CloudWays Review Australia
As it is well-known the data connection between Australia and other parts of the World is quite weak, since data forwarding is performed by using submarine cables and there are not enough of them. These cables are placed at the bottom of oceans and able to connect physical locations between each other.
Of course, satellites are also used for data forwarding but there are reasons why cables are used over satellites:
- Latency: Satellites are placed around the globe a few thousand kilometers high and it needs some time to make connection between the sender and receiver parties. Cables have significantly less latency so less time is needed until the data transfer can be started.
- Bandwidth: A satellite is able to use only a small piece of the radio spectrum, thus its bandwidth is about few Gigabytes per second. Meantime, a fiber data cable has significantly better bandwidth and is able to transfer Terabytes per second, thousand times more.
Source: submarinecablemap.com
The weak data connection becomes important when we talk about serving the international clients. To handle this problem it is worth to choose an international hosting company which can host your website and serve the international clients as well.
For this purpose, we recommend Cloudways. It is an EU based hosting company which utilized cloud servers for its hosting services and has data centers in Australia and many places around the World.
Why do Australian Customers Choose CloudWays?
- SSD drives: The company provides the newest SSD drives as storage units, which are significantly faster than the classic hard drives. The enterprise-level instrument behind hosting packages can boost your website load time too!
- Advanced cache solutions: Cloudways offers different kind of caches, including Memcached, Varnish, RedIs and more, so the data serving is faster and more continuous that at non-cached hosting providers.
- Up-to-date runtime environment: The servers use the most up-to-date scripts and services, including PHP 7, Apache and Nginx web servers, MySQL and MariaDB databases.
- Free SSL: The Let’s Encrypt SSL encryption can be added with a simple click, for completely free of charge. This way your website will get a basic SSL encryption along the advantages of HTTPS protocol.
- Automatized backup: You can make schedule for backups and time it as it is convenient to you. You can even set the autoscript to make hourly backups; the time frame can be change up to a 7-days interval. Of course, you can always use your backups to restore your damaged system.
- Two-factor authentication: This advanced authentication system helps you to add a second security layer over the passwords, thus protecting your data against hackers. Just set the layer and take advantages of improved security!
- 60 data center locations: If you prefer data centers outside of Australia or want to target a special area of planet, Cloudways gives you the chance to choose from 60 different data locations. You can find such big names on the list like AWS, GCE, DigitalOcean and Vultr.
- No long term commitments: If you hate the providers which band you to their services with annual or bi-annual contracts then you will like the Cloudways’ pay scheme. The company uses a so called pay-as-you-go scheme, which means you should pay only for those resources you’ve used.
- Vertical server scaling: If your website needs more resources then you can add them with only a click from your admin area. No new contracts or server configuration are needed, so you can act as your website needs it.
- 24/7 support: Cloudways provides a 7/24 support via email or live chat and there is a ticketing system on the website. The support team is friendly and answers your questions as soon it is possible.
- Knowledge base and community: If you prefer reading and self-managed troubleshooting then you can use Cloudways’ knowledge base and community. There are many articles in the knowledge base, sorted to over 30 sections and a continuously updated blog also provides the new info pieces. The Community Forum has over 500 topics where users and admins can answer each other’s questions.
- SSH and SFTP: You can always connect to Cloudways servers via SSH or SFTP, since both protocols are enabled. This way you can manage your packages in a safe and easy way.
We also recommend CloudWays in this list of best WordPress hosting in Australia.
Cloudways Hosting Plans
Cloudways does not provide classic hosting packages; it offers cloud hosting based on bid cloud companies. You can choose from 5 cloud hosting services, Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform are all available.
The nearest data centers to Australian customers are:
- Digital Ocean: Singapore, Bangalore (India)
- Linode: Singapore, Tokyo (Japan)
- Vultr: Sydney (Australia), Tokyo (Japan)
- Amazon Web Services: Sydney (Australia), Seoul (South Korea), Singapore, Tokyo (Japan), Mumbai (India)
- Google Cloud Platform: Sydney (Australia), Tokyo (Japan), Singapore, Taiwan
Digital Ocean plans starts at $10/month. For this amount you get 1 GB RAM, 1 CPU core, 25 GB storage and 1 TB bandwidth. The biggest plan provides 192 GB RAM, 32 CPU cores, 3840 GB storage and 12 TB of bandwidth usage for its $1,035 starting price.
Linode has 9 different plans, the smallest one is called Linode1GB and gives you 1 GB RAM, 1 CPU core, 20 GB storage and 1 TB bandwidth for its $12/month starting price. The biggest plan provides 80 GB RAM, 20 CPU cores, 1536 GB storage, 20 TB bandwidth and starts at $860/month.
Vultr has 8 plans, the smallest one costs $11/month. It gives you 1 GB RAM, 1 CPU core, 25 GB storage and 1 TB bandwidth. The biggest plan costs $730/month and contains 96 GB RAM, 24 CPU cores, 800 GB storage and 15 TB of bandwidth.
Amazon Web Services provides you 13 different plans, where the smallest one have 1.75 GB RAM, 1 CPU cores, 4 GB storage and 2 GB bandwidth usage for its $34.91/month starting price. The biggest plan is called AWS 16XL and gives you 256 GB RAM, 64 CPU cores, 4 GB storage and 2 GB bandwidth for its $3058.26/month price.
Google Cloud Platform’s entry-level plan is called GCE Small and is available from $33.30/month price. It contains 1.70 GB RAM, 1 CPU core, 20 GB storage and 2 GB bandwidth. The biggest plan starts at $1290.42/month and gives you 120 GB RAM, 32 CPU cores, 20 GB storage and 2 GB of bandwidth.
Conclusion
Is Cloudways ideal for Australians? The answer is YES. It offers a versatile list of cloud services and many plans. You can simply choose the best; even if you need more RAM and CPU cores with less storage, or are looking for big storage and bandwidth every month.
There are many data centers to serve your domestic and international clients so you can be sure, your website will be never unavailable. Choose the plan which is most suitable for you, and pay-as-you-go, after you used the resources.
