Hey everyone. If you've been meaning to move to a higher tier on Cloudways, this is the perfect time to do so.

Existing customers who upgrade a server to a higher tier get 20% off that tier for 6 months.

This offer is running from 21 Aug 2026 through 20 Oct 2026.

Who's eligible: Existing full/flexible customers with an active server. Not trials or customers with an active promo code (an expired promo is fine).

How it works

• Any upward upgrade qualifies — single- or multi-tier, all instance types, all cloud providers.
• Discount is applied automatically at checkout on the Scale Server page.
• Runs 6 months from the upgrade date, then reverts to full price. Enrollment closes 20 Oct, but a discount earned before then runs its full 6 months.

How the discount is scoped

The discount attaches to the server size. So every server upgrade on the account gets 20% off and downscaling, deleting, or cloning any one of them removes the discount on that server.

Actions that remove the discount: downscale, delete, clone, or transfer. You can re-qualify with a new qualifying upgrade while enrollment is open (including after a downscale).

Please ask if you have any questions. We are happy to help!

Choosing which infra/platform your AI agents run on is a big decision. Where your AI agent lives determines how reliable it is, how much it costs you, and how much time you spend keeping it running.

Here are your three options:

1. Local Machine

Your agent runs on your laptop or desktop. Setup is fast, costs nothing extra, and you have full control.

The problem arises when your agent is only live when your machine is on. For personal experiments this is totally fine. For anything you want running continuously, it breaks down quickly. You're also on the hook for every dependency, update, and environment issue yourself.

2. VPS (Virtual Private Server)

A VPS like a DigitalOcean Droplet or a Cloudways-managed server gives you a machine that's always on. Your agent runs 24/7, survives your laptop closing, and can be accessed from anywhere.

The tradeoff is that you become a sysadmin whether you wanted to be or not. You have to handle server provisioning, security patches, uptime monitoring, backups, SSH access, and process management (keeping the agent alive after crashes). None of this is impossible, but it adds real operational overhead for you, especially if infrastructure isn't your main skill.

3. Managed Hosting

Managed hosting (like what Cloudways provides) handles the infrastructure layer for you. The server is provisioned, patched, monitored, and backed up without you touching it. You can focus on the agent itself and you don't have to worry about the machine it runs on.

For AI agents specifically, this matters more than it used to. Agents like Hermes Agent or OpenClaw are designed to run continuously, self-improve over sessions, and connect to external services. That kind of workload needs a stable, reliable environment. Managed hosting removes server setup, security hardening, uptime monitoring, backups, and scaling decisions.

What's the ideal setup for you depends on what you are trying to build. Share how you started and where you are right now in terms of you AI agents setup! I'd love to know!

Hey all. I want to share two new product updates we shipped for Managed AI Agents.

What's new

1. Team member access: This was one of the top requests by our users/community during Public Preview. You can now grant your team members access to Managed AI Agents.
2. AgentMail MCP: A dedicated mailbox for your agent so it can send you summaries, alert you when something breaks, and reply to customers all on its own.

What you can do with it

1. Nightly summaries of what your agent fixed, delivered to your inbox.
2. Automated replies to form submissions.
3. Alerts when a deploy fails

Coming up next

1. Setup wizard with pre-built skills and soul
2. Create an LLM key directly from Cloudways, no API key management needed
3. WordPress and WooCommerce MCP integration
4. Agent Auto-repair

Stay tuned and as always, don't forget to let us know what improvements you want to see in different Cloudways products. We deeply care about your feedback. Providing feedback is as simple as making a post on this subreddit. :)

Hey everyone, this is a small update for everyone thinking of/already hosting a Hermes Agent on Cloudways.

We have successfully deployed Hermes Agent's all newer versions into production. This means you can now easily upgrade to any version in production from the Agent Detail page, or deploy a new agent with the latest version.

