Vultr is a powerful and developer-centric Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform known for its global presence and high-performance cloud solutions.
With Cloudways, you can seamlessly launch and manage scalable applications on Vultr’s robust infrastructure while enjoying the simplicity of our managed hosting experience.
The combination of Cloudways Managed Hosting Platform and Vultr’s advanced servers delivers superior performance, flexibility, and reliability, along with 24/7 expert support that acts as an extension of your team.
Table of Contents:
Vultr Server Lineup at Cloudways
Cloudways offers multiple Vultr server types tailored to different application needs—from basic hosting to high-performance compute workloads.
This section provides an overview of the available Vultr server families and their ideal use cases to help you choose the right fit.
Vultr Server Family Lineup
To ensure optimal performance across a wide range of workloads, Vultr’s server lineup at Cloudways is categorized into four distinct families:
Standard
High Frequency
General Purpose
CPU Optimized
Each server family is tailored to meet specific application needs, from general web hosting to compute-intensive operations.
Selecting the right server type ensures your application runs smoothly and efficiently.
Let’s explore what each Vultr server family offers.
Standard
The Vultr Standard series is ideal for websites and applications with moderate traffic and typical workloads.
These servers offer a balanced blend of compute and memory resources, making them suitable for blogs, content management systems, small business websites, and development environments.
With affordable pricing and reliable performance, the Standard series is a solid starting point for many users on the Cloudways platform.
Refer to the table below for available Standard server configurations:
Memory | Processor |
1GB | 1 vCPU |
2GB | 1 vCPU |
4GB | 2 vCPU |
8GB | 4 vCPU |
16GB | 6 vCPU |
32GB | 8 vCPU |
64GB | 16 vCPU |
96GB | 24 vCPU |
High Frequency
Vultr High Frequency servers are designed for improved single-threaded performance and reduced latency.
Powered by faster CPUs and NVMe storage, this server type is well-suited for dynamic sites, database-driven applications, and workloads where response time matters.
On Cloudways, High Frequency instances deliver faster data access and performance improvements, especially for applications requiring low-latency processing.
See the table below for High Frequency server options and specifications:
Memory | Processor |
1GB | 1 vCPU |
2GB | 1 vCPU |
4GB | 2 vCPU |
8GB | 3 vCPU |
16GB | 4 vCPU |
32GB | 8 vCPU |
48GB | 12 vCPU |
58GB | 16 vCPU |
General Purpose
The General Purpose series offers a balanced ratio of vCPU and RAM, making it a versatile choice for a wide range of applications.
These instances are great for production workloads, business applications, and medium to large-scale web environments.
With predictable performance and consistent resource allocation, General Purpose servers on Cloudways are ideal for teams seeking performance without overcommitting resources.
Check the table below to explore General Purpose server configurations:
Memory | Processor |
4 GB | 1 vCPU |
8 GB | 2 vCPU |
16 GB | 4 vCPU |
32 GB | 8 vCPU |
64 GB | 16 vCPU |
96 GB | 24 vCPU |
128 GB | 32 vCPU |
160 GB | 40 vCPU |
192 GB | 64 vCPU |
256 GB | 256 vCPU |
CPU Optimized
Vultr CPU Optimized servers are engineered for compute-intensive tasks such as data analysis, CI/CD pipelines, encoding, and high-traffic APIs.
These instances provide dedicated vCPU resources to handle heavy workloads efficiently.
If your application requires sustained high CPU performance, the CPU Optimized series on Cloudways ensures stability, speed, and responsiveness under load.
Review the table below for details on CPU Optimized server plans:
Memory | Processor |
2 GB | 1 vCPU |
4 GB | 2 vCPU |
8 GB | 4 vCPU |
16 GB | 8 vCPU |
32 GB | 16 vCPU |
64 GB | 32 vCPU |
Want to learn more about Vultr's High-Performance General Purpose & CPU Optimized? Click here.
Benchmark
We conducted performance benchmarks across different Vultr server families on Cloudways to compare their processing power and webpage loading speed.
Note:
These benchmarks focus on CPU-intensive tests and may not fully reflect the balanced nature of General Purpose servers.
General Purpose instances are designed for applications that require both CPU power and memory bandwidth—making them ideal for use cases such as:
Magento 2 — which uses services like Elasticsearch, Redis, and RabbitMQ, increasing memory usage.
Laravel — depending on the setup, can benefit from balanced CPU and memory resources.
For such workloads, General Purpose servers often provide the best overall performance.
Benchmark Setup
We used the k6-wordpress-benchmarks methodology to test server performance. The benchmark simulates real user interactions—visiting pages, logging in, browsing, and loading assets—all with no caching enabled to reflect uncached performance.
Configuration:
WordPress App with k6 loadouts
Varnish: Disabled
Redis Object Caching: Disabled
Caching Plugins: Removed
Test Instances:
Standard Series — 6 vCPU / 16 GB RAM
High Frequency Series — 4 vCPU / 16 GB RAM
General Purpose Series — 4 vCPU / 16 GB RAM
CPU-Optimized Series — 8 vCPU / 16 GB RAM
Load Storm (k6) Benchmark Sequence:
Home Page: Simulates an initial visit to the home page
Login Page: Navigates to wp-login and submits stored credentials
Sitemap Pages: Iterates through URLs found in the sitemap
Asset Loading: Retrieves CSS, JS, and image assets, mimicking real user behavior
Note:
The test ramps from 1 to 10,000 users over 20 minutes, then holds at peak load for 10 minutes.
