Summarize this blog post with: ChatGPT | Perplexity | Claude | Grok

You already know Laravel can run on almost any properly configured PHP server, and Cloudways removes much of the infrastructure work involved in managing one. What matters is whether that convenience still gives your application the performance, deployment flexibility, background-process support, control, and pricing your production workload actually requires. This Cloudways Laravel review evaluates those factors so you can decide whether Cloudways belongs in your deployment stack.

Key Takeaways

• Cloudways Laravel hosting provides a managed infrastructure layer that reduces the server-administration work required to deploy and operate Laravel applications.
• Cloudways Flexible supports Laravel workflows including Git deployment, SSH/SFTP access, staging, cloning, backups, Redis, configurable PHP versions, and vertical server scaling.
• Laravel 13 requires PHP 8.3 or newer, while Cloudways currently offers PHP 8.3 and PHP 8.4; however, Cloudways’ compatibility documentation has not been updated to explicitly name Laravel 13.
• Laravel queues are a credible Cloudways use case because Cloudways provides a documented Redis and Supervisord workflow with dashboard-managed worker processes.
• Laravel Horizon, Octane, and Reverb require more careful validation because they depend on persistent processes and, in some architectures, server or proxy configuration that can interact with Cloudways’ lack of root access.
• Laravel performance on Cloudways depends on server resources, data-center location, database workload, caching, concurrency, PHP configuration, and application architecture rather than the Cloudways brand alone.
• Cloudways is most compelling for developers, agencies, and small teams that value managed infrastructure more than unrestricted operating-system control.

Quick verdict: Cloudways is a strong middle-ground Laravel hosting option when you want more operational assistance than a raw VPS without moving completely to a Laravel-specific platform-as-a-service. It becomes much less attractive when your architecture depends on unrestricted root access, customized system services, complex horizontal infrastructure, or intensive Octane/Reverb tuning.

For broader platform context before deciding, read my complete Cloudways review.

What Is Cloudways Laravel Hosting?

Cloudways Laravel hosting is a managed cloud hosting environment that lets developers deploy and operate Laravel applications without managing every part of the underlying server infrastructure. Cloudways sits between your Laravel application and infrastructure providers such as DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud, Vultr, and Linode/Akamai, while handling much of the provisioning, operating-system management, security, monitoring, backups, and hosting stack.

Cloudways is therefore not the same product as renting a raw virtual private server. A direct VPS primarily gives you compute resources and administrative control. Cloudways adds a managed control layer around those resources.

The distinction matters because you are effectively buying operational convenience rather than simply CPU, RAM, storage, and bandwidth. My detailed guide to Cloudways managed hosting explains that management layer more broadly.

[Insert custom diagram: Three-layer Laravel hosting diagram with Laravel application at the top, Cloudways management layer in the middle, and DigitalOcean/AWS/GCP/Vultr/Linode infrastructure at the bottom | Alt text: “Understand Cloudways Laravel hosting architecture”]

Cloudways Flexible vs Cloudways Autonomous for Laravel

Laravel applications belong on Cloudways Flexible, not Cloudways Autonomous. Cloudways currently describes Flexible as supporting WordPress, Magento, Laravel, and PHP applications, while Autonomous is positioned as managed WordPress hosting with automatic scaling.

A Laravel developer should therefore evaluate Cloudways Flexible specifically rather than treating every Cloudways product as interchangeable.

What Does Cloudways Actually Manage?

Cloudways manages much of the server layer while leaving application development and architecture under your control. Current Laravel-facing features include NGINX, Apache, PHP-FPM, MySQL/MariaDB, Redis, Memcached, Varnish, SSL certificates, IP whitelisting, application isolation, Git deployment, SSH/SFTP, backups, cloning, staging, monitoring, and vertical scaling.

You still remain responsible for areas such as:

• Laravel application architecture
• Database schema and query efficiency
• .env configuration
• Application security
• Queue design
• Cache strategy
• Third-party integrations
• Deployment commands
• Application logging
• Error handling
• Regression testing
• Capacity planning

That boundary is essential. Managed hosting does not turn Cloudways into a managed Laravel development service.

Why Does Managed Laravel Hosting Matter?

Managed Laravel hosting matters because a production Laravel application requires substantially more operational work than uploading PHP files to a server. PHP-FPM, NGINX, databases, Redis, backups, SSL, firewall rules, cron, queue workers, security patches, monitoring, deployment processes, recovery procedures, and capacity planning all need reliable operation.

For example, a SaaS developer may be perfectly capable of configuring Ubuntu, NGINX, PHP, MariaDB, Redis, Supervisor, firewall rules, certificates, and backups. The question is whether spending engineering time repeatedly maintaining those systems creates enough business value.

Cloudways attempts to move part of that responsibility into the hosting platform.

“I was looking for something that could manage my servers for me. The solution was Cloudways for me.”

— Ashish Dhamala, Senior Laravel Developer, Cloudways case study, n.d.

Dhamala’s comment captures the primary Cloudways value proposition for Laravel developers: less infrastructure administration means more development time. A vendor-published customer case study is directional evidence rather than an independent performance test, but the operational trade-off itself is clear.

What Does the Management Layer Save You From?

