Web Hosting vs. Cloud Hosting
Hosting provides storage & computing resources to host your website. It also offers the facilities and services to create & maintain a site.
Choosing the right hosting is essential for the site's speed & security. There are many types of hosting options available in the market.
The primary hosting types are traditional web hosting & cloud hosting. Each option has its pros & cons with different functionality.
In this article, we show the differences between web hosting vs. cloud hosting. Consider which type of hosting service is right for you.
Overview of Web Hosting
Web hosting is a service where your files are stored on a single server at a data center, which is different from cloud hosting that utilizes a network of interconnected servers.
The web host offers the physical hardware, software & network infrastructure to maintain your site on a server, whereas cloud hosting service providers maintain your site on interconnected servers.
The amount of storage & IT resources depends on your web hosting requirements.
The common types of web hosting are:
-
Shared hosting
The hosting provider offers the server to many companies. It is the least expensive type of hosting because you are sharing the resources with other websites. These resources are CPU, memory, web server software & storage.
However, you get less performance & security with shared hosting as compared to cloud hosting servers due to the difference in architecture and resource allocation. If one website has unexpected traffic, it can use up most of the server resources. As a result, the other sites can slow down due to a lack of resources.
Similarly, if a site has a cyberattack, it can make all the other sites vulnerable. Shared hosting is best for personal blogs and businesses that don’t deal with sensitive or transactional data.
-
Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting
In VPS hosting, the websites are stored on a single physical machine, but unlike traditional web hosting, cloud hosting is based on interconnected servers. It provides a part of the server called the dedicated virtual server.
You get more control over the resources such as web server software, OS, and more.
It has higher costs than shared hosting, but you get better performance & security. Any security breaches or traffic influx are less likely to affect your site.
-
Dedicated hosting
In dedicated hosting, you get full access to the physical server & resources. You do not have to share the server with any other company.
It offers more control over the hardware & software server components. As a result, your site is not affected by issues from any other sites.
Dedicated hosting is expensive & requires maintenance, but with cloud hosting services, you can compare web hosting sites for cloud server hosting prices that may be more cost-effective. You must have in-house IT staff to ensure your server is optimized & secure.
Overview of Cloud Hosting
Cloud hosting is a network of servers that hosts your website & applications. Unlike traditional web hosting, the website is not hosted on a single physical server. All the server resources are available virtually.
Cloud hosting offers more availability & scaling than traditional hosting due to its flexible resource allocation and interconnected servers. You get different cloud computing models based on your requirements.
Cloud hosting platform is applied in many types:
- Public cloud
- Private cloud
- Hybrid cloud
- Multi-cloud
Why use cloud hosting?
With cloud hosting, you do not have to rely on a physical data center as you get virtual space, and you can compare different cloud service providers and cloud hosting plans to find the best fit for your business.
There are also lesser upfront costs & it comes with pay-as-you-go pricing. So instead of renting for space on a physical server, you only pay for the resources used.
For better security, you can opt for dedicated virtual servers. Multiple server environments give easy load balancing in cloud hosting. You can use a hosting control panel to manage your cloud environments. Check the cloud hosting charges and choose the option that best suits your business.
Web Hosting vs. Cloud Hosting Comparison
1. Performance
The website performance depends on the server. It processes client requests & offers enough resources for site uptime.
An optimal server offers high performance & faster page loading time, but cloud hosting can offer even better performance due to its architecture and resource allocation. It improves the user experience & ranks higher in search engines.
For websites with little traffic, a traditional web hosting service such as shared hosting works quite well.
However, for websites that handle large amounts of traffic, opt for cloud hosting.
Cloud hosting is flexible in terms of resource allocation. During high traffic, you can quickly increase capacity & balance server load.
The network of server environments reduces the load on the server resources. A hosting control panel can help you monitor your cloud resources efficiently. You get consistent performance with cloud hosting on a virtual desktop due to its unlimited resources.
Cloud hosting thus has the capabilities to offer higher performance & availability than traditional web hosting.
2. Security
Server security is essential to protect against malicious attacks & data theft.
With traditional hosting, if there are any hardware failures or cyber-attacks, you risk downtime & losing your data, but with cloud hosting, your data is stored on multiple interconnected servers and handled by cloud service providers, reducing the risk of downtime and data loss. You cannot create multiple redundancies for your data & backups in web hosting.