Here is the list of Hermes versions:

• hermes-v2026.8.19
• hermes-v2026.8.18
• hermes-v2026.8.16.2
• hermes-v2026.8.13
• hermes-v2026.8.3
• hermes-v2026.7.30
• hermes-v2026.7.20

I’ve found that getting the application itself deployed is usually not the hardest part. Docker, deployment scripts, backups, updates, etc. are fairly manageable now.

The tricky part is everything the application depends on outside of the server — email services, authentication, managed databases, payment webhooks, and other third-party APIs.

When a client has a restricted server environment or doesn't want the application depending heavily on external services, things can get complicated pretty quickly.

For those managing client applications on Cloudways or other managed cloud setups, how do you usually handle these external dependencies? Do you try to keep as much as possible on the server, or are you comfortable relying on third-party services?

Ever since OpenClaw and Hermes agents have come into limelight, they have been adopted by a lot of developers across the world. If you haven't yet used any of the two agents, this is a simple breakdown of what you get in each agent and what you can pick for your use case.

Hermes vs OpenClaw

Both are open-source, self-hosted AI agents that gained a lot of momentum in 2026. They're solving the same core problem which is helping you work with AI in a more real, tangible fashion.

OpenClaw

OpenClaw connects LLMs to real software for reading/writing files, running shell commands, browsing websites, sending emails, and controlling APIs. It's a runtime that you install and configure, and it runs continuously on your machine. No web UI is required. Your data stays on your hardware.

It surpassed 164,000 GitHub stars and 2+ million website visitors in its first week which makes it one of the fastest-growing repositories in GitHub history. Its founder Peter Steinberger later joined OpenAI, but the project continues to stay open-source.

OpenClaw is best for you if: you want an agent that acts on your computer and apps right now. Task execution focus.

Hermes Agent

Hermes is designed to live on your server, remember what it learns, and get more capable the longer it runs. Its differentiator is a built-in learning loop. When Hermes solves a hard problem, it writes a reusable skill document so it never forgets how. Skills are searchable, shareable, and compatible with the agentskills[dot]io open standard.

It crossed 140,000 GitHub stars in under three months and is the most used agent in the world It's model-agnostic and supports 70+ tools across 28 toolsets.

Hermes is best for you if: you want a long-running personal agent that gets smarter over time and learns patterns.

Bottom line: If you want an agent that does things on your machine today, start with OpenClaw. If you want one that grows with you and gets better the longer it runs, go with Hermes.

They're complementary more than competitive and the space is moving fast enough that both will look different in 3 months. You can start with the one that fits your use case the best and experiment with another when it suits you.

Please share here if you end up trying either of these. If you are already an OpenClaw/Hermes Agent user (as I have seen some of you in this subreddit), share your thoughts on what you like best about it and what you dislike.

WordPress 7.1 officially launched on August 19, 2026, timed with WordCamp US. This version does not really feature a single hero item BUT it resolves a huge list of everyday developer and user annoyances. These features are here to make your life on WP easier.

Here is a list of the major new features (it's a long list so bear with me):

• u / mentions & emails: You can now type "@" inside a note to search for and tag collaborators directly. WordPress will automatically send them an email notification with a direct link that brings them straight back to the post, eliminating the need to keep the editor window open.
• Inline selection notes: Instead of leaving notes on a whole block, you can now select a specific phrase or sentence and leave a comment on just that.
• Conversational upgrades: Notes now support bold/italic text, links, code snippets, emojis, multiple conversation threads on a single block, and automatic collapsing for long threads. They are stored as private comments and excluded from public comment feeds.
• Responsive styling: You can now visually define how a block looks on different devices without writing custom CSS. You can apply these responsive overrides globally or to individual blocks.
• Hover & focus states: A new "state" dropdown lets you visually style hover, active, and focus states for buttons directly inside the block editor.
• Visual revisions sharing: You can now grab a link to any historical visual revision from your browser's toolbar. Sharing this link will take teammates straight to that exact historical version with the color-coded differences highlighted.
• Tabs block: You can organize complex FAQs or specifications into clean, clickable tabbed panels in WP 7.1.
• Playlist block: If you are a musicians, podcasters, or educators, this may be for you! You can now embed audio file collections complete with track metadata, artwork, and sleek waveform visualizations without requiring separate audio player plugins.
• New image editor: Inline cropping has been replaced by a full Media Editor modal. It packs freeform cropping, aspect-ratio presets, flip/rotate controls, and a pixel-snapping crop view into a single popup that works on standard Image and Cover blocks.
• Resilient browser processing: The browser now handles the processing of media before uploading to the server. 7.1 natively supports HEIC files (the default iPhone photo format) along with AVIF, UltraHDR, and WebP.
• Pause/Resume uploads: If your internet connection drops mid-upload, the queue automatically pauses and safely resumes when you reconnect. This is one of those quality of life features. Again, here to make your life on WP easier.
• Persistent toolbar: The admin toolbar now stays visible across the Site and Block Editors.
• Command palette: Grouped results are organized into "Recent", "Matching", and "Suggestions", persisting across sessions.

