If you run a blog or an eCommerce business, two things that you will most likely worry about regarding the web host you are using is speed and support.
There are many web hosting companies out there that promise unlimited bandwidth and almost unlimited everything but if you give them a try, you may find them slow, unresponsive and worthless.
Many of these bad web hosts are promoted just for the sake of affiliate earning by bloggers. Not all bloggers do that though.
The best way to compare web hosts is to test them yourself and see their performance. In this post, we will be comparing Cloudways and Templ. Thankfully to WebHostingDoc, you will have live sample sites hosted on Cloudways and Templ to test and compare for yourself. Templ vs Cloudways: Which is better and faster?
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that helps customers run servers from selected cloud providers on its platform. They were founded in 2009.
Templ is a managed WordPress and WooCommerce hosting company that utilizes the power of Google Cloud and Google Cloud CDN. They were founded in 2017.
I have hosted a lot of websites on Cloudways but at a point decided to explore other options, then I tried Templ and was blown away by how good they were and yet not everyone is talking about it. You can read my Cloudways review and Templ review.
What's in this guide?
Stack and features
The foundation of a good web hosting company is the tech powering their platform. And also the features that makes hosting a website with them as easy as possible.
Here are some important comparison of the features and stack of Cloudways and Templ
| Features | Cloudways | Templ |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure: | DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, Google Cloud and AWS | Google Cloud |
| Web server: | Nginx | Nginx |
| Object cache: | Memcached (Redis available) | Redis |
| Database: | MariaDB | MariaDB |
| Cache: | Breeze plugin (varnish available) | Serverbased cache |
| PHP: | 7 and above | 7 and above |
| CDN: | Cloudways CDN from $1 (uses Stackpath) | Google Cloud CDN |
| Scalability: | Scalable | Scalable |
| File compression: | Gzip Compression | Brotli |
| Email: | No (optional Rackspace add-on $1/month) | Yes, but forwarding only |
| Managed WordPress: | Semi-managed | Fully managed |
| Remote backup: | Available | Available |
| Speed optimization help: | Not available | Available on request |
| Support: | Average support but paid support available for $100 or $500 per month | Excellent support available free |
| Migration: | 1 free migration, additional migration is charged | Free unlimited migration |
| WP-CLI: | Available | Available |
| Additional tools: | Numerous additional tools | Numerous additional tools |
| WooCommerce Support: | Yes | Yes |
| Free Trial: | Free trial available | Free trial available |
In terms of features, both Cloudways and Templ are loaded with features. It is hard to choose a winner here. But I love Templ use of Google Cloud CDN as it has more PoPs around the world and is rated as the fastest CDN in many countries.
User interface (UI)
Both of them have a very good user interface but Cloudways is more confusing for the non-technical users. But not really a problem after using it for a while.
Here is the interface you meet when you login to Cloudways.
From there you have to navigate to your applications and then select a website.
Here is the user interface you meet when you login to Templ
It is slightly easier for a non-technical people.
Speed
Who is faster between Cloudways and Templ?
There are many things to look for in a speed test but presently the most important thing in a speed test is the Core Web Vitals. This is the metrics through which Google will be ranking websites for speed.
We have created two live websites on WebHostingDoc. One is hosted on Cloudways and the other is hosted on Templ. Both sites have the same content with just their names and server locations the key difference. They are both using Astra.
Before you proceed to test them, note that the data center for the Templ website is in Iowa USA while the data center for Cloudways is at Frankfurt Germany. So to get a fair result, test them from location closest to their data centers. Both hosting companies have data centers around the world.
Templ: https://templ.webhostingdoc.com
Cloudways: https://cloudways.webhostingdoc.com
Please note that no optimization was done on both sites and no plugin installed except default. What you are testing is the raw power of each host.
Anyone that is very skilled can optimize a website. But for the unskilled, they have to pay so much for experts to optimize. The reason, I have to use the default settings of each host. There is no CDN active for each site.
