Three hosting models
| Model | You manage | Provider manages | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw VPS / cloud VM | Most OS, security, stack and app operations | Underlying infrastructure | Teams comfortable with server administration |
| Managed cloud platform | Some sizing/app decisions | Large parts of server/platform operations | Teams wanting flexibility without full SysAdmin responsibility |
| Managed WordPress | Mostly the WordPress site itself | Infrastructure and WordPress-optimized platform | WordPress-only buyers wanting minimal server decisions |
What the management premium buys
The premium over raw infrastructure is paying for time, tooling and reduced operational responsibility: deployment workflows, security updates at the platform layer, backups, support, monitoring and a control panel that avoids rebuilding those systems yourself. Whether that premium is worthwhile depends on the value of your time and the cost of downtime or misconfiguration.
Where Cloudways fits
Cloudways Flexible is a clear example of managed cloud hosting because the buyer still makes resource and provider decisions while Cloudways operates the management layer. Cloudways Autonomous moves further toward a fully managed WordPress experience by abstracting more scaling behavior.
When raw cloud is better
If root access, custom system packages or the lowest infrastructure cost matter more than convenience, a raw VM may be the right fit. Our Cloudways vs DigitalOcean comparison makes that responsibility trade-off explicit.