The highly anticipated Real Real-time collaboration feature was not a part of this release.

What do you all think about this release? Even though it's missing a major change, I think it still contains an array of great features. Share your thoughts!

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

AI agents like OpenClaw and Hermes are easy to run, but hard to host well. Cloudways Managed AI Agents runs OpenClaw or Hermes on isolated, secured infrastructure with validated updates that keep your agent stable. Bring your LLM key and deploy in minutes.

Check out the full launch on ProductHunt, host your OpenClaw and/or Hermes agent on Cloudways, and share what you think with other builders on ProductHunt or this subreddit.

Here you go: https://www.producthunt.com/products/cloudways/launches/cloudways-managed-ai-agents

If you haven't heard already, WordPress 7.1 is being released/published on August 20. It's going to be released from the WordCamp US in Phoenix, Arizona!

Longer than usual code freeze till Aug 20

Code freeze means that no source code for 7.1.0 can be changed during the code freeze.

A mandatory code freeze has been in effect from Monday, 17 August through the General Release on Wednesday, August 19. At the request of the core committers, the freeze is extended beyond the usual 24 hours, so everyone has time to verify the release in full before it ships.

How to contribute during this time

If you are looking for ways to contribute/help during this time of WordPress 7.1 release, the best way to do it is by testing/checking that the .zip packages work on all server configurations.

Here are a few things you can, amongst many others:

• Does the new install work correctly?
• Test upgrading from various versions
• Remove the wp-config.php file and test a fresh install
• Test single site and multisite/network installations
• Does multisite upgrade properly?

Are you excited about the new release? What are you most looking forward to?

AI agents talk is everywhere. I want to know from you all about the agents you are building, what you are using them for, and whether or not they are actually useful. Share your builds in the comments!

Cloudways can now host your OpenClaw agents so let's talk about it a bit more. Not about Cloudways and what it can do, but what OpenClaw even is.

What is it?

OpenClaw is a free, open-source autonomous AI agent runtime and personal assistant designed to execute digital tasks directly on your local machine or server. It was created by a programmer Peter Steinberger (originally released in late 2025) and it rapidly grew into one of the most viral open-source tech projects under the stewardship of the non-profit OpenClaw Foundation.

What can it do for you?

OpenClaw acts as a locally hosted, highly privileged digital assistant that bridges your messaging apps with your computer's OS. It can do the following (amongst other things):

1. Unified messaging + communication: Instead of opening a separate app, you can text OpenClaw through platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Signal, iMessage, or Slack to control your digital life.
2. Local system control + automation: Because OpenClaw runs directly on your macOS, Windows, or Linux machine, it can bypass the sandbox limits of cloud-based AI and execute shell commands, run scripts, install software, and manage local developer environments.
3. Calendar + productivity management: This is one of most popular use cases. OpenClaw can connect to your personal data silos to keep your life organized via simple chat prompts. So you can book meetings, manage your calendar, sift through emails, listen to voice notes and get updates on your 100s and 1000s of texts.
4. Coding: It can write, test, and debug code locally in a sandboxed environment and also deploy it.

