2025 was a year of significant, powerful growth for Cloudways, featuring key product launches such as the general availability of the new Lightning Stack and Cloudways Copilot, which are setting the stage for 2026.
Behind the scenes, we also made the platform more reliable and easier for people to build on. We made Cloudways and the sign-up process easier for users to discover.
Many of these upgrades may not have been major announcements. They were the kind of changes you notice only because everything feels smoother. Pages load faster. Guidance is clearer. Performance is better. Content shows up right when you need it.
But together, these upgrades made Cloudways faster, smarter, and more intelligent for the customers who trust us every day. And that trust translated into meaningful adoption: 160,000+ new apps were activated, and thousands of SMBs, agencies, ecommerce stores, and developers joined the Cloudways platform in 2025.
Customer Experience & Growth Enablement
This year, we strengthened the way we understand and support our customers. We improved how we monitor account health, which helped us flag risks earlier and take action before issues grew. This made our relationships with our customers more stable and reliable.
We also made the signup, migration, and conversion journeys smoother. Faster Turnaround Times (TAT) on managed migration requests, now within 4 hours instead of 16, helped new customers get started quickly. We handled over 3,000 migrations with an 80% go-live rate, ensuring a seamless transition experience.
Updates to the pricing page helped more visitors understand the value of Cloudways, increasing signup rates by 29.25%. Trial users also saw clearer guidance, leading to higher engagement and better upgrade numbers.
– The redesigned pricing page made Cloudways’ value clearer and improved conversion rates, helping more users get started faster.
Affiliate partners, creators, and publishers played a larger role in our growth. We saw stronger conversions from YouTube, regional influencers, and new affiliate networks. These channels not only brought more users to Cloudways but also brought in higher-value users.
As part of our regional expansion efforts, we launched Spanish and Portuguese versions of the Cloudways website. This milestone marked a major step in making Cloudways more inclusive and approachable for Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking users, deepening our engagement with fast-growing communities across Europe and Latin America.
– Localized Spanish and Portuguese websites brought Cloudways closer to new audiences across Europe and Latin America.
Platform Improvements & Product Launches
2025 brought meaningful improvements to the Cloudways platform. We added 7 long-requested features to Autonomous: SSH keys, cron management, partial restore, local backups, Git deployments, PHP 8.3 support, and deeper database insights. We improved security with Imunify360 PAM and introduced WordPress checksum detection for malware protection.
We also launched new server families across DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode, giving customers more choice and better performance at every tier. Vertical Scaling also became easier, with different providers now allowing scale-down without cloning.
Client Billing & Reporting was enhanced with a revamped Stripe integration that supports restricted accounts, returning subscribers, and new users through clearer guidance and smoother setup. We also introduced auto-charge for recurring invoices, enabling automatic payments, visible status indicators, and easy per-client control to reduce billing friction.
Breeze, our in-house WordPress caching plugin, is now used on over 400,000 WordPress sites, cementing its importance in delivering platform-level speed and reliability for the global WordPress community. Over the past year, we’ve rolled out 10 updates and new builds to further improve performance, compatibility, and user experience.
– Breeze’s download history reflects its growing importance to the global WordPress community, highlighting its role in making sites faster and more stable. (Source: WordPress)
We maintained 96.2%+ CSAT across 300,000 chat conversations, supported by a 1:41 first response time. AI tools helped us respond faster and save thousands of customer hours. For complex environments, we stepped in with deep optimization, major malware recoveries, and high-traffic readiness, ensuring stability for mission-critical workloads.
Lightning Stack & Cloudways Copilot
One of the biggest milestones was the launch of the new Lightning Stack. After strong results in private beta, showing up to 65% better performance, Lightning became our recommended stack, bringing more speed, better resource usage, and a stronger Nginx-based security layer.
– The new Lightning Stack delivered an average 22–27% faster uncached performance with a modern Nginx-based architecture and optimized resource usage. (Source: Koddr.io)
Earlier this year, we launched Cloudways Copilot in private beta. It’s an AI-powered assistant that instantly analyzes logs, configurations, and performance signals to identify issues. It provides clear explanations and step-by-step recommendations, helping users fix problems without needing technical expertise.
With general availability, it became more accurate and easier to rely on. Users received automated reports, recommendations, and quick insights that cut resolution times significantly. Issues that once took 30 to 40 minutes with our support team can now be fixed in about 5 to 6 minutes, making troubleshooting far less overwhelming.
