Companies Using Cloudways

With 10+ years in web crawling and technographic data analysis, I've examined Cloudways' position as a managed cloud hosting platform now under DigitalOcean ownership. This analysis draws from 42,578 enriched companies matched against LinkedIn profiles from our dataset of 88,770 active Cloudways domains, as of our March 2026 crawl. Cloudways was generating over $52M in annual revenue at the time of its $350M acquisition. The data reveals a platform that grew rapidly post-acquisition but now faces an interesting inflection point.

1. Growth trajectory

Cloudways' adoption curve tells a clear three-act story. Act one: steady baseline at roughly 1,963 domains from August 2020 through October 2021. Act two: explosive growth starting November 2021, climbing from 3,886 to 79,336 domains by April 2025. Act three: a correction to 64,831 domains by July 2025, a 18.3% pullback from the peak.

The growth inflection in late 2021 predates the DigitalOcean acquisition (September 2022) by nearly a year. So the initial surge wasn't acquisition-driven. It likely reflects expanded detection coverage in our crawl plus genuine organic growth. The post-acquisition period (late 2022 through 2024) showed consistent monthly gains of 1,000-2,000 domains, with a notable spike in Q4 2024 when active domains jumped from 47,762 to 68,728 in just three months.

"The 18% pullback from April to July 2025 is worth watching closely. It could signal market saturation, competitive pressure from Hostinger, or a natural correction after the Q4 2024 spike. The next two quarters will tell us whether this is a plateau or the start of a decline." - Mehmet Suleyman, CEO at TechnologyChecker.io

Sales Signal: Cloudways is still a growth-stage platform with nearly 65,000 active domains. But the recent contraction means sales teams should focus on agencies currently on legacy hosting (cPanel, shared hosts) rather than competing for customers already on modern managed platforms. The addressable market for upgrades remains large.

2. Customer profile

Cloudways is a micro-business platform, plain and simple. 75.7% of customers have 1-10 employees, and 90.7% have fewer than 50. These aren't enterprises running their primary infrastructure on Cloudways. The typical customer is a solo developer, a small web agency, or a freelancer managing client sites.

The enterprise detections in our data (Shell on accessibility.shell.com, HPE on aio-origin.ext.hpe.com, Novartis on medinfo.novartis.com) are subdomain deployments, not company-wide hosting decisions. An enterprise IT team probably spun up a Cloudways server for a specific microsite or internal tool. Cloudways' own published case studies confirm this pattern. Ingenius, a French WordPress agency, manages 280+ sites and reports 10M+ annual revenue. North Shore Digital scaled to 140+ client sites and 7-figure ARR as a Gold Partner. PicClick, an eBay visual search tool, grew from 1M to 40M monthly visitors over a 10-year stint on Cloudways with just 10 employees. None of these are Fortune 500 accounts.

The age distribution reinforces the picture: 40.6% of Cloudways customers were founded in the 2010s and 19.3% in the 2020s. Nearly 60% are digital-native businesses less than 15 years old. These are companies that grew up in the cloud era and chose managed hosting from the start rather than migrating from on-premise setups.

Sales Signal: Target agencies managing 10-100+ client sites. They're the power users who drive significant hosting revenue per account. Cloudways' own case studies showcase this segment repeatedly. A single agency churning means losing dozens of hosted sites.

3. Industry and geographic concentration

Cloudways is genuinely horizontal. Construction leads at just 4.31%, followed by Advertising Services (4.06%) and Real Estate (3.10%). No vertical exceeds 5%. The top 10 industries account for only 29.9% of all customers, meaning the remaining 70% is spread across hundreds of niches.

Geographically, the US accounts for 38.4% of customers, the UK for 14.3%, and Canada for 6.5%. English-speaking countries collectively represent over 64% of the base. The Netherlands (3.6%) and India (2.9%) are notable secondary markets. India's presence aligns with Cloudways' founding story (founded in 2012 by Aaqib Gadit in Malta, with significant operations in Pakistan), while the Netherlands reflects the country's strong hosting and tech ecosystem.

Sales Signal: The horizontal industry spread means Cloudways can't be outflanked by vertical-specific competitors. But it also means marketing can't rely on industry-specific messaging. Geographic expansion opportunities exist in Germany (1.0%), France (below top 12), and Japan, where managed hosting demand is growing but Cloudways penetration remains minimal.

4. Migration patterns

The migration data tells a story of a platform that wins from the middle and loses to the bottom. Cloudways gained 2,403 companies from WP Engine (3.4:1 gain ratio), 2,306 from Linode (3.5:1), and 1,920 from Bluehost (14.8:1). Companies are upgrading from shared hosting (Bluehost) and DIY VPS (Linode) to Cloudways' managed layer, while also switching from premium competitors like WP Engine, likely seeking better pricing.

The one glaring weakness: Hostinger absorbed 1,331 former Cloudways customers while Cloudways gained only 346 from Hostinger, a 1:3.8 loss ratio. This is the price war Cloudways can't win. Hostinger's aggressive pricing (from $2.99/month) attracts cost-conscious site owners who don't need Cloudways' multi-cloud flexibility. The 849 losses to Hostinger in just the last year suggest this pressure is accelerating.