Cloudways can reduce the amount of manual work required for:

• Initial server provisioning
• Web-stack setup
• PHP version management
• Redis installation
• SSL management
• Scheduled backups
• Server monitoring
• Security maintenance
• Application cloning
• Staging
• Vertical scaling
• SSH/SFTP account management
• Basic Laravel worker management

A freelancer maintaining ten client applications may value these controls more than a DevOps engineer maintaining one highly customized platform.

What Does Cloudways Not Remove?

Cloudways does not remove the need for good production engineering.

For example, a poorly indexed query that scans millions of database rows will remain inefficient after moving to a larger Cloudways server. Redis can reduce repeated work, but Redis does not repair an inappropriate data model.

The better decision framework is:

Cloudways value = infrastructure work avoided + platform tooling + support value − price premium − control restrictions

That equation varies dramatically by team.

Is Cloudways Good for Laravel Applications?

Cloudways is good for conventional production Laravel applications when the workload fits a managed NGINX/PHP-FPM environment and the development team does not require unrestricted root access. Standard business applications, APIs, dashboards, agency projects, marketplaces, and moderate SaaS workloads are generally better aligned with Cloudways than highly customized system-level architectures.

Cloudways Flexible supports Laravel applications with Git deployment, SSH/SFTP access, staging, cloning, backups, caching, application isolation, and vertical server scaling.

Cloudways Laravel Feature Assessment

→ Explore Cloudways Laravel Features

Does Cloudways Support Laravel 13 and Current PHP Versions?

Cloudways currently exposes PHP versions that satisfy Laravel 13’s minimum PHP requirement, but the safest wording is that runtime compatibility exists rather than claiming explicit first-party Cloudways certification for Laravel 13. Laravel 13 requires PHP 8.3+, and Laravel’s support table covers PHP 8.3–8.5.

Cloudways currently documents PHP 8.3 and PHP 8.4 availability. Its PHP compatibility article specifically mentions Laravel 11 for PHP 8.4 rather than providing an updated Laravel 13 compatibility statement.

Laravel 13 requires PHP 8.3 or newer, while Laravel 12 supports PHP 8.2 through PHP 8.5 according to Laravel’s official release documentation.

The practical conclusion is straightforward: the PHP versions align, but test your Laravel 13 dependency tree before migration.

Check:

1. Required PHP extensions
2. Composer platform requirements
3. Database version
4. Redis client
5. Image-processing libraries
6. Queue driver
7. Any PECL extensions
8. Native binaries used by packages
9. Node/build requirements
10. Custom daemons

[Insert image: Cloudways PHP version selector showing current PHP choices for a Flexible server | Alt text: “Check PHP versions for Cloudways Laravel hosting”]

Does Cloudways Support Git Deployment?

Cloudways supports Git-based deployment on Flexible applications through SSH repository authentication, branch selection, deployment paths, deployment actions, and deployment logs. Cloudways’ February 2026 documentation requires a repository that supports Git over SSH.

The workflow is useful, but Git deployment should not automatically be confused with a complete CI/CD pipeline.

A mature Laravel pipeline may also need:

• Automated tests
• Static analysis
• Asset builds
• Composer dependency validation
• Database migration strategy
• Cache optimization
• Worker reloads
• Health checks
• Deployment locking
• Rollback automation
• Notifications

Git integration solves code delivery. Production release engineering covers more than code delivery.

[Insert image: Cloudways Deployment via Git panel showing repository, branch, deployment path, and deployment logs | Alt text: “Deploy Laravel with Git on Cloudways”]

Does Cloudways Provide SSH and SFTP?

Cloudways provides SSH and SFTP access while withholding unrestricted root privileges. SSH is sufficient for many Laravel tasks, including Composer, Artisan commands, log inspection, file operations, database commands, and application-level troubleshooting.

The distinction between SSH access and root access becomes critical for advanced workloads. SSH lets you work inside the environment Cloudways exposes. Root would let you redefine the environment itself.

How Does Cloudways Laravel Hosting Perform Under Real Traffic?

Cloudways Laravel performance cannot be represented credibly by one universal speed score because dynamic response latency changes with CPU, memory, region, PHP configuration, database workload, query efficiency, caching, Redis usage, queue activity, and concurrency. A valid review should therefore benchmark the application workload rather than reuse WordPress page-speed results.

Evaluating Laravel hosting performance involves testing dynamic response latency, database activity, concurrent requests, cache behavior, queue processing, and resource utilization under a documented workload.

Did I Use Fabricated Laravel Benchmark Numbers?

No fabricated TTFB, requests-per-second, database latency, uptime, or queue-throughput figures are presented in this review. The current assessment is documentation-led and architecture-focused because no controlled Cloudways Laravel test environment was supplied for an original benchmark.

That limitation is preferable to pretending a cached homepage test proves production Laravel performance.

A future first-party benchmark should publish the complete test configuration so another developer can reproduce it.

What Should a Cloudways Laravel Performance Test Measure?

A useful Laravel benchmark should test several workloads independently.

The critical rule is do not change multiple variables at once.

For example, if you compare Redis off against Redis on while also doubling server RAM, you cannot determine which change produced the result.

Recommended Reproducible Benchmark Methodology

Record these details before running a test:

• Laravel version
• PHP version
• Cloudways provider
• Server family
• RAM
• vCPU count
• Storage type
• Data-center region
• Database engine/version
• Redis status
• Session driver
• Cache driver
• Queue driver
• Dataset size
• Application commit
• Cache state
• Concurrency
• Ramp-up period
• Test duration
• Network test origin
• Testing tool

For load generation, k6, wrk, or another documented HTTP load generator can provide repeatable traffic. Laravel Telescope can help inspect requests and database activity during controlled staging tests.

