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Cloudways vs A2 Hosting now means Cloudways against hosting.com, because World Host Group bought A2 Hosting in January 2025 and renamed it that spring. The comparison holds a surprise. hosting.com Turbo Boost, the tier that carried A2’s speed reputation, opens at $6.99 and renews at $20.99. By month 25 that makes it dearer than a Cloudways server at a flat $14.00, and across three years it costs $587.64 against $504.00. The managed cloud server is the cheaper buy. The same A2 Hosting figures against Kinsta are in our Kinsta and A2 Hosting comparison.
Cloudways vs A2 Hosting: The Short Answer
Cloudways, at 4.1 against 3.3 in our reviews. It costs less than Turbo Boost from month 25, holds 99.996% or better across five plans in the benchmark project we cite, and bills by the hour. hosting.com suits a former A2 customer who wants continuity, or a buyer who wants shared hosting with cPanel and email in the account.
Head to Head
| Criterion | Cloudways | hosting.com Turbo Boost |
|---|---|---|
| Product | Managed cloud server | Shared hosting, formerly A2 |
| Price | $14.00/mo flat | $6.99/mo, then $20.99 |
| Renewal step | None | 3.0× over 12 months |
| 36 months, annual terms | $504.00 | $587.64 |
| Cheaper overall from | Month 25 | First 24 months |
| Uptime, named | 99.996% to 99.999% | Not from a named project |
| Independent assessment | Load test completed | CNET retest: weaker than A2 |
| Billing | Hourly, no contract | Prepaid term |
| Refund window | Billing stops when you stop | Disputed: 30 days or anytime |
| Not included | Included with cPanel | |
| Owner | DigitalOcean, 2022 | World Host Group, 2025 |
| Our score | 4.1 | 3.3 |
A2 Hosting Is Now hosting.com
World Host Group closed its purchase of A2 Hosting around 29 January 2025. By spring the A2 name was gone, and the service ran as hosting.com with a new dashboard and renamed plans. Existing customers kept their logins and services through the change.
CNET had reviewed A2 Hosting favorably in 2024. It retested hosting.com in the autumn of 2025 and reported that the service had become harder to use, with mediocre server performance and frustration reaching support. So praise written before 2025 describes a different company. Our A2 Hosting review tracks what carried over.
Why the Cloud Server Costs Less
Turbo Boost bills $6.99 a month for its first year and then renews at $20.99, which is 3.0× over 12 months. Cloudways charges $14.00 from the first month to the last. In year one, Turbo Boost is far cheaper. From month 13 it charges seven dollars a month more.
Month by month, the two are almost level at month 24, and Cloudways is cheaper from month 25 onward. Across 36 months on annual terms, Turbo Boost reaches $587.64 against $504.00. Our page on hosting renewal prices puts a step of 3.0× over 12 months beside the field.
⚠️ hosting.com’s entry plans cannot be compared cleanly. Reviews this year quote a starting price anywhere from under two dollars to $3.99, under two sets of plan names, and none gives a renewal we could confirm. The Turbo Boost figures are the ones we can stand behind, and its longer-term pricing is not in our table. Our comparison of SiteGround against A2 Hosting covers another managed rival.