Together, Lightning Stack and Cloudways Copilot shaped Cloudways into a faster and smarter platform, where performance improvements and intelligent guidance work side by side to help customers stay stable, secure, and confident through any challenge.
Strategic Partnerships & Community Events
We expanded Cloudways’ presence in the ecosystem by strengthening key partnerships and introducing new ones with Omnisend (email marketing tool) and Equalize Digital (accessibility checker).
Our improved Agency Partner Program onboarded 4,000+ agencies, enabled 50+ co-marketing successes, and delivered premium, seconds-level SLA support to 100+ Platinum partners, saving $50K. Additionally, 2,000+ agencies used free advanced support, saving $200K, alongside 3,000+ free migrations worth $372K in total.
– Cloudways connected with the global WordPress community at WordCamp US, sharing insights and gathering feedback directly from users.
Across the WordPress and cloud communities, Cloudways showed up more visibly. We sponsored key industry events, strengthened our co-marketing efforts with ecosystem partners, and introduced our updated Partner Hub to better support collaboration and mutual growth.
WordCamp Europe and the US helped us meet hundreds of users and gather direct product feedback. Our digital events, like Security Bootcamp (1,800+ registrations) and Agency Advantage (2,900+ registrations), brought in thousands of registrations and created meaningful conversations around agency growth.
– Our Agency Advantage digital event series drew thousands of registrations, empowering agencies with practical strategies for scalable growth.
The fifth edition of Prepathon brought together 20+ industry experts and 5,100+ registrations for a three-day exploration of eCommerce’s future. Sessions focused on Gen Z and Gen Alpha expectations, highlighting how AI, trust, and speed are redefining eCommerce in the next digital era. The event generated strong online traction across our social handles, achieving 3.49 million impressions, 46K engagements, 26.6K link clicks, and 877K video views.
– Prepathon brought together industry experts and global attendees on the future of eCommerce, AI, and next-gen consumer behavior.
Awards, Recognitions, & Key Achievements
Cloudways gained more recognition this year across media, social channels, and review platforms. Social engagement increased on LinkedIn and X, and our event content reached millions of viewers.
We passed 3,200+ reviews (4.6 average rating) on Trustpilot and 1,000+ reviews on G2 (4.7 average rating), maintaining strong ratings across both. Notably, Cloudways was ranked #3 among the “Best Web Hosting Software Products” on G2 for 2025, reinforcing our position as a trusted leader in managed hosting.
– Cloudways earned 1,000+ reviews on G2 with a stellar 4.7 rating and was ranked #3 among the “Best Web Hosting Software Products” for 2025. (Source: G2)
In the media, Cloudways earned more than 1.09 billion reach, with coverage across Tier 1 and Tier 2 outlets. Copilot GA received global attention, and our Agency Partner Program was spotlighted by TechRadar. Cloudways was also named the “Best CDN Hosting Services of 2025” by HostingAdvice.
We also strengthened our voice through thought leadership, publishing new customer stories across different industries, including AI, Media, SaaS, AEC, and Data, along with research-backed editorials and an AI whitepaper on VentureBeat that drew thousands of views.
– In-depth customer case studies showcased how businesses across different industries scale successfully with Cloudways.
Looking Ahead: What’s Next for Cloudways in 2026?
In 2026, we plan to continue simplifying hosting and helping customers scale with less effort. Lightning will evolve as the primary stack. Autonomous will grow more automated and developer-friendly. Cloudways Copilot will play a bigger role across diagnostics, optimization, and decision-making, supporting users without getting in their way.
We plan to keep improving the user experience across signup, onboarding, and growth journeys. And we’ll continue strengthening our presence in the WordPress, eCommerce, and agency ecosystems, working to build deeper partnerships and clearer content for the people who rely on Cloudways to run their businesses.
And as we push forward, we’re laying the groundwork for something even bigger: a future where hosting becomes increasingly intelligent, adaptive, and agent-driven. It’s early, but the foundations we’re building today will empower Cloudways to move from reactive support to proactive, AI-powered operations that help customers achieve more with less effort.
You can follow our progress and upcoming initiatives on the Cloudways Public Roadmap. Stay tuned.
Mansoor Ahmed Khan
Been in content marketing since 2014, and I still get a kick out of creating stories that resonate with the target audience and drive results. At Cloudways by DigitalOcean (a leading cloud hosting company, btw!), I lead a dream team of content creators. Together, we brainstorm, write, and churn out awesome content across all the channels: blogs, social media, emails, you name it! You can reach out to me at [email protected].