[Insert image: k6 Laravel load-test results beside Cloudways CPU and RAM monitoring graphs | Alt text: “Measure Cloudways Laravel performance under concurrent traffic”]

See k6 Load Testing in Practice

This Grafana walkthrough demonstrates how k6 generates controlled load, uses staged traffic, and produces test results. It provides useful practical context before comparing how cached and uncached Laravel workloads behave under load.

Video: “Grafana k6 for Beginners: Why observability needs testing” by Grafana.

Cached vs Uncached Laravel Performance

Cached Laravel responses and uncached application requests test different parts of the hosting stack. A cached marketing route may barely touch Laravel, while an authenticated SaaS dashboard can execute middleware, authorization, PHP code, Redis operations, and several database queries.

For example, /pricing and /dashboard/reports should not be treated as equivalent performance tests.

A credible Cloudways Laravel review should therefore report cached and dynamic results separately.

Database Performance Matters More Than Many Hosting Reviews Admit

Database behavior often determines Laravel application performance once requests become dynamic. Eloquent convenience can hide inefficient query patterns, N+1 relationships, missing indexes, large result sets, expensive aggregation, or serialization overhead.

Test endpoints that represent the actual business application.

For example:

• Product search
• Order history
• Analytics dashboard
• Inventory synchronization
• User permissions
• API pagination
• Reporting queries

A host cannot compensate indefinitely for inefficient application queries.

How Should You Evaluate Queue Performance?

Laravel queue performance should be measured separately from HTTP performance because background workloads compete for CPU, memory, Redis, and database capacity.

Track:

• Jobs completed per minute
• Median job wait time
• p95 queue delay
• Failed jobs
• Retry count
• Worker memory
• Worker CPU
• Redis usage
• Database impact
• HTTP latency while workers are busy

A server that handles 100 HTTP requests comfortably may behave very differently while four workers are simultaneously generating PDFs, processing imports, resizing images, or calling third-party APIs.

How Do You Deploy a Laravel Application on Cloudways?

A Cloudways Laravel deployment typically combines application provisioning, Git repository deployment, SSH-based dependency management, environment configuration, database migration, scheduler configuration, cache optimization, and worker reloads. Cloudways documents Laravel installation, Git repository deployment, Composer access, environment configuration, migrations, and scheduler setup through its platform.

A production-safe workflow should treat deployment as a lifecycle rather than a single Git pull.

See the Laravel Deployment Workflow on Cloudways

This walkthrough shows the complete Laravel deployment process on a Cloudways managed server, giving you a practical view of how the platform workflow connects before you work through the production deployment steps below.

Video: “Deploy Laravel on Cloudways – Step by Step Tutorial” by The Codeholic.

Step 1: Create the Laravel Application

Create a Cloudways Flexible server or select an existing compatible server. Add a Laravel application through the application launcher.

Verify the:

• Provider
• Region
• RAM and CPU
• Database
• PHP version
• Redis requirement

before moving production data.

Step 2: Connect the Git Repository

Open Application Management → Deployment via Git.

Cloudways lets you generate an SSH key, add the public key to your repository provider, select a branch, define the deployment path, and initiate deployment.

[Insert image: Cloudways Git deployment configuration with SSH key, repository, branch, and path fields | Alt text: “Configure Git deployment for Laravel on Cloudways”]

Step 3: Configure Environment Variables

Configure production values such as:

• APP_ENV
• APP_KEY
• APP_DEBUG
• APP_URL
• Database credentials
• Redis connection
• Cache driver
• Session driver
• Queue driver
• Mail service
• Storage credentials
• Third-party API keys

Never commit production secrets into the Git repository.

Step 4: Install Production Dependencies

Run the Composer workflow required by your application.

For a conventional production build, dependency installation should be deterministic and based on the committed lock file.

Step 5: Run Database Migrations Safely

Cloudways’ Laravel deployment guide demonstrates database migration commands, but production migrations should follow the change-management procedure appropriate to your existing database.

A production deployment should answer:

• Is a backup available?
• Is the migration backward compatible?
• Will it lock a large table?
• Can the old application version still operate?
• Is rollback possible?
• Does the migration require maintenance mode?

Step 6: Optimize Laravel for Production

Laravel 13 recommends caching production configuration and provides the optimize command for deployment optimization.

A typical application may use:

php artisan optimize

Laravel’s current deployment documentation also emphasizes that long-running services must be reloaded after new code is deployed.

Step 7: Configure the Scheduler

Cloudways documents Laravel Scheduler configuration through its Cron Job Management interface.

The scheduler itself should still be tested.

For example, confirm that:

• Scheduled commands actually execute
• The correct PHP binary is used
• The working directory is correct
• Failures reach your monitoring system
• Overlapping jobs are controlled
• Long-running tasks do not exhaust resources

[Insert image: Cloudways Cron Job Management showing a Laravel scheduler task | Alt text: “Configure Laravel scheduler cron job on Cloudways”]

Watch the Cloudways Cron Job Setup

This official Cloudways walkthrough shows how to create a cron job, configure its schedule, work with cron expressions, and enter commands through Cron Job Management. It complements the scheduler screenshot above by showing the complete dashboard interaction.