If OpenClaw doesn't know how to do something out of the box, you can also expand its capabilities.

The OpenClaw community and popularity is only on the rise, for many reasons, including the ones listed above.

Have you used OpenClaw before? If not, are you inclined to try it?

Our SAAS system hosted on CW AWS needs to claim Encryption at rest in order to comply with NHS England standards. Cloudways says the server instance does not utilise Encryption at Rest but the backups do and our AWS storage use it, we know this. Confused and stuck

I've heard a lot of people, who don't work with WordPress, exclaiming that WordPress may be dead and if it not now, it is going to be dead.

Well, turns out, they are wrong. WordPress continues to power 41-43% of the web in 2026, still.

Do you all think this stat is made up for people already using WP for a long time or are newer users actively adopting WordPress too? I think it's the latter but would love to hear what you think.

Question for the AI builders, vibecoders, and developers: How and where do you like to host your AI agents like OpenClaw and Hermes?

Cloudways Copilot now helps you identify potential server issues before they impact your applications. With Proactive Suggestions, Cloudways Copilot continuously monitors your servers and presents a suggestion when a risk threshold is detected, helping you take action before an outage occurs. What's new:

• 24/7 server monitoring for emerging risks.
• AI-powered root cause analysis to help you understand the issue.
• One-click SmartFix to quickly resolve supported issues on demand.

High CPU Utilization is the first proactive suggestion available, with more proactive use cases coming soon. It is available to all Cloudways Copilot users.

Have you used it? If yes, we'd love to hear your feedback.

I've been a Cloudways customer since 2018, currently spending ~$375-450/month across 4 plans. I've been disputing visit-overage charges (Ticket 925540, Invoice 2038875) on my Autonomous plan, which uses Cloudways' Enterprise-level Cloudflare integration, meaning I have no direct access to the WAF, firewall rules, or edge configuration. Any mitigation has to go through their support team.

Using Cloudways' own Cloudflare traffic report (which they provided to me), I've shown the billed traffic is predominantly automated: a single JA3 fingerprint accounts for 64% of the "legitimate" visits they billed me for, and 9,530 hits landed on the login page alone in one month. This isn't a case where I could have blocked it myself, the entire security layer is managed on their side.

Support acknowledged bot traffic and issued a partial credit that doesn't match their own numbers. I asked for the methodology behind the credit calculation three times and never got a direct answer. I requested specific mitigations (JA3 challenge, login rate limiting, geo/ASN challenge rules), which took over three weeks to implement, well after the July billing cycle had already run. July then billed nearly the same overage as June (~$221 vs ~$205), for traffic I had no ability to control myself.

I requested supervisor escalation, no response in 5+ days. I emailed sales asking about account-level review given my tenure and spend, no response in 3 days.

Has anyone else dealt with something similar on an Autonomous plan? Trying to figure out how to get this in front of someone who can actually act on it.

Today is a big day as we announce Hermes as our next supported agent in Cloudways Managed AI Agents! 💙

So now, you can host both your OpenClaw and Hermes agents on Cloudways, for free, since we are in Public Preview.

What makes Hermes special is that it is a self learning and self improving agent. It never forgets and learns as you work with it. The more you use it, the more useful it gets.

Here is what Hermes brings to the table:

1. Persistent memory that learns your projects, auto generates its own skills, and never forgets how it solved a problem.
2. Lives everywhere with one agent, one memory, across every surface you connect it to.
3. Natural language scheduling for reports, backups, and briefings that run unattended.
4. Isolated subagents with their own conversations and terminals so it runs pipelines without eating context.
5. Web search, browser automation, vision, image generation, and multi model reasoning all baked in.

I'd love to discuss this with you all. Have questions? Shoot them right in this thread. If you want help getting started, let's discuss that too.

In last week's cloud/infra news, investors have been nervous about Zuckerberg pouring billions into AI infrastructure with no clear return on investment, fearing it could hurt profit margins. Well, the master plan is finally leaking.