| Host and plan | How it builds | 36-month total |
|---|---|---|
| ChemiCloud Starter, 36-month term | 36 prepaid months at $2.49 | $89.64 |
| InterServer Standard | 36 months at $2.50, price locked | $90.00 |
| DreamHost Launch, 48-month term | 36 of 48 prepaid months at $2.89 | $104.04 |
| Namecheap Stellar, 24-month term | 24 at $1.98, then 12 at $4.88 | $106.08 |
| Hostinger Premium, 48-month term | 36 of 48 prepaid months at $2.99 | $107.64 |
| HostGator Hatchling, 36-month term | 36 months at $3.75, renewal not reached | $135.00 |
| HostGator Hatchling, with daily backups | 36 at $3.75, plus CodeGuard at $35.88 a year | $242.64 |
| Bluehost Starter, 36-month term | 36 months at $3.99, renewal not reached | $143.64 |
| GoDaddy Economy, 36-month term | 36 months at $5.99, renewal not reached | $215.64 |
| GoDaddy Economy, with SSL from year two | 36 at $5.99, plus $119.99 in years two and three | $455.62 |
| Hostwinds Basic, annual | 12 at $4.54, then 24 at $6.99 | $222.24 |
| SiteGround StartUp, 24-month term | 24 at $2.99, then 12 at $14.99 | $251.64 |
| DreamHost Launch, annual | 12 at $2.89, then 24 at $10.99 | $298.44 |
| Scala Hosting Mini, annual | 12 at $2.95, then 24 at $11.95 | $322.20 |
| Bluehost Starter, 12-month term | 12 at $3.99, then 24 at $11.99 | $335.64 |
| IONOS Plus, annual | 12 at $1.00, then 24 at $14.00 | $348.00 |
| GreenGeeks Lite, 36-month prepay | 36 months at $2.95 | $106.20 |
| GreenGeeks Lite, annual | 12 at $2.95, then 24 at $13.95 | $370.20 |
| SiteGround StartUp, 12-month term | 12 at $2.99, then 24 at $17.99 | $467.64 |
| Cloudways, from | 36 months at $14.00, flat | $504.00 |
| A2 Hosting Turbo Boost, annual | 12 at $6.99, then 24 at $20.99 | $587.64 |
| Rocket.net Starter, annual | 12 at $25.00, then 24 at $30.00 | $1,020.00 |
| WP Engine Startup, annual | 12 at $27.00, then 24 at $35.00 | $1,164.00 |
| Liquid Web managed VPS | 36 months at $33.00 | $1,188.00 |
| Kinsta Starter | 36 months at $35.00, flat | $1,260.00 |
| InMotion Core, 36-month term | 36 months at $3.19, renewal not reached | $114.84 |
| InMotion Launch, 36-month term | 36 months at $4.99, renewal not reached | $179.64 |
The Evidence
We run no tests, so the Cloudways figures belong to Hostingstep. It held uptime between 99.996% and 99.999% across five plans from October 2025 to May 2026. Its weakest published result is a load test on its Vultr High Frequency plan, at 288 ms with a 1.7% error rate.
For hosting.com, the named evidence is CNET’s retest, and it points the wrong way for a brand built on speed. Our table carries lab response figures for A2 Hosting that we could not attribute to a named publication, so we set them aside. That is an evidence gap more than a verdict. Our guide to reading an uptime report explains why we will not fill it with an unnamed figure.
What hosting.com Still Offers
hosting.com is shared hosting with cPanel, so email lives in the account and every tutorial matches the screen. For a buyer who wants those things without managing a server, that is a real advantage over Cloudways, which includes neither.
It also sells managed WordPress on the Rocket.net platform, which joined the group in August 2025. A former A2 customer looking for a faster managed tier can find one without leaving the company. Our Rocket.net review covers that platform.
What Cloudways Offers Instead
Cloudways runs a managed server on the cloud provider you choose. SSH, WP-CLI, Git deployment, staging and PHP version selection ship on every tier, and it runs any PHP application. Billing is by the hour, so stopping the server stops the bill.
The trade is that you manage capacity yourself and add email separately, through Rackspace mailboxes at about a dollar each per month. Phone support is a paid add-on. For a developer those are small costs, as our list of hosting for developers explains.
Panels and Everyday Use
hosting.com has been redesigning its customer panel, which the company calls Turbo Hub, and reviewers describe the new version as taking adjustment. Behind it sits cPanel, so the tools for files, email and databases work the way our guide to understanding cPanel describes.
Cloudways runs its own console, built around servers and applications rather than hosting accounts. It is clear once learned, and it feels closer to infrastructure than to a control panel. Neither exports an account in a format the other imports, so leaving either one means moving the site rather than the account.
What the Retest Means for a Buyer
A single retest by one publication is not a full record, and hosting.com may improve as its transition settles. What the retest does establish is that the A2 Hosting reputation no longer transfers automatically to the renamed service. A buyer choosing hosting.com today is choosing on current terms, not on the brand’s history.
That cuts the other way too. If a named project publishes a full record for hosting.com, this comparison will change, and our score for it would move with the evidence.
Refunds and Commitment
Sources disagree on hosting.com’s refund terms. A2 Hosting was known for an anytime money-back guarantee, and a July 2026 review describes 30 days on most hosting.com plans. Confirm the window in writing before you pay.
Cloudways has no refund window in the usual sense, because there is no prepayment: stop the server and billing stops. For a project with an uncertain future, that is the cleaner arrangement. Our guide to reading a hosting agreement covers what to check in either case.
The Five-Year View
Over five years the gap keeps widening. Turbo Boost charges $20.99 every month after the first year, and Cloudways stays at $14.00. By month 60 Cloudways is about two hundred and fifty dollars cheaper in total, and every further year adds roughly eighty-four dollars to the difference. Our page on what web hosting costs runs these shapes across the field.