Video: “How to Set Up Cron Jobs on Cloudways” by Cloudways.

Step 8: Restart Long-Running Processes

Queue workers, Horizon, Octane, and Reverb may continue executing old application code after deployment unless they are restarted or reloaded correctly. Laravel 13 explicitly calls out long-running service reloading during production deployments.

Your release procedure should therefore include worker/process lifecycle management.

Step 9: Perform a Health Check

Validate at least:

• Homepage/API health endpoint
• Database connectivity
• Redis connectivity
• Authentication
• Queue dispatch
• Queue completion
• Scheduler
• Storage
• Email
• External APIs
• Application logs

Do not declare a deployment successful merely because Git reports a successful pull.

Step 10: Maintain a Rollback Plan

Cloudways offers backups, restoration, application cloning, and staging workflows. Application clones can be created on the same or another compatible server, although cloning excludes certain items such as Git configuration and SSH credentials.

A rollback plan should cover both code and data, because restoring application files without understanding database changes can create a second failure.

→ Assess Cloudways Laravel Fit

Can You Run Laravel Queues and Horizon on Cloudways?

Laravel queues can run on Cloudways through its documented Redis and Supervisord workflow, while Laravel Horizon should be treated as a more specific process-management configuration that deserves staging validation before production. Cloudways provides dashboard controls for installing Supervisord, defining queue jobs, selecting process counts, timeouts, queues, retry limits, and monitoring job status.

This is a significant point because “no root access” does not mean Cloudways cannot operate persistent Laravel workers.

How Does Cloudways Supervisord Work?

Cloudways documents the following workflow:

1. Install Supervisord through Settings & Packages
2. Install/configure Redis
3. Configure Laravel to use Redis queues
4. Open Application Settings → Supervisor Jobs
5. Add a worker job
6. Configure process count
7. Configure timeout
8. Configure sleep
9. Select the queue
10. Define maximum retries
11. Monitor job status and uptime

[Insert image: Cloudways Supervisor Jobs dashboard showing worker process settings and job status | Alt text: “Manage Laravel queue workers with Cloudways Supervisord”]

Does Cloudways Support Laravel Horizon?

Laravel Horizon is technically aligned with Cloudways’ Redis and process-management capabilities, but I would not label Horizon universally supported without testing the exact application configuration.

Laravel Horizon requires Redis and recommends running php artisan horizon under a process monitor that restarts the command if it exits.

Cloudways separately provides Redis and dashboard-managed Supervisord for Laravel applications.

Those pieces make Horizon plausible, but a production test should verify:

• Horizon starts under the available Supervisor workflow
• Worker counts behave as expected
• Horizon terminates/restarts during deployment
• Redis connections are compatible
• Dashboard authorization is secured
• Memory remains stable
• Failed jobs are monitored
• Autoscaling assumptions match server capacity

Do not assume Horizon’s own dynamic worker balancing creates additional server CPU or RAM. It reallocates worker processes within the capacity available to the application.

Can You Run Laravel Scheduler and Cron Jobs on Cloudways?

Laravel Scheduler can run on Cloudways because Cloudways exposes Cron Job Management and its Laravel deployment documentation specifically describes configuring the scheduler through a cron entry. This makes conventional scheduled commands such as report generation, cleanup, reminders, synchronization, and queued task dispatch practical on Cloudways.

A scheduler is operationally simple until a task becomes expensive.

For example, a midnight report that scans a large table while queue workers are processing imports can produce a CPU or database spike even though both features work correctly in isolation.

Monitor scheduled workloads as part of capacity planning.

Can Laravel Octane Run on Cloudways?

Laravel Octane should be considered a conditional Cloudways workload rather than an automatically supported deployment model because Octane runs a persistent application server and depends on process monitoring plus a supported Octane server such as FrankenPHP, RoadRunner, Swoole, or OpenSwoole. Laravel recommends keeping Octane alive with a process monitor such as Supervisor.

Laravel’s current documentation also recommends serving Octane behind a traditional NGINX or Apache layer in production.

Cloudways has NGINX/PHP-FPM infrastructure and Supervisord capabilities, but that does not prove that every Octane runtime, extension, binary, proxy configuration, or deployment topology is supported.

Before selecting Cloudways for an Octane-first architecture, verify:

• Required Octane server
• Required PHP extensions
• Binary availability
• Startup command
• Supervisor configuration
• Listening port
• NGINX proxy behavior
• Worker reload strategy
• Memory behavior
• Deployment restart workflow
• Cloudways support boundaries

Do not migrate an Octane production workload based solely on standard PHP compatibility.

Can Laravel Reverb and WebSockets Run on Cloudways?

Laravel Reverb requires workload-specific Cloudways testing because Reverb is a long-running WebSocket server with process, port, reverse-proxy, file-descriptor, and scaling requirements that go beyond ordinary PHP-FPM requests. Laravel recommends a process manager such as Supervisor for Reverb and documents additional NGINX and operating-system tuning for higher concurrency.

Reverb starts a persistent server and normally sits behind a public web server. Laravel’s documentation also notes that higher connection counts can require changes to NGINX open-file limits and operating-system port configuration.

Those requirements intersect directly with the Cloudways no-root model.

