What "managed hosting" means at Flashcloud

You'll see "managed" thrown around a lot in hosting marketing. It often means very different things from one host to the next. Here's exactly what we manage on your behalf so there's no ambiguity.

What we handle

Servers and OS

• OS-level updates and patches — Linux kernel, system libraries, security patches. We apply them with minimal downtime, on a schedule that respects your traffic.
• Web server tuning — LiteSpeed configuration, PHP version pinning, opcache settings. Our defaults are sane for the vast majority of sites.
• Database server — MariaDB version pinning, query cache, connection pooling.
• Reboots and maintenance — when needed, scheduled with notice; emergency maintenance announced via the status page.

Security

• Patching for known CVEs in the underlying stack.
• Firewall — blocking malicious IP ranges, brute-force attempts, common attack patterns.
• DDoS protection at the edge (Cloudflare).
• Malware scanning — ImunifyAV scans your account; we email you if it finds anything suspicious.
• Web application firewall (ModSecurity) — pattern-matching against known attack types in real time.
• SSL — auto-issued and auto-renewed Let's Encrypt for every domain on your account.

Performance

• Caching stack — LSCache server-level, LiteSpeed Cache plugin (WordPress), Redis object cache (WordPress). All pre-configured. See The cache stack we ship with every WordPress install.
• CDN — Cloudflare integrated for shared/WordPress hosting.
• HTTP/3, Brotli, NVMe storage — modern defaults across the platform.

Backups

• Daily automatic backups for shared and WordPress hosting (JetBackup, 30-day retention).
• Backups stored separately from your live data.
• One-click restore from the portal.

DNS and email

• DNS at our nameservers, Cloudflare-backed.
• MX/SPF/DKIM/DMARC records auto-configured for any domain on hosting that uses our email.
• Mail server running and patched.

Monitoring

• 24/7 monitoring on every server. If a service goes down, our on-call team gets paged.

What's yours

You own and manage:

• Your code — what's in public_html, your WordPress themes/plugins, custom PHP, etc.
• Your application-level security — keeping WordPress core/plugins/themes updated, using strong passwords, choosing well-maintained plugins.
• Your content — pages, posts, media, databases.
• Your domains — registration, contact info, transfer decisions.
• Your application configuration — wp-config.php, .htaccess, environment variables.
• Your application backups — we do server-level backups, but if you want application-aware WordPress backups (with restore points before plugin updates, etc.), use UpdraftPlus or similar.

What this means in practice

• A WordPress plugin gets a critical security update — you update it. We notify you, but the responsibility for application updates is yours.
• The server kernel gets a CVE — we patch it. You don't need to know.
• Your wp-config.php is misconfigured — that's yours. We can help via support but it's application-level.
• MariaDB has an outage on the server — that's ours. We restore service and follow up.
• Your site gets hacked because of an outdated plugin — we help you clean it up, but the prevention was application-level.

Where the line gets blurry

A few cases where it's not obvious:

• PHP version on your account — you choose the version (7.4 → 8.3, default 8.3). We provide all of them and keep them patched.
• .htaccess rules — you write them; we serve them. If a rule breaks your site, that's an application issue.
• Database performance — server-level MariaDB tuning is ours; query optimization in your app is yours.

When in doubt, open a ticket — we don't fight over jurisdiction. If something's broken and we can fix it, we will.