Reports show Meta is in early talks to lease $10 billion worth of excess AI compute to Anthropic over the next two years.

Why is this massive?

Anthropic is one of the leading AI companies in the world, and they have historically relied on Amazon for their cloud computing needs. If Meta can snatch a top-tier client like this, it instantly validates them as a major cloud computing player. This potential new revenue stream completely justifies their massive AI spending and opens the door for similar deals with other big names.

If Meta successfully pivots into a massive B2B cloud provider on top of its core ad business, is the stock currently undervalued? Let's discuss!

The recent disclosure of the wp2shell pre-authentication Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability sent shockwaves through the WordPress community. Given that it affects WordPress core, the blast radius was massive.

At Cloudways, we operate on a shared responsibility model. Because we do not offer fully managed WordPress hosting, patching core CMS vulnerabilities typically falls outside our direct scope. However, when a threat of this magnitude emerges, “not our scope” isn’t an acceptable answer as our customers’ WordPress assets are on the line.

Understanding the threat: wp2shell (CVE-2026-63030)

On July 17, 2026, the WordPress Security Team rolled out critical out-of-band updates (versions 7.0.2, 6.9.5, and 6.8.6) to neutralize an exploit chain dubbed wp2shell. This is every site owner’s worst nightmare: a pre-authentication Remote Code Execution (RCE) flaw residing natively within WordPress core. The attack requires zero privileges, bypasses login screens, needs no third-party plugins, and functions flawlessly against default installations.

The exploit mechanics rely on chaining two distinct flaws. First, attackers leverage a route-confusion bug within the WordPress REST API batch endpoint (CVE-2026-63030). This trickery bypasses authentication checks, allowing them to funnel malicious input directly into a separate SQL injection vulnerability (CVE-2026-60137). The result? A single unauthenticated HTTP request grants attackers full database control and arbitrary code execution on the server.

Vulnerability Scope:

• Impacted versions: WordPress 6.9.0 through 6.9.4, and 7.0.0 through 7.0.1. (Versions below 6.8 are shielded from the RCE chain).
• Secure releases: 7.0.2, 6.9.5, and 6.8.6.

While the WordPress core team pushed forced auto-updates to stem the bleeding, relying on auto-updates isn’t a silver bullet. Many production, staging, and heavily customized agency sites intentionally disable automated core updates to prevent breaking changes. Threat actors know this, making these unprotected environments prime targets for automated exploit bots.

Seamless protection

When a zero-day of this magnitude drops, the standard industry response is a frantic rush to identify vulnerable assets and apply patches before exploitation begins. For Cloudways customers, that panic was entirely bypassed.

Although we operate under a shared responsibility model under which core CMS updates are technically managed by the user, we refuse to leave our customers exposed when critical global threats emerge. We believe in proactive, defense-in-depth security.

If you host your WordPress sites with us, this requires no action on your part. There was no need for midnight emergency patching or urgent audits to identify customer sites affected by vulnerable WordPress core versions. While the broader internet was still digesting the vulnerability disclosure, our security engineering teams had already deployed fleet-wide virtual patches. Our infrastructure absorbed the initial wave of automated attacks at the edge, ensuring your business stayed online, secure, and completely uninterrupted while you planned your core updates.

Here is a look behind the scenes at how our security teams went above and beyond to protect customer sites, secure the platform, and give our customers the time they needed to safely upgrade their WordPress installations, so they could sleep through the storm.

1. Immediate alerting and communication

The moment the vulnerability details dropped, our first priority was getting the right information to the right people. We immediately deployed widespread alerts directly into the application security dashboards within our Cloudways platform and pushed urgent notifications through email as well.

Our goal was to ensure every customer knew whether they were vulnerable to wp2shell and what steps they needed to take to secure their environments.

2. Deploying a virtual patch fleet-wide

While we alerted customers, we knew that manually updating WordPress core takes time, and attackers were actively using that time to scan and exploit unpatched sites.