For a low-to-moderate Reverb workload, the platform may provide enough configurable infrastructure. For a WebSocket-heavy system requiring custom NGINX limits, operating-system tuning, dedicated Reverb nodes, or specialized horizontal networking, a platform with deeper infrastructure control may be easier.

The decision should be verified experimentally rather than inferred.

Does Cloudways Give Laravel Developers SSH and Root Access?

Cloudways gives Laravel developers SSH/SFTP access but does not provide unrestricted root access, creating a deliberate trade-off between managed infrastructure and operating-system freedom. SSH covers many application-level Laravel operations, while the absence of root access prevents developers from freely installing arbitrary system packages or changing unrestricted server configuration.

Cloudways does expose selected server parameters through its dashboard, including settings that would otherwise require elevated access. However, Cloudways explicitly states that its dashboard is not a replacement for root access.

“You can take advantage of the scalability and power of platforms like Digital Ocean, without being a systems administrator or having expertise with a server.”

— Brandon Ernst, Founder & CEO, Brand on Fire, Cloudways Laravel Hosting page, 2026

That benefit is also the trade-off. Cloudways can remove sysadmin work precisely because Cloudways retains control over the underlying managed environment.

What Does No Root Access Mean for Laravel?

The limitation matters when your application needs:

• Unsupported PHP extensions
• Custom operating-system libraries
• Custom daemons
• Kernel configuration
• Specialized monitoring agents
• Custom firewall frameworks
• Alternative database services
• Custom NGINX modules
• Low-level network tuning
• Unusual process managers
• Container orchestration
• System-wide package changes

Cloudways does not provide root access, so developers cannot freely install every system-level package or modify unrestricted operating-system configuration.

For a conventional Laravel API using PHP-FPM, Redis, queues, cron, and MySQL/MariaDB, that restriction may never become a serious problem.

For a platform engineering team building custom infrastructure, it may be a deal-breaker.

For a broader view of this trade-off, see my Cloudways pros and cons.

How Much Does Cloudways Laravel Hosting Cost?

Cloudways Laravel hosting cost is the selected Flexible server price plus applicable backup storage, support, and optional services, so the headline server price should not be treated as the complete production cost. Pricing is dynamic and provider-dependent, making verification immediately before purchase more important than memorizing a single starting price.

There is an unusual pricing detail worth highlighting.

As verified on August 7, 2026, the Cloudways Laravel page is titled “From $14/mo,” while the visible DigitalOcean pricing cards on the same page display a $11/month 2GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 50GB storage, 2TB transfer configuration.

That inconsistency is exactly why this review does not hard-code “Cloudways starts at X” as an evergreen claim.

Check live checkout before buying.

→ Compare Cloudways Laravel Plans

For a full breakdown beyond Laravel workloads, see my Cloudways pricing guide.

Cloudways Laravel Cost Components

Cloudways currently charges $0.033 per GB for Flexible off-site backup storage, with charges rounded in $0.50 increments.

How Should You Calculate Cloudways Laravel TCO?

A better cost model is:

Laravel TCO = server + backup + optional services + external infrastructure + operational labor + migration/recovery risk

For example, a $20 pricing difference matters little if Cloudways removes several hours of monthly server maintenance from a development team.

The same $20 difference matters more to a developer who already has automated VPS provisioning, patching, backups, monitoring, and incident response.

Is There a Cloudways Laravel Free Trial?

Cloudways currently advertises a three-day trial without requiring a credit card on its Laravel hosting page. Trial policies are promotional and time-sensitive, so verify the live signup conditions before relying on them.

The best use of a trial is not browsing the dashboard.

Deploy a realistic staging copy.

Test Cloudways with your own Laravel staging workload before making a production migration decision.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Cloudways for Laravel?

Cloudways’ main Laravel advantages are reduced infrastructure administration, convenient deployment tooling, Redis and queue support, staging, backups, infrastructure choice, and scaling, while its main disadvantages are restricted root access, workload-dependent pricing, manual capacity planning, and uncertainty around highly specialized persistent-process architectures.

Biggest Laravel Advantage: Operational Leverage

Cloudways’ strongest benefit is not one individual feature.

The benefit is combining many routine infrastructure tasks into one managed operational layer.

That can be valuable for:

• Freelancers
• Agencies
• SaaS founders
• Small development teams
• Product teams without dedicated DevOps staff

Biggest Laravel Limitation: Infrastructure Boundaries

Cloudways’ biggest limitation is also structural.

The platform works by maintaining control over the environment. That approach is valuable until your application needs a server configuration Cloudways does not expose.

The question is therefore not merely “Does Cloudways have root access?”

Ask:

Will my application ever require a system-level change that Cloudways cannot provide?

How Does Cloudways Compare With Laravel Forge, Laravel Cloud, Vapor, RunCloud, and a Raw VPS?

Cloudways sits between a fully managed Laravel platform and a self-managed server: it provides more infrastructure abstraction than Laravel Forge, RunCloud, or a raw VPS but less Laravel-native abstraction than Laravel Cloud, while Vapor represents a separate AWS serverless architecture. The best choice depends primarily on control, operational responsibility, scaling model, and application architecture.

Laravel Hosting Control Matrix

Laravel Forge currently starts at $12/month for Hobby, with Growth at $19 and Business at $39, while the underlying infrastructure remains a separate cost unless using its integrated Laravel VPS option. Forge explicitly positions itself for developers who want server control.

