Small business▲+4Since September 2026: 4% → 8%, +4 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
8%from 4% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 7 pointsRank 6 → 4 of 77
1 category · RankedCloudways
36Judge labels
4First choices
6Negative labels
12 / 14Models named it
1Category
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.8, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
7% in Cloud hosting for small business buyers
Rank 18 of 85 in the mid-market standingcriticized challenger
0 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 25% of its 12 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of Cloudways →By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.
Small business4 of 81
7%24 labels
accepted challenger
Mid-market18 of 85
0%12 labels
criticized challenger
Enterprisenot named
0%
No model named it for this buyer.
In cloud hosting · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named Cloudways for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.
| Category | Function | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud hosting | Cloud and infrastructure | 0% | 18 of 85 | 25% | 12 | criticized challenger | ▼−2Since September 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, Cloudways held within the floor in its one category: no change cleared 11 points.
Best category · Cloud hosting · by segment
Mid-market▼−2Since September 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 2% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 9 pointsRank 9 → 16 of 75
EnterprisegoneNot named this edition; 0% in September 2026.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 11 pointsNot ranked
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud hosting | 2% | 0% | ▼−2Since September 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 9 → 18 of 85 |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 11 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated Cloudways across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated Cloudways across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
By framing
Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.
FramingLabels by classFirst choices
Direct6 labels3
Paraphrase1 labelNone
Comparative13 labels1not counted in share
Budget-constrained8 labels1
Scale-constrained2 labelsNone
Negative6 labels1not counted in share
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative36 labels in all, every segment counted; 4 of the 6 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.
What the models said for it
Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.
“provides affordable managed cloud hosting starting from $8.25/month with usage-based pricing” Claude Haiku 4.5 · Cloud hosting · budget prompt · alternative
“Acts as a management layer that lets you choose your underlying cloud provider” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Cloud hosting · comparative prompt · alternative
“Cloudways acts as a managed control panel built on top of cheap infrastructure” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Cloud hosting · budget prompt · alternative
“Other affordable options include Bluehost, Kamatera, Cloudways, and Vultr.” Llama 4 Maverick · Cloud hosting · budget prompt · alternative
And against it
Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.
“## Managed Options (Higher Budget but Worth It) 9. Cloudways - From $14/month” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Cloud hosting · budget prompt · soft negative
“Cloudways - Proceed with Caution ... Expensive pricing ... Poor customer support” MiniMax M2.5 · Cloud hosting · negative prompt · soft negative
“Users find Cloudways expensive ... Users report poor customer support” Muse Glimmer 30B · Cloud hosting · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Cloudways, over the 36 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Cloudways was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Cloudways, over the 36 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Cloudways was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.
What carried it into the answer
The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Cloudways. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 36 of the 36 answers that named Cloudways and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
hostingadvice.com18
atlantic.net16
digitalocean.com15
scalahosting.com15
hostinger.com14
newsweek.com14
bluehost.com13
g2.com12
hostscore.net12
cybernews.com9
138 of the 138 domain citations in answers naming Cloudways came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
cloudways.com ranks 8 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, Cloudways takes 0% of first choices and Amazon Web Services takes 32%.ShowHide
Search and answers
cloudways.com ranks 8 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, Cloudways takes 0% of first choices and Amazon Web Services takes 32%.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimatesPosition for “cloud hosting provider”
8
Position for “cloud hosting providers”
–
not in the top ten
- Searches for its name, Google
- 12,100 a month (“cloudways”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 164 a month
- Organic visits to its site
- about 45,091 a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- 18,578 · 338 in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 25,971
- Paid Google search
- 1 searches its ads show for, about 2 clicks and $20 a month (estimate)
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
0%
rank 18 of 85 in cloud hosting
Segment leader
32%
Amazon Web Services
- First choices
- 4 across its categories
- Named in
- 36 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 36 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
What it publishes
ShowHide
What it publishes
ShowHideAddresses on cloudways.com
558
subdomains included
Content
80
counted in the table below
Documentation
3
Product · Integration
1 · 3
| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-11 to 2026-10 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comparison | 49 | undated | |||
| Webinar or virtual event | 12 | undated | |||
| Template or tool | 8 | undated | |||
| Report or ebook | 5 | undated | |||
| Conference or event | 4 | undated | |||
| Case study | 1 | undated | |||
| Glossary or explainer | 1 | undated |
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page cloudways.com exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read October 5, 2026.
Follow Cloudways
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
Cloudways is its own company.ShowHide
The company
Cloudways is its own company.
ShowHideIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- Managed Cloud Hosting Platform Simplified
- For
- SMBs, agencies, developers, ecommerce, or online business
- Price stated
- Get 30% off on all plans. cloudways.com
- Starting price
- 25 cloudways.com
- Free plan or trial
- 3-day free trial, no credit card needed cloudways.com
- Certifications
- SOC 2ISO 27001GDPRPCI DSS
- Hosting
- over 200 countries150+ data center across the globe50+ countriesNew YorkAmsterdamBangaloreFrankfurtLondon
- Customers named
- Guru SEO Services
- Not stated on the pages read
- Integrations
What Cloudways's own pages state, read October 5, 2026: cloudways.com, cloudways.com/en/pricing.php, cloudways.com/en/platform-demo.php. A claimed page can correct any of them.
Is this your product?
Claim this page
Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Cloudways's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Cloudways, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Cloudways by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Cloudways is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name Cloudways, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.