In this blog we will specifically look Cloudways Autonomous offering from Cloudways.
I have spoken about all the other features of Cloudways in my detailed Cloudways review. If you are getting started with the platform, it is a good place to start to understand the full offering, perfomance metrics, supported apps the backend cloud platforms used by Cloudways for hosting.
Cloudways Autonomous deserves a dedicated post so that as a user or a small business owner you can understand what it is and weather you need it or not.
What Is Cloudways Autonomous?
Cloudways Autonomous is a managed web hosting service for WordPress that leverages the power of Kubernetes to benefit SMBs.
It automatically scales to manage your website’s traffic, featuring an auto-adjusting server resources that ensures smooth operation even during high-traffic periods.
The autonomous Kubernetes clusters run on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). GKE is one of the google clouds service used by several enterprises around the world to host their high traffic website.
Technically when you host your applications on Cloudways Autonomous , its gets deployed in a Kubernetes pod. Pod would be managed by a deployment that self heals itself if the pods has issues. So when you run your applications on Cloudways autonomous you get all the underlying of benefits of Kubernetes on scalable GKE platform.
Here is the high level architecture that shows how your application get hosted on autonomous platform.
Architecture Source: cloudways.com
Key Features Of Cloudways Autonomous:
Let’s look at the three important features,
- Hands-off Management – You just take care of your business, cloudways will take care of everything and server configuration.
- True Autoscaling – It will use Kubernetes to automatically scale resources, according to real-time website traffic (ups and downs).
- High Availability – Your website is distributed to different servers. Your website remains online, even if one server facing issues.
Who are The Ideal Users?
Cloudways Autonomous will be helpful for the following users.
- Focus On Business Growth:
- E-Commerce Sites
- Agencies/Freelancers
Why Autoscaling Matters
Now imagine, you have a big online store, the sales or promotion will peak in some period and your website will get high traffic. During this time, sometimes your website has the chance to crash.
And your sales and reputations all fall. For this purpose, autoscaling helps your website to stay online, even if it is in peak traffic.
Guess what?
You only want to pay for the resources that your website uses. There is no extra payment or overpaying for the fixed server capacity.
The important thing is, that you don’t want to adjust the server resources manually because cloudways will handle them automatically.
Cloudways autonomous reduces your hurdles of server management.
Is It Worth It?
Cloudways autonomous gives the best feature for WordPress, but a thing is, choose based on your needs, here are quick breakthroughs.
- Pros: Effortless server management, automatic scaling for traffic, and site will be online even during the server issues.
- Cons: Cost is higher when compared to other basic hosting.
- Perfect for: High-traffic E-commerce stores, high-traffic websites, and multiple handling websites.
First of all thing about your website needs, if you are facing high traffic and server costs, then cloudways autonomous is the best.
Customer Support Of Cloudways Autonomous
It is providing a great customer support. High rating(NPS 73) and most customers are happy with their customer support.
They are available for 24/7 support to help you at any time.
In what way you can reach them?
You can reach them through an instant message app or raise a support ticket.
Security Features Of Cloudways Autonomous
Cloudways Autonomous integrates well-protected security features and you don’t need to do manual assistance. let’s look at a quick overview of its security features.
DDos Migration:
DDos helps to protect your website during high traffic, and it has 2-step protection to allow users to your website.
The first step, it analyzes the network and the second it analyzes the application to make sure and protect your website from attacks.
During high traffic, it will help to stay fast, without failing.
Web Application Firewall(WAF) Integration:
Cloudways works with Cloudflare Enterprise for extra security to protect your website well. This one will notice every incoming user or any other unwanted activities happening on the website.
It will identify the untrusted account, which will interrupt your traffic or website and block it for our website safety.
PCI DSS Compliant:
PCI DSS(Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), when you buy anything with your credit or debit card, will keep your information safe.
Cloudways said they are not guaranteed for your credit card security, but they come close to protecting you with its security features and your card details will be safe with their services.
Sometimes you want to add additional security for PCI DSS, according to your needs.
What Makes Cloudways Autonomous Pricing Competitive & Easy-To-Understand
Here are the three things that make cloudways autonomous pricing competitive and easy to understand.
- It uses a pay-as-you-go model, which means you only want to pay for the used resources by your website. You don’t want to pay an extra fee or any additional amount.
- It charges an additional amount for a unit of bandwidth, storage, or visits. So, it will be transparent and you can easily track your cost.
- Clousways Autonomous starts from $35/month with a set of features, it is a base plan and it provides close to every feature when compared to other high plans.
yes, these are things that make cloudways autonomous pricing competitive and easy to understand.
Here is a quick comparison of complex pricing of IAAs & non-transparent pricing of managed solutions like WP Engine for mission-critical websites.
| Cloudways Autonomous | IAAS/other managed hsoting | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Model | Pay for the used resources only | IAAS/other managed hosting |
| Cost transparency | Clear per unit charges | Hidden fee(might be) |
| Base plan | Straightforward base plan | confusing(might be) |