Laravel Cloud currently offers a pay-as-you-go Starter tier, Growth at $20/month plus usage, and Business at $200/month plus usage. Growth introduces features such as autoscaling, queue clusters, worker clusters, and preview environments.

Laravel Vapor costs $39/month for the unlimited monthly platform plan plus AWS infrastructure costs and is specifically designed around serverless Laravel on AWS.

RunCloud documents Laravel deployment, Git workflows, atomic deployment, and Laravel Octane while operating as a management layer for servers you control.

Cloudways vs Laravel Forge

Choose Cloudways over Laravel Forge when reducing server administration matters more than retaining deep infrastructure control. Choose Forge when server ownership, root-level customization, Laravel-native deployment tooling, or specialized architecture matters more.

Forge explicitly describes itself as a server-management platform and supports connecting your own cloud providers. Its current offering also includes Laravel VPS, zero-downtime deployments, monitoring, teams, and Git integrations.

The two products solve related but different problems.

Cloudways manages more of the server environment.

Forge helps you manage infrastructure that remains much more directly yours.

Cloudways vs Laravel Cloud

Cloudways is better aligned with developers who want a recognizable managed server environment, while Laravel Cloud is more attractive when the goal is to abstract infrastructure and use Laravel-native managed application services.

Laravel Cloud currently includes background processes and task scheduling on its plans, while Growth adds queue clusters, worker clusters, and autoscaling.

Laravel Cloud also describes itself as running on dedicated AWS EC2 infrastructure rather than being a conventional serverless platform.

For a new Laravel-native SaaS product, Laravel Cloud deserves serious evaluation alongside Cloudways.

Cloudways vs Laravel Vapor

Cloudways and Laravel Vapor use fundamentally different operating models. Cloudways provides a managed server environment; Vapor deploys Laravel into a serverless AWS architecture and handles scaling through AWS services.

Vapor becomes especially relevant when request and queue demand is highly variable and the team is comfortable with AWS-native architecture.

Cloudways is more familiar for developers who want persistent servers, conventional PHP infrastructure, and predictable server sizing.

Cloudways vs RunCloud

Cloudways provides more managed infrastructure responsibility, while RunCloud gives developers more control over servers they own or provision elsewhere.

RunCloud becomes particularly interesting for Octane or highly customized VPS workflows because its documentation explicitly covers Laravel Octane alongside standard Laravel deployment.

The trade-off is greater infrastructure responsibility.

Cloudways vs a Direct DigitalOcean VPS

Cloudways is easier operationally, while a direct DigitalOcean VPS provides greater control and potentially lower raw-infrastructure cost.

The direct VPS approach becomes attractive when your team already has:

• Infrastructure automation
• Patch management
• Firewall configuration
• Monitoring
• Backups
• Incident response
• Deployment automation
• Database administration

If those capabilities do not already exist, comparing Cloudways purely against the VPS invoice undervalues engineering time.

For more options across managed platforms, control panels, managed WordPress hosts, and VPS models, see my Cloudways alternatives guide.

Who Should Use Cloudways for Laravel Hosting?

Cloudways is best suited to Laravel developers, agencies, SaaS founders, and small-to-medium teams that want a conventional PHP server environment with managed infrastructure, Git deployment, SSH, Redis, queues, staging, backups, and scaling without taking responsibility for every operating-system task.

Laravel Freelancers

Freelancers can benefit because Cloudways standardizes common infrastructure work across client applications.

A freelancer can spend more time on:

• Application development
• Client features
• Testing
• Deployment
• Troubleshooting

and less time maintaining Linux packages or rebuilding servers.

Development Agencies

Agencies managing multiple applications can benefit from centralized servers, application access, staging, cloning, team permissions, and backups.

The agency should still define resource-isolation rules. Placing too many business-critical applications on one server creates a larger shared failure domain.

SaaS Founders Without a DevOps Team

Cloudways can make sense for a conventional Laravel SaaS application where the team needs Redis, queues, cron, Git, and predictable server capacity but does not yet need complex orchestration.

The value falls if the SaaS architecture evolves into highly specialized worker pools, custom services, Kubernetes, or complicated horizontal scaling.

Laravel API Backends

A Laravel REST API can be a strong Cloudways workload when database behavior, Redis, and server resources are sized correctly.

The API should still be load-tested because API traffic usually bypasses the full-page caching assumptions common in WordPress hosting tests.

Queue-Heavy Applications

Queue-heavy applications can work because Cloudways now documents Redis-backed Laravel workers managed by Supervisord.

However, queue throughput should be measured under simultaneous web traffic before production.

“Cloudways offers an easier interface & a more thorough set of features, which really helps support our growth as a business.”

— Iain Wang, CEO, ClassBento, Cloudways Laravel Hosting page, 2026

The relevant part of Wang’s observation is operational consolidation. A more complete interface is valuable when it replaces several separate infrastructure-management tasks, but the benefit must still be weighed against Cloudways’ control boundaries.

Who Should Avoid Cloudways for Laravel Hosting?

Cloudways is a poor fit for Laravel teams that require unrestricted root access, custom system packages, extensive NGINX or kernel tuning, unusual databases or daemons, sophisticated infrastructure-as-code, custom container orchestration, or complete ownership of the underlying cloud environment.

Avoid Cloudways When Root Access Is Non-Negotiable

A root-dependent architecture should not be forced into Cloudways.