"The Hostinger migration corridor is the number to watch. If those losses continue accelerating, Cloudways may need to introduce a budget tier or risk bleeding its price-sensitive base. The WP Engine and Linode gains are healthy, but they can't offset Hostinger losses forever." - Mehmet Suleyman, CEO at TechnologyChecker.io

Sales Signal: Two-sided opportunity here. For companies leaving WP Engine (often citing cost), pitch Cloudways as the performance-equivalent at lower price. For companies at risk of leaving for Hostinger, the play is retention: emphasize the managed features, staging environments, and multi-cloud flexibility they'd lose by downgrading.

5. Technology ecosystem

The tech stack data confirms Cloudways is primarily a WordPress hosting platform. MonsterInsights at 5.9% is a WordPress-exclusive analytics plugin, and its presence among the top co-occurring technologies is a direct WordPress signal. Google Analytics dominates at 60.5%, and Hotjar (4.84%) and Microsoft Clarity (4.89%) show that Cloudways customers care about user behavior tracking.

The e-commerce layer is modest but real. Magento sites make up about 0.6% of the base, consistent with Cloudways' documented support for Magento hosting. Cart Functionality at 1.78% suggests additional WooCommerce stores that aren't detected as a standalone CMS but are running commerce features. Cloudways' own case studies include Magento-focused agencies like Develo Design and SimiCart.

Sales Signal: The low adoption of advanced analytics tools (FullStory at 0.33%, Snowplow at 0.61%) suggests most Cloudways customers are running basic WordPress sites without sophisticated tooling. This is an upsell vector for agencies offering optimization services to Cloudways-hosted clients.

6. G2 review signals

Cloudways holds a 4.7/5 on G2 across 1,124+ reviews and was ranked #3 in G2's Best Web Hosting category. On Trustpilot, it scores 4.6/5 from 3,488 reviews. Ease of use and support quality are the top praised attributes. Our migration data supports this: the 3.4:1 gain ratio from WP Engine suggests people leave premium hosts and still find Cloudways good enough. The biggest pain point, lack of email hosting, is a deliberate product choice, not a bug. Cloudways focuses on hosting performance and leaves email to specialists.

The post-acquisition pricing complaints correlate with our migration data showing accelerating losses to Hostinger in 2024-2025. Some customers who chose Cloudways for value are finding that value eroding as DigitalOcean adjusts pricing. This is worth monitoring, especially as Cloudways launched its Autonomous product in 2024, an auto-scaling tier starting at $35/month that may shift the platform upmarket.

Sales Signal: Lead with ease of use and support quality. These are Cloudways' strongest differentiators per actual customer feedback. Proactively address the email hosting gap by recommending integration partners (Google Workspace, Zoho Mail) as part of the onboarding conversation.

Key takeaways

1. Cloudways grew from under 2,000 to nearly 80,000 active domains in four years, establishing itself as a mid-tier managed hosting platform. DigitalOcean paid $350M (roughly 6.7x Cloudways' $52M annual revenue per the acquisition announcement).

2. The customer base is overwhelmingly micro-businesses (75.7% have 1-10 employees) and digital agencies. Enterprise detections on subdomains like shell.com and hpe.com are departmental projects, not company-wide deployments.

3. Construction, advertising, and real estate lead the industry distribution, but no vertical exceeds 5%, making Cloudways a horizontal platform.

4. Migration data shows strong net gains from WP Engine (3.4:1), Linode (3.5:1), and Bluehost (14.8:1), but significant losses to Hostinger (1:3.8). Price-sensitive churn is the main vulnerability.

5. The tech stack confirms WordPress-centric usage (MonsterInsights, Magento, Cart Functionality) with basic analytics tooling. Most customers run simple WordPress sites.

6. The Q2-Q3 2025 contraction (79,336 to 64,831 active domains) needs monitoring. Whether this stabilizes or continues will determine Cloudways' trajectory under DigitalOcean.

Sales applications

Outreach template: "Hi [Name], I noticed your agency currently hosts [X] client sites on [WP Engine/Bluehost/cPanel]. Our data shows 2,403 companies switched from WP Engine to Cloudways in the past three years. Agencies like Ingenius (280+ sites, 10M+ revenue per their published case study) and North Shore Digital (140+ clients, 7-figure ARR) have scaled successfully on the platform. Would 15 minutes make sense to compare hosting costs across your portfolio?"

Targeting strategy: On TechnologyChecker.io, filter for companies currently using WP Engine, Bluehost, or cPanel with 1-50 employees in the Advertising Services or IT Consulting industries. These are the highest-probability conversion targets based on actual migration flows.

Competitive angle: For agencies evaluating managed hosting, Cloudways offers multi-cloud flexibility (choose between DigitalOcean, AWS, GCP, Vultr, or Linode) that no single-infrastructure competitor matches. The 42,578 enriched companies in our database provide leads for targeted outreach campaigns. Explore the full dataset at TechnologyChecker.io.