Key Metrics:
Total Requests — Total number of requests generated by k6
p95 — 95th percentile response time (ms)
Page Cum Avg — Average response time for HTML pages (ms)
Asset Cum Avg — Average response time for CSS, JS, and image assets (ms)
Login Cum Avg — Average response time for the wp-profile.php page (ms)
WP-Login Avg Response Time — Average response time for wp-login (including redirect validation)
Instance Type | Total Requests | Avg P95 (ms) | Page Cum Avg (ms) | Asset Cum Avg (ms) | WP-Login Avg Time (ms) |
Standard Vultr | 376000 | 13107 | 8546 | 1393 | 9000 |
High Frequency Vultr | 431000 | 11076 | 6856 | 1184 | 7000 |
General Purpose Vultr | 473200 | 9241 | 13992 | 2096 | 6000 |
CPU Optimized Vultr | 897900 | 2245 | 3094 | 569 | 2000 |
Virtual Users: 10,000, Duration: 30 minutes, Cache Status: No-Cache
Discussion
The benchmark results highlight notable performance differences across the four Vultr server types in a 30-minute, no-cache test with 10,000 virtual users:
CPU Optimized Vultr:
Handles ~139% more total requests with 83% faster average P95 times, 78% faster WP-Login response, and over 60% lower cumulative page and asset load times than Standard Vultr. Ideal for high-traffic, demanding workloads with consistently fast performance.High Frequency Vultr:
Offers strong request handling and moderate latency, balancing price and performance well. Supports significant traffic with better response times than Standard and General Purpose, though slightly behind CPU Optimized in the most demanding scenarios.General Purpose Vultr:
Processes ~26% more total requests with 30% faster average P95 times and 33% faster WP-Login response than Standard Vultr, plus significantly lower cumulative page and asset load times. A solid option for balanced workloads needing improved concurrency.Standard Vultr:
Delivers the lowest request throughput with higher latency. Best suited for low to moderate traffic or development environments where concurrency demands are limited.
Webpage Speed Benchmark
We also measured page load performance using WebPageTest, which simulates a full page load and captures how quickly different elements appear on the screen.
Results are recorded in seconds.
Key Metrics:
Time to First Byte (TTFB): When the server starts sending content to the browser
First Contentful Paint (FCP): When the first visible text or image appears
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): When the main content of the page finishes loading
Page Speed Benchmark — Configuration:
WordPress App with k6 loadouts
Varnish: Disabled
Redis Object Caching: Disabled
Caching Plugins: Removed
Data Center: London
WebPageTest Location: London
Instance Type | Time to First Byte | First Contentful Paint | Largest Contentful Paint |
Standard Vultr | 0.314 | 0.582 | 0.686 |
High Frequency Vultr | 0.242 | 0.541 | 0.601 |
General Purpose Vultr | 0.236 | 0.601 | 0.623 |
CPU Optimized Vultr | 0.231 | 0.537 | 0.597 |
Discussion
These results highlight how quickly each Vultr server type delivers and renders content in a light-load scenario:
Time to First Byte (TTFB): General Purpose Vultr is approximately 24.84% faster than Standard Vultr. CPU Optimized Vultr is approximately 26.43% faster than Standard Vultr.
First Contentful Paint (FCP): Standard Vultr is slightly faster than General Purpose Vultr. CPU Optimized Vultr is approximately 7.73% faster than Standard Vultr.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): General Purpose Vultr is approximately 9.18% faster than Standard Vultr. CPU Optimized Vultr is approximately 12.97% faster than Standard Vultr.
Launching a New Application on a Vultr Server
Follow the steps below to launch a new application on your preferred Vultr server through the Cloudways Platform.
Step #1:
Log in to your Cloudways Platform.
From the main dashboard, click the arrow icon next to your current server group under the "Flexible" section to open the server management panel.
Step #2:
Inside the Servers tab, click on the blue “Add Server” button to initiate the server launch process.
Step #3:
Fill out the required details to deploy your managed application:
Select Application – Choose your desired application from the dropdown.
Application Name – Provide a recognizable name for your application.
Server Name – Enter a name for your server.
Select Your Project – Choose or create a project to group your applications.
Under “Select Your Server”, click on the Vultr option to proceed with deploying on a Vultr server.
Choose your preferred Application Stack. (Learn more about New Cloudways Lightning Stack by reading this blog)
You can now choose your preferred Database type.
Step #4:
Choose the Server Type based on your application’s requirements:
Standard – Good for low-medium traffic websites.
High Frequency – Optimized for performance and low latency.
General Purpose – Balanced for memory and CPU needs.
CPU Optimized – Best for compute-heavy applications.
Step #5:
From the Location dropdown on the same page, select the region where you want your Vultr server to be deployed (e.g., Northern Virginia).
Once you’ve configured all the options, click the “Launch Now” button to deploy your new application on the selected Vultr server.
Note: Server prices may vary based on the selected server type, memory size, and deployment location.
That’s it! We hope this article was helpful.
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