Examples include:

• Custom kernel tuning
• Non-standard network services
• Unusual PHP extensions
• Custom NGINX modules
• System agents requiring privileged installation
• Self-managed container runtime
• Custom database engines
• Complex firewall tooling

Laravel Forge, RunCloud, or direct infrastructure may be more appropriate.

Avoid Cloudways for an Octane-First Architecture Without Testing

Octane can change the operational model from request-per-process PHP toward persistent application workers.

If Octane is central to the performance architecture, verify every runtime requirement before selecting the host.

Avoid Cloudways for Large Reverb Deployments Without Network Validation

A Reverb application with thousands of persistent connections may require open-file limits, NGINX changes, port configuration, dedicated nodes, and horizontal scaling. Laravel documents these requirements explicitly.

The absence of root access deserves much more attention in that architecture than it does for a normal CRUD application.

Avoid Cloudways If Infrastructure-as-Code Ownership Is a Core Requirement

A platform engineering team that wants reproducible Terraform-managed infrastructure, custom AMIs/images, Kubernetes manifests, privileged agents, or full cloud-account control may find Cloudways too abstracted.

The platform is designed to simplify infrastructure, not expose every infrastructure primitive.

How Should You Test Cloudways With a Real Laravel Application?

The best way to evaluate Cloudways for Laravel is to deploy a representative staging copy, reproduce your production configuration, test web requests and background workloads under controlled load, verify recovery procedures, and calculate the complete monthly cost before changing production DNS or traffic.

Laravel Cloudways Evaluation Checklist

1. Document application requirements
   • Laravel version
   • PHP version
   • Extensions
   • Database
   • Redis
   • queues
   • scheduler
   • WebSockets
   • storage
   • external services
2. Choose the closest suitable region
   • Match the region to users and dependent services.
   • Avoid unnecessary cross-region database/API latency.
3. Deploy a staging copy
   • Use realistic code and data volume.
   • Never benchmark an empty Laravel skeleton and extrapolate the result to production.
4. Configure the production-like environment
   • PHP
   • Redis
   • database
   • cache
   • sessions
   • queues
   • scheduler
5. Test deployment
   • Git pull/deployment
   • dependencies
   • migrations
   • optimization
   • worker reload
   • health checks
6. Test dynamic HTTP workloads
   • Authentication
   • API
   • dashboard
   • database-heavy pages
   • search
   • reporting
7. Test queues
   • Throughput
   • queue latency
   • failure handling
   • worker restart
   • resource contention
8. Test Horizon if required
   • Redis
   • process monitoring
   • restart after deployment
   • balancing behavior
9. Test Octane/Reverb if required
   • Process persistence
   • ports
   • proxying
   • reloads
   • connection limits
10. Test backup restoration
    • A backup that has never been restored is not a verified recovery plan.
11. Calculate TCO
    • Server
    • backups
    • support
    • external services
    • operational time
12. Make the migration decision
    • Compare measured results against your current environment rather than marketing claims.

[Insert image: Cloudways server monitoring dashboard during a Laravel staging benchmark showing CPU, RAM, disk, and traffic | Alt text: “Monitor Cloudways Laravel server during load testing”]

Production Readiness Checklist

Before moving real users, verify:

• APP_ENV=production
• APP_DEBUG=false
• HTTPS works correctly
• Environment secrets are protected
• Database migrations are safe
• Cache driver is configured
• Session driver is configured
• Redis connectivity is verified
• Queue workers are running
• Failed jobs are monitored
• Horizon is secured if used
• Scheduler executes correctly
• Long-running services restart after deployment
• Backups are enabled
• Restore has been tested
• Application logs are monitored
• Health check is available
• Error tracking is configured
• Deployment rollback is documented
• Resource alerts are configured
• TCO has been calculated

What’s Next After Evaluating Cloudways for Laravel?

The next step is to test Cloudways against your own application architecture instead of deciding from generic hosting benchmarks. A staging deployment should reveal whether Cloudways satisfies your PHP, database, queue, process-management, performance, control, and cost requirements before you expose production users to the platform.

Start with the smallest server configuration that reasonably represents your workload rather than deliberately under-sizing the environment.

Then:

1. Deploy the application.
2. Configure PHP and database services.
3. Enable Redis if required.
4. Configure queues and cron.
5. Reproduce production data patterns.
6. Test dynamic routes.
7. Test concurrency.
8. Test background workers.
9. Test backups and restoration.
10. Calculate full monthly cost.
11. Compare operational effort with your current host.
12. Migrate only when the measured trade-off is favorable.

If you also want the broader developer perspective beyond Laravel alone, see the planned Cloudways Developer Review.

Conclusion: Is Cloudways Good for Laravel in 2026?

Cloudways is a strong Laravel hosting option in 2026 for developers who want managed cloud infrastructure, a conventional PHP server environment, Git deployment, SSH/SFTP, Redis, queues, cron, staging, backups, and vertical scaling without managing every part of Linux themselves. Its value becomes weaker as server-level customization and architectural complexity increase.

The most important distinction is workload fit.

A conventional Laravel business application, REST API, agency project, or moderately queue-driven SaaS platform can align well with Cloudways Flexible.

