Audyense·
Add your product
Skip to content
Side-by-side record

Cloudways vs. Rootly

A side-by-side view of the product records we have today. Use it to narrow the question, then confirm current pricing, limits, and security details with each vendor.

The short version

Cloudways starts at $11 per seat, versus Rootly at $20. Rootly carries the higher aggregate rating (4.8/5 vs 4.7/5). Rootly lists more integrations (100+ vs 50+).

Full comparison

Cloudwaysfrom $11 per month (Flexible Micro/Small)
Rootlyfrom $20 user/month
Audyense Score81ASStrong79ASStrong
PositioningManaged cloud hosting for web applications, WordPress, and e-commerce with enterprise features at SMB pricesSlack-native incident management and on-call automation
Free tierYesNo
DeploymentCloud / SaaSCloud / SaaS
Best fitStartup, SMB, Mid-market, EnterpriseSMB, Mid-market, Enterprise
Pricing plans
  • Basic$10
  • Growth$30
  • Scale$80
  • Incident Response Essentials$20
  • On-Call Essentials$20
  • EnterpriseCustom pricing
  • AI SRECustom pricing
AI features—YesAI scribe, similar-incident detection, and an AI SRE product for root cause and remediation
Alerting & on-call—YesDedicated On-Call product with alert routing, schedules, and escalations (separate tier)
Application performance monitoring (APM)—NoNot an APM tool; integrates with Datadog, New Relic, and Dynatrace
CI/CD pipelines—PartialIntegrates with GitHub, GitLab, and deployment tools and ingests deploy events, but is not a CI/CD system
Distributed tracing—NoNo native tracing; relies on integrated observability tools
Incident management—YesCore product: Slack-native incident response, roles, timelines, and retrospectives
Infrastructure monitoring—NoDoes not monitor infrastructure itself; ingests signals from monitoring integrations
Log management—NoNo native log management; integrates with tools like Splunk and Datadog
Public API—YesPublic API plus API/MCP access noted for the AI SRE product
Self-hosting / on-prem—NoCloud-only SaaS; no self-hosted or on-prem deployment offered
Integrations verified50+100+
Aggregate rating4.7 · 900 reviews4.8 · 74 reviews
Integrations
DigitalOceanAWSGoogle CloudVultrLinode
SlackMicrosoft TeamsPagerDutyOpsgenieDatadogNew Relic+10 more
Security & compliance
SOC 2 Type IIGDPR CompliantPCI DSSHIPAA Ready
SOC 2 Type IIHIPAAGDPRCCPA
Pros
  • Choice of 5 underlying cloud providers with dozens of regions
  • 24/7 support consistently praised by reviewers
  • Free SSL, staging environments, and Object Cache Pro included on all plans
  • Deep Slack integration automates incident channel creation, role assignment, and workflows without leaving chat
  • Automatic timeline and action capture cuts down manual post-mortem reconstruction
  • Strong bi-directional integrations with tools like Datadog, Jira, and PagerDuty
  • Simple, publicly listed per-seat pricing with no per-alert or surprise upsell fees compared to some rivals
Cons
  • Autonomous (fully managed WordPress) tier starts much higher at $99/month
  • No credit card required for trial, but trial is short (3 days) on Autonomous plans
  • Advanced workflow configuration has a real learning curve and documentation gaps slow setup
  • On-call is a separate priced product tier, meaningfully increasing all-in per-user cost (~$30-$35/user/mo)
  • The UI can feel overwhelming when many workflows are configured
  • AI/MTTR marketing claims use non-standard metrics, making direct platform comparisons harder
Visit Cloudways ↗Visit Rootly ↗

Editorial read of this comparison

The table summarizes structured facts; this section explains what the differences mean for a real buying decision.

Where each tool fits, and where it may not

Cloudways

Cloudways is a managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that abstracts away infrastructure complexity. It combines AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, and Vultr backends with an intuitive control panel. Perfect for agencies, freelancers, and teams who want cloud reliability without DevOps expertise. Deploy apps in seconds with 1-click installers for 100+ frameworks and CMS platforms. Features include automated daily backups, real-time monitoring, integrated staging environments, advanced security (2FA, Web Application Firewall), SSL certificates, and dedicated 24/7 expert support. Pricing is transparent and transparent per application, with no hidden fees.

A particularly good fit for: Agencies and developers wanting managed multi-cloud hosting without a DevOps team

May be a poor fit if: Users wanting a single flat-rate all-inclusive hosting price with no cloud-provider choice

Rootly

Rootly is a Slack-native incident management platform that automates incident response, on-call scheduling, and post-mortems for SRE and DevOps teams. It spins up incident channels, assigns roles, coordinates responders, captures timelines automatically, and tracks metrics like MTTR. It also offers AI-assisted root cause analysis and alert correlation through its AI SRE product.

A particularly good fit for: SRE and DevOps teams that coordinate incidents in Slack and want automated channels, roles, and timelines Teams with a dedicated engineer to build and maintain deeply customized incident workflows and routing logic Mid-market and enterprise orgs needing consistent post-mortems and MTTR tracking across many incidents

May be a poor fit if: Small teams wanting a free tier or zero-setup tool, since there is no free plan and advanced config takes effort Buyers seeking self-hosted/on-prem deployment, as Rootly is cloud-only

Pricing and plan structure

Cloudways: Published starting price $11 per month (Flexible Micro/Small)

  • Basic$10 month
  • Growth$30 month
  • Scale$80 month

Rootly: Published starting price $20 user/month

  • Incident Response Essentials$20 user/month
  • On-Call Essentials$20 user/month
  • EnterpriseCustom pricing
  • AI SRECustom pricing

Capabilities worth validating

  • Cloudways: the record has no feature-level evidence yet; verify the workflow directly. Integrations include DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud, Vultr.
  • Rootly: AI features, Alerting & on-call, CI/CD pipelines, Incident management, Public API Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, Opsgenie.

Questions to answer before switching

  • Does Cloudways's selected plan include the features and limits we need?
  • Does Rootly's selected plan include the features and limits we need?
  • Does the exact integration path for DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud support the sync direction, permissions, and volume we need?
  • Is a hosted-only deployment acceptable for the team and customers who will use this system?

How to evaluate this shortlist

A useful comparison turns the differences between DevOps tools into a concrete test. Use these steps to avoid choosing from a feature table or the lowest headline price alone.

  1. Start with a representative DevOps workflow, not a feature checklist. Define who will use it, what data goes in, and what outcome the team needs.
  2. Test the complete path through DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud: permissions, sync direction, failure handling, and volume limits often matter more than the integration name.
  3. Compare the cost of the real scenario, including users, usage, storage, support, and contract requirements. The entry price alone does not measure adoption cost.
  4. Before switching, list the evidence gaps, request a demo of the critical workflow, and confirm security, data residency, export, and support with each vendor.

Some signals in these records are still incomplete. Treat that as a prompt to validate the workflow directly, not as a claim that a feature does not exist.

Research basis

Last checked: 2026-08-05. Pricing, integrations, feature support, and review signals can change, so treat this as a research snapshot and verify the final decision with the vendor.

Sources consulted: Cloudways product site, G2, Capterra; Rootly product site, G2, TrustRadius