Cloudways vs RunCloud: Pricing, Root Access and Servers

These two tools get compared constantly and the comparisons usually go wrong in the same place, because Cloudways and RunCloud are not really the same kind of product. Cloudways sells you a managed server. RunCloud sells you a panel that manages a server you bought somewhere else. Almost every practical difference, including the pricing, falls out of that one distinction.

What is the actual difference between Cloudways and RunCloud?

Cloudways is a hosting company that rents you a server and manages it. You have one account and one bill, you never talk to DigitalOcean or Vultr directly, and you do not get root access because the machine belongs to Cloudways. RunCloud is a control panel: you open your own DigitalOcean, Hetzner, Vultr or AWS account, buy a server there, connect it to RunCloud, and RunCloud installs and manages the stack while the machine stays yours.

That means the two products are billed on different axes. Cloudways charges per server, and the fee includes the hardware. RunCloud charges a subscription for the panel that covers a number of servers, and the hardware is a separate bill from your cloud provider. Comparing the sticker prices directly is the mistake almost every roundup makes.

Cloudways vs RunCloud pricing

Both sets of figures below were read first-party in September 2026, from cloudways.com and from runcloud.io.

RunCloud's four tiers are $9 a month for Essentials with one server, $19 for Professional with fifty, $49 for Business with a hundred and $399 for Enterprise with five hundred. Annual billing on the first three is effectively ten months for twelve. Enterprise is the odd one out: $2,394 a year against $399 a month, which works out to half price rather than the usual two months free.

Which is cheaper, Cloudways or RunCloud?

Cloudways is cheaper at one small server, and RunCloud pulls ahead as soon as you add servers or need bigger ones. Here are three worked bills, using DigitalOcean's published Droplet ladder for the RunCloud side, read on 3 September 2026, where 2 GB costs $12 and 4 GB costs $24.

Read those honestly and Cloudways wins the first two on price. That is the opposite of what most comparison articles claim, and it is worth saying plainly: if you run a handful of small sites and do not care about root, Cloudways is genuinely the cheaper and simpler purchase.

What flips the result is server size and add-ons. Cloudways' fee scales with the specification of every server because the hardware is inside it, while RunCloud's panel fee stops at $19 no matter how many or how large the machines get. Add the per application charges, Site Manager at $3 and Malware Protection at $4 per application per month, and a ten site Cloudways fleet accumulates fees that simply do not exist on the other side.

Does RunCloud give you root access and does Cloudways?

RunCloud gives you root because the server is in your own cloud account and RunCloud is only a management layer on top of it. Cloudways does not, because the server belongs to Cloudways and they are responsible for keeping it running.

This matters more than it sounds. Root is what lets you install a PHP extension a client plugin needs, tune PHP-FPM worker counts for a heavy WooCommerce store, add a service that is not on the vendor's supported list, or read a log the dashboard does not surface. Without it you are filing a support ticket and waiting, which is a perfectly reasonable trade if you never wanted to touch a server, and a hard blocker if your work occasionally requires it.

Does RunCloud have zero downtime deployment?

Yes, but check the tier. RunCloud lists atomic deployment, its zero-downtime release feature, on the $49 Business plan, not on $9 Essentials or $19 Professional. If atomic releases are the reason you are shopping, the real RunCloud price for you is $49 a month rather than $19.

Cloudways is not really in this conversation, because it is a hosting console rather than a deployment tool. It has Git integration, but the model is a managed hosting account, not a build-and-switch release pipeline. If your workflow is push to a branch and have production update itself atomically with a rollback available, that is a deployment tool's job. We cover the mechanics in how zero-downtime deployment actually works.

Which is better for WordPress and WooCommerce?

Both are used heavily for WordPress and both do the obvious things: nginx with FastCGI caching, Redis object caching, staging environments, one-click SSL and backups. RunCloud ships a WordPress Toolkit on the Business tier. Cloudways has an object cache plugin and bundles security tooling on every server.

The split is about who the server belongs to. For a single WooCommerce store where you want somebody else on the hook at 2am, Cloudways is a sound choice and the support is genuinely fast. For an agency running client stores where you occasionally need to tune the stack, or where you want the client's site to live in the client's own cloud account, a panel on your own VPS is the better structure. We go through the full set of trade-offs and the sizing numbers in our guide to choosing a WordPress VPS control panel.

What happens if you move between them?

Moving from RunCloud to another panel is straightforward, because the server never moves: you point a different tool at the same machine, or rebuild one box and move sites across on your own schedule. Moving off Cloudways is a real migration for every site, because the server belongs to them and cannot come with you. Export, move, repoint DNS, re-issue certificates, verify.

The part teams underestimate is what a host move does to search visibility. Redirects get dropped, a staging copy gets indexed by accident, or a certificate lapses for an hour during the cutover, and pages quietly fall out of the index while everyone is watching uptime instead. It is worth confirming that the moved URLs are actually being recrawled and reindexed rather than assuming a clean 301 map did the job, which is the kind of thing an indexing tool exists to verify. Plan the cutover with low DNS TTLs and check the index a week later, not on the day.

Who should pick which?

Pick Cloudways if you run one to three sites, you never want to log into a server, you value one bill and fast human support, and you are content on smaller server sizes. The 3 day trial needs no card, so this is cheap to test.

Pick RunCloud if you run several servers, you want root, you already have cloud credits or a provider you like, or you want the panel fee to stop growing while your fleet does. Budget $19 for the panel, or $49 if you need atomic deploys.

Pick neither if what you actually want is a flat fee with atomic deploys included at every tier and servers you own outright. That is the gap DeployManage fills, and it is also the argument for looking at a RunCloud alternative or a Cloudways alternative before you commit to either.

The short version

Cloudways bundles the machine and charges per server. RunCloud charges for the panel and leaves the machine to you. At one or two small sites Cloudways is cheaper and simpler and there is no shame in taking it. Past that, the flat panel fee wins on money, root access wins on flexibility, and owning the server wins the day a client relationship ends and somebody has to hand over the infrastructure.