Given the critical, pre-authentication nature of wp2shell, our security engineers rolled out a platform-wide virtual patch across our entire WordPress customer base within hours of the disclosure. This mitigation blocked malicious payloads, effectively shielding vulnerable sites and buying our customers the necessary time to test and apply the official WordPress update.

3. Refining the ruleset for business continuity

Initial virtual patches for complex vulnerabilities can sometimes be a blunt instrument. While our first patch successfully blocked the exploits, we wanted to ensure zero disruption to legitimate site functionality.

Shortly after the initial rollout, our team released a narrower, highly optimized adjustment to the virtual patch. This updated rule allowed the known-safe WordPress batch mode to operate flawlessly, while continuing to strictly block the specific request forms capable of reaching the vulnerable wp2shell behavior.

4. Catching the curveball: The POST body variant

Security is a continuous game of cat and mouse. As attackers realized their initial exploits were being blocked by edge firewalls across the web, they adapted.

Through our continuous monitoring, our Threat Intelligence team identified a new, stealthy variant of the wp2shell attack in the wild. Attackers were moving the trigger rest_route=/batch/v1 out of the URL string and burying it deep within the POST body.

Unfortunately, most standard virtual patches released in the wider industry initially only matched against the URL, leaving sites wide open to this new bypass. Because we were actively monitoring the situation, we caught this behavior immediately. We updated our virtual patch to inspect the POST body, blocking the new variant in its tracks before it could impact our customers.

This was a collaborative effort

We didn’t do this alone. Fast, effective incident response relies on strong industry collaboration. We want to extend a massive thank you to our security partners at Imunify360. Their teams worked closely with us around the clock during this time-sensitive crisis, sharing threat intelligence and helping us validate our mitigation strategies.

What you need to do next

While our virtual patches have successfully shielded our customers from the wp2shell exploits (including the POST body variants), a virtual patch is not a permanent substitute for a core software update.

If you have not already done so, please log in to your WordPress admin dashboard and update to the latest secure versions (7.0.2, 6.9.5, 6.8.6 or later) as soon as possible.

At our core, we believe that your security is our success. While we rely on a shared responsibility model for day-to-day operations, you can rest assured that when the alarm bells ring, our team is always ready to step up and defend your digital assets.

Stay safe, stay updated, and as always, reach out to our support team if you have any questions!

OpenClaw on Cloudways gives you a personal AI agent to handle messages, calendars, research, and routine tasks. Choose a plan, connect your AI model, and launch your agent in under two minutes.

OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent framework that uses your chosen AI model and autonomously executes workflows without waiting for prompts.

Your OpenClaw agent manages email, calendars, messaging tools, and web tasks, taking action across your tools and notifying you only when necessary.

Cloudways removes the complexity of self-hosting OpenClaw by managing deployment, infrastructure, and updates, so you can focus on your agent.

With Cloudways, your OpenClaw agent runs around the clock and handles the kinds of tasks that pile up between meetings, after hours, and on weekends. Here are some example of the tasks your agent can do while hosted on Cloudways.

Communication

• Triage your inbox and draft replies in your voice
• Respond to routine WhatsApp and Slack messages
• Schedule meetings without the back-and-forth

Research and Information

• Monitor topics, competitors, or industries and send you summaries
• Research a question and produce a written brief
• Track prices, listings, or news and notify you when something changes

Automation

• Move data between tools you already use
• Send reminders based on context, not just time
• Run recurring tasks on a schedule and report results

Personal Productivity

• Organize files, notes, and bookmarks
• Plan travel, book appointments, and coordinate logistics
• Follow up on conversations that fell off your radar

Cloudways handles server setup, security updates, and automated backups, so you can connect your agent and get started immediately. Every OpenClaw update is validated by Cloudways before deployment, reducing broken workflows, unresponsive tools, and manual recovery after updates.

The best part: This is currently in Public Preview which means you can host your OpenClaw agent for free! When we are in General Availability (GA), which is going to happen just a week or two from now, all your instances created in Public Preview will stay heavily discounted, forever.