Which Site Belongs Where
A former A2 customer with a working site. Staying at hosting.com avoids a move. Check the renewal invoice rather than the plan page, because renamed plans can renew at rates set by the new owner.
A new site you expect to keep for years. Cloudways, which is cheaper from month 25 and has the measured uptime.
A small business that wants email in the same place. hosting.com, or another shared host with cPanel, since Cloudways needs a separate email provider.
A developer or an agency. Cloudways, for SSH, Git, staging and billing by the hour on any cloud.
Moving From hosting.com to Cloudways
The move is routine for a WordPress site. Cloudways provides a migration plugin that copies the site to the new server, and the domain can stay at its registrar and simply point at the new address. Move email first, or at the same time, because Cloudways will not host it.
Time the move before the Turbo Boost renewal rather than after it. The first year at $6.99 is the cheapest part of the plan, and the renewal is where the cost changes. Our guide to moving from shared to VPS lists the signals that it is time.
Who Owns Them
DigitalOcean acquired Cloudways in 2022 and sells the cloud underneath many of its servers. World Host Group, founded in 2019, owns hosting.com and brought Rocket.net into it in 2025. Both are larger companies with portfolios of their own.
For hosting.com the ownership is recent and still reshaping the service. For Cloudways it is settled. That difference matters to a buyer who wants to know what the product will look like in two years.
Where Each One Is Weakest
hosting.com is weakest on certainty. Its name, plans, panel and refund terms have all moved within two years, and the named evidence describes a decline after the rename. Its Turbo renewal step of 3.0× over 12 months is steep.
Cloudways is weakest on what it leaves out and on simplicity. There is no cPanel and no email, and managing a server is a real job for someone who never wanted one. Its weakest load result showed a 1.7% error rate on one cloud. Our Cloudways review covers each cloud.
Winners by Category
Three years on annual terms: Cloudways, at $504.00 against $587.64. First year: hosting.com, at $6.99 a month. Renewal: Cloudways, which has none to step up. Named uptime: Cloudways. Email and cPanel: hosting.com. Billing flexibility: Cloudways, hourly. Brand stability: Cloudways.
When to Choose hosting.com Instead
Take hosting.com if you were a happy A2 customer and want continuity, or if you want shared hosting with cPanel and email under one login and plan to leave within a year. Confirm the refund terms first. Our comparison of Bluehost against A2 Hosting, a Newfold Digital brand, weighs it against a stable shared host.
Take Cloudways for anything you will keep past two years, anything that needs measured uptime, or any project that should bill by the hour. Our comparison of Cloudways against HostGator sets it against another budget brand, and our comparison of Cloudways against GoDaddy covers a third.
How We Research
We run no tests. Cloudways figures come from Hostingstep’s 2026 benchmarks with their windows. For hosting.com we rely on CNET’s retest and set aside figures whose publisher we could not name. Ownership comes from the companies’ own announcements.
Prices come from the providers’ own pages and reviews published this year, read on 20 September 2026, and the crossover month from month-by-month arithmetic. The criteria behind our scores are on our about page.
Cloudways vs A2 Hosting FAQ
Not under that name. World Host Group bought A2 Hosting in January 2025 and renamed it hosting.com that spring. Existing customers kept their logins and services.
Cheaper than Turbo Boost from month 25. Turbo Boost opens at $6.99 and renews at $20.99, so across 36 months on annual terms it costs $587.64 against $504.00 at Cloudways. hosting.com’s entry plans have no renewal we could confirm.
The named evidence says no. CNET, which reviewed A2 favorably in 2024, retested hosting.com in the autumn of 2025 and described mediocre server performance and a harder-to-use service.
No. Mailboxes come through Rackspace at about a dollar each per month. hosting.com, as a shared host with cPanel, handles email in the account.
DigitalOcean has owned Cloudways since 2022. World Host Group owns hosting.com, and Rocket.net joined the same group in August 2025.
The Verdict
Cloudways takes this, at 4.1 against 3.3, and it is the cheaper of the two against Turbo Boost from month 25. It has the measured uptime, the settled ownership and the billing that stops when you stop.
hosting.com keeps two real advantages: cPanel with email in the account, and a managed tier on the Rocket.net platform. For a former A2 customer those may be reason enough to stay. For a new buyer, the cloud server is the better purchase. Our guide to migrating web hosting covers the move.