Google PageSpeed Insights test and Core Web Vitals test
Testing Templ:
From the above PageSpeed Insights test of Templ, it scored 100 on mobile. The FCP, LCP average 1.3s and the CLS is 0.
Testing Cloudways:
From the above PageSpeed Insights test of Cloudways, it scored 100 on mobile. FCP is 1.4, LCP is 1.5 and CLS is 0.
Summary of PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vital Test:
| Metrics | Cloudways | Templ |
|---|---|---|
| PSI Score: | 100 | 100 |
| First Contentful Paint: | 1.4s | 1.3s |
| Largest Contentful Paint: | 1.5s | 1.3s |
| Cumulative Layout Shift: | 0 | 0 |
| Time to Interactive: | 1.4s | 1.3s |
| Total Blocking Time: | 0ms | 0ms |
| Speed Index: | 1.4s | 1.3s |
The winner here is Templ.
GTmetrix test
Testing Cloudways
From the above GTmetix test, Cloudways got A grade. Performance is 100% and Structure is 99%. LCP is 296ms. TBT and CLS are 0.
Testing Templ
From the above GTmetix test, Templ got A grade. Performance and structure are both 100%. LCP is 448ms. TBT and CLS are both 0.
Summary GTmetrix test
| Metric | Cloudways | Templ |
|---|---|---|
| Grade: | A | A |
| Performance: | 100% | 100% |
| Structure: | 99% | 100% |
| LCP: | 296ms | 448ms |
| TBT: | 0ms | 0ms |
| CLS: | 0 | 0 |
From the above, it’s a tie.
TTFB via bytecheck
Time to first byte (TTFB) is one of the best ways to test a web host. It shows how fast their web server response to request. For this, I will use bytecheck.com.
Testing Templ
From the above Bytecheck test, Templ has a TTFB of 2ms
Testing Cloudways
From the above TTFB test, Cloudways had a TTFB of 107ms.
Summary of TTFB test
| Metrics | Cloudways | Templ |
|---|---|---|
| TTFB: | 107ms | 2ms |
| Total Time: | 374 ms | 179 ms |
| DNS: | 37.77 ms | 44.87 ms |
| Connect: | 106.89 ms | 2.31 ms |
| SSL: | 122.33 ms | 128.33 ms |
| Send: | 0.08 ms | 0.10 ms |
| Wait: | 106.84 ms | 2.30 ms |
| Receive: | 0.05 ms | 0.86 ms |
From the above, Templ is the clear winner.
Pingdom test
Testing Cloudways
From the above Pingdom test, Cloudways got an A grade with a load time of 177ms
Testing Templ
From the above Pingdom test, Templ got an A grade with a load time of 242ms
Summary of Pingdom test
| Metrics | Cloudways | Templ |
|---|---|---|
| Performance grade: | A | A |
| Load time: | 177 ms | 242 ms |
| Page size: | 118.3 KB | 114.3 KB |
| Requests: | 10 | 11 |
From the above, Cloudways wins in load time but I have to admit it is unfair. Because the Cloudways data center of the site is based in Frankfurt and the test was from Frankfurt so should be fast. But the Templ data center is in Iowa but the test was from Washington DC which is 1,608.9 km away.
Support
Both Cloudways and Templ offer live chat support.
The key difference is that Cloudways support is limited unless you pay for their advanced and premium support. Advanced support costs $100/month and premium support costs $500/month.
While you can get support without paying anything, it will mostly be guides. Them pointing you at online rescources.
But with Templ, you get premium support for free. For example, they can actually help you troubleshoot and check your site and help you fix the issue without you needing to do anything.
This makes Templ more suitable for less technical people. For those who are comfortable making changes themselves then this is not a problem.
Conclusion
Both Cloudways and Templ are fast web hosts. Only very little separates them. I like the many add-ons available at Cloudways. But I also like the support level and Google Cloud CDN at Templ.
Whichever one you choose, you will be happy. But if you are less technical then Templ should be your choice. But if fixing things is not an issue then Cloudways is also a good choice.
The good news is that both of them offer free trial. You can try them for free and make your choice.
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