The hosting provider must maintain server security, so it is essential to opt for a quality web hosting provider. If it is a dedicated server, you have to handle the server security workloads.
With cloud hosting, the data is stored on multiple servers in remote locations. The hosting provider also maintains copies of the data for faster recovery.
In case of a disaster, the data is quickly restored using the cloud hosting solution. The cloud hosting provider handles the server security. With advanced cloud storage solutions, you get overall better security.
3. Scaling & Flexibility
As your business grows, you may have to scale the computing resources.
In web hosting, you can change the hosting plan or the service provider, whereas with cloud hosting services, you can compare different cloud hosting services and providers to find the best fit for your business needs. It is more challenging to scale a dedicated physical server.
There is little flexibility to increase RAM, network bandwidth, and services in real-time. You have to add another physical server for the target location.
cloud hosting has more flexibility with scaling resources. You can quickly upscale & downscale resources based on traffic demands.
With a growing business, you have unlimited server resources available globally. It is not difficult to add more capacity to the server with cloud hosting.
You can respond to server load effectively & avoid downtime.
Cloud hosting companies s also offer Autoscaling services. The resources on aws vs. any physical server are different as AWS resources are adjusted automatically based on traffic spikes.
Autoscaling is very important to make sure that your services stay online when traffic increases unexpectedly.
4. Reliability
Hardware, software, and facility issues can lead to server failure. Your site may be unavailable to users for several hours until the problem is fixed. The web host has to maintain server health to provide high uptime.
Web hosting makes the site dependent on a single physical server. It reduces the overall reliability of the resources, which is not a problem in cloud hosting due to its architecture and interconnected servers.
Cloud hosting offers a network of servers that store your data. If one server goes down due to hardware failure, it is quickly replaced by another.
You get far better reliability in cloud hosting to maintain uptime & data protection.
5. Resource Allocation
Proper resource allocation ensures that you get the best site performance. You have to identify the number of resources required for your workloads.
The web hosting provider may offer additional resources & services, but it is easier to adjust resources with cloud hosting due to its flexibility and cloud resource allocation components such as resource allocation limit and reservations, resource allocation shares, and policies of resource allocation. These could be automatic backups or free domain registration. Check the cloud server space price on your chosen cloud hosting platforms.
The resources can get wasted in traditional web hosting. It can consume more power & space with little turnover. It is also not possible to allocate resources on demand & in real-time dynamically.
It is much easier to adjust resources with cloud hosting due to its flexibility. The cloud resource allocation may involve the following components:
- Resource allocation limit & reservations
- Resource allocation shares
- Policies of resource allocation
You can adjust the CPU, memory, and other metrics in real-time using cloud hosting.
6. Architecture
For traditional web hosting, it is a challenge to design a scalable architecture. That is because you host the websites on a single physical server.
The web hosting framework is limited to the location of the data center. If you want to host the site for a different country, the traditional hosting model falls short.
Cloud hosting uses multiple servers to host a single website. The architecture is based on a network so that you can expand your business to many countries.
7. Cost
Web hosting comes with a fixed pricing plan. You have to pay for the resources, whether you use them or not.
Shared hosting is the least expensive, whereas dedicated hosting will be more expensive.
With cloud hosting, you only pay for the resources you use. It comes with a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
Some cloud hosting providers let you pay for resources by the hour. So it can be more cost-effective as a hosting solution.
However, optimizing cloud spend requires infrastructure knowledge. Ensure that you have a technical staff or opt for managed cloud hosting.
Conclusion
Web hosting & cloud hosting offer a lot of services & computing resources to the user. Analyze your business requirements before you choose a hosting type.
If you do not have to scale your business & want high security, opt for dedicated web hosting. You require initial investment & trained staff to maintain the server.
The shared web hosting model is inexpensive but has loops in security & site speed. It is more suitable for personal blogs & small businesses.
If scaling & flexibility is essential for your business, cloud hosting is a better option. There is a lower initial capital investment with cloud hosting. You don’t have to pay upfront costs for an on-premise physical server or licensing.
Cloud storage & resources have more cost benefits than traditional web hosting.
To learn more about cloud hosting & server management, check out the CloudPanel blog.