A root-dependent application, heavily customized Octane stack, high-concurrency Reverb platform, containerized infrastructure, or advanced DevOps environment deserves stronger consideration of Forge, RunCloud, direct cloud infrastructure, Laravel Cloud, or Vapor.

Cloudways also should not be evaluated through generic WordPress benchmarks. Test dynamic Laravel requests, database activity, queues, Redis, concurrency, CPU/RAM consumption, deployment behavior, and restoration with your own application.

That approach turns the buying decision from “Is Cloudways fast?” into the question that actually matters:

Does Cloudways deliver enough operational simplicity for your Laravel architecture without taking away control you genuinely need?

→ Start Cloudways Laravel Setup

Frequently Asked Questions About Cloudways Laravel Hosting

Cloudways Laravel hosting is suitable for many conventional Laravel deployments, but Laravel 13 compatibility, Horizon, Octane, Reverb, pricing, and root-access requirements deserve separate answers because those details can materially change the hosting decision.

Is Cloudways good for Laravel?

Yes. Cloudways is a strong option for conventional Laravel applications when you want managed infrastructure, Git deployment, SSH/SFTP, Redis, queues, cron, staging, backups, and vertical scaling without administering a raw Linux server yourself. Applications requiring unrestricted root access need a different hosting model.

Can I host Laravel 13 on Cloudways?

Cloudways currently offers PHP 8.3 and 8.4, which satisfy Laravel 13’s PHP 8.3 minimum requirement. However, Cloudways’ compatibility article does not yet explicitly identify Laravel 13, so validate your application’s PHP extensions and Composer dependencies in staging before production.

Can Laravel queues run on Cloudways?

Yes. Cloudways officially documents Redis-backed Laravel queue workers managed through Supervisord, including process count, queue selection, timeout, retries, sleep time, and job status controls.

Does Cloudways support Laravel Horizon?

Cloudways provides the core ingredients Horizon needs—Redis and persistent process management—but a current Cloudways document explicitly describing Horizon as a first-class managed feature could not be verified. Test php artisan horizon under the available process-management workflow before depending on it in production.

Can Laravel Octane run on Cloudways?

Possibly, depending on the selected Octane server and system requirements. Laravel Octane requires a persistent application server and production process monitoring. Cloudways’ lack of root access means runtime extensions, binaries, proxy configuration, and server tuning should be confirmed before adopting Cloudways for an Octane-first architecture.

Can Laravel Reverb run on Cloudways?

Reverb may be possible, but production compatibility should be tested. Reverb requires a persistent server process and can require Supervisor configuration, reverse proxying, open-file tuning, port configuration, and horizontal scaling at higher concurrency levels.

Does Cloudways provide root access?

No. Cloudways provides SSH/SFTP but explicitly withholds unrestricted root access because its servers participate in a centrally managed platform. Selected server settings remain configurable through the Cloudways dashboard.

How much does Cloudways Laravel hosting cost?

Cloudways pricing varies by provider, server size, region, and current promotion. On August 7, 2026, the Laravel page displayed a $11/month DigitalOcean configuration even though the page title referenced “From $14/mo,” so live checkout should be treated as authoritative.

Is Cloudways better than Laravel Forge?

Neither is universally better. Cloudways is better suited to developers who want more server-management responsibility handled for them. Laravel Forge is better suited to developers who want more infrastructure ownership, root access, and Laravel-native server-management tooling.

Is Cloudways better than managing DigitalOcean directly?

Cloudways is easier to operate, while direct DigitalOcean infrastructure provides greater control. The correct comparison should include both hosting cost and the value of provisioning, patching, security, monitoring, backups, deployment, and incident-response work you would otherwise perform yourself.

References

Cloudways. (2026). Managed Laravel hosting built for developers. Cloudways Laravel Hosting

Cloudways. (2026). PHP compatibility on Cloudways Platform. Cloudways PHP Compatibility

Cloudways. (2026). Charges for off-site backups. Cloudways Backup Charges

Cloudways. (2026). How to deploy code to your application using Git on Cloudways Flexible. Cloudways Git Deployment Guide

Cloudways. (2025). How to deploy Laravel project on Cloudways server. Cloudways Laravel Deployment Guide

Cloudways. (2025). How to configure Laravel Supervisord on Cloudways. Cloudways Laravel Supervisord Guide

Cloudways. (2026). How to clone your application. Cloudways Application Cloning Guide

Cloudways. (2024). Why can’t I have root access to my server? Cloudways Root Access Documentation

Cloudways. (n.d.). How Cloudways relieved developer Ashish Dhamala’s shared hosting woes. Cloudways Laravel Developer Case Study

Laravel. (2026). Laravel 13 release notes. Laravel 13 Release Notes

Laravel. (2026). Deployment: Laravel 13.x documentation. Laravel 13 Deployment Documentation

Laravel. (2026). Laravel Horizon: Laravel 13.x documentation. Laravel Horizon Documentation

Laravel. (2026). Laravel Octane: Laravel 13.x documentation. Laravel Octane Documentation

Laravel. (2026). Laravel Reverb: Laravel 13.x documentation. Laravel Reverb Documentation

Laravel. (2026). Laravel Forge pricing. Laravel Forge Pricing

Laravel. (2026). Laravel Cloud pricing. Laravel Cloud Pricing

Laravel. (2026). Laravel Vapor. Laravel Vapor

RunCloud. (2025). Installing Laravel on RunCloud. RunCloud Laravel Documentation