DigitalOcean. The tutorials are the best in the industry and the $200 credit means the learning phase costs nothing.
Squeezing the lowest monthly bill
Vultr at $5/mo for 1GB. Avoid the $2.50 IPv6-only tier for anything the public needs to reach.
Client WordPress sites you maintain
Cloudways. Staging, backups and one-click SSL save you more hours than the price difference costs.
An Indian audience, paying in rupees
Neither — look at Hostinger KVM instead. Rupee billing, 4GB RAM at ₹599/mo and no forex on your card.
If you are billing in rupees
All three price in dollars, which means forex markup on an Indian card every month. Hostinger's KVM VPS range starts at ₹599/mo for 4GB RAM and 50GB NVMe — more memory than a $12 Droplet, billed in rupees, with a free domain thrown in. Worth comparing before you commit to a dollar subscription.
See Hostinger VPS Plans →FAQ
Is Cloudways just DigitalOcean with a markup?
Partly, yes — and that is the point. Cloudways runs your site on DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, Google Cloud or Linode hardware and adds a management layer on top: server provisioning, caching, SSL, staging, backups and updates. You pay roughly 2-3x the raw server price. Whether that is a markup or a bargain depends entirely on whether you would otherwise do that work yourself.
Which is cheapest — DigitalOcean or Vultr?
Vultr, at the entry level. Vultr starts around $2.50/month for an IPv6-only instance and $3.50 for 512MB, against DigitalOcean's $4 minimum. At the 1GB mark they are close: Vultr $5, DigitalOcean $6. The price gap is small enough that it should not be your deciding factor.
Does DigitalOcean really give $200 free credit?
New accounts signing up through a referral link receive $200 in cloud credit valid for 60 days. It is genuine, but read the expiry: it is 60 days, not a year, so it rewards actually building something rather than sitting on it. Unused credit expires.
Do any of these include a control panel like cPanel?
DigitalOcean and Vultr give you a bare server — no panel unless you install one. Cloudways includes its own panel, which is the main thing you are paying for. If you want cPanel specifically, you are usually better off with traditional hosting than any of these three.
Which is best for hosting WordPress?
Cloudways, comfortably — it is built around PHP applications and ships with WordPress-oriented caching. DigitalOcean and Vultr can run WordPress well but you configure and maintain the whole stack yourself. If WordPress is all you need, managed WordPress or cloud hosting is usually a simpler answer than any VPS.
Can I move from Cloudways to raw DigitalOcean later?
Yes, and people do once they get comfortable with servers. Because Cloudways runs on the same underlying providers, moving means rebuilding the stack yourself on a fresh Droplet and migrating files and database. Nothing locks you in beyond the convenience you would be giving up.
Do these providers have Indian data centres?
DigitalOcean has a Bangalore region and Vultr has options in India as well; availability of the very cheapest plan tiers varies by region, so check before assuming your preferred size exists there. Cloudways inherits whatever regions its underlying provider offers.
Which should a complete beginner choose?
Honestly, none of them. All three assume you are comfortable with servers or willing to pay to avoid them. A beginner running one website is better served by shared or managed cloud hosting at a fraction of the effort and cost.
Verdict
If you enjoy servers: DigitalOcean, and take the $200 credit. If you want the lowest bill and know what you are doing: Vultr. If servers are a chore you will quietly stop doing: Cloudways, and the premium is the cheapest insurance you will buy this year.
And if none of that sounds like you — you probably do not need a cloud VPS at all. Read the wider VPS comparison or step down to managed cloud hosting.