Cloud Hosting Vs Web Hosting – Which One Is Better?

As the number of online websites is on the rise, especially during the ongoing pandemic of 2021, many businesses found themselves needing a website to be able to compete in their market. To start selling products and services on the web, you are going to need web hosting, web design, and, more importantly, the functions you are going to have on your website.

As we are speaking, many people are arguing with one another about cloud hosting vs. web hosting. These are the main two hosting that almost every hosting provider offers. But, which one should you choose for your online presence? What is web hosting? What is cloud hosting? Which one works the best for you and requires less amount of budget to get started? In this article, we would like to discuss cloud hosting vs. web hosting.

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a generalized term that refers to where you get to store your website’s data, including images, information, customer’s data, etc. In simpler words, web hosting is the home to your website. Whenever a user types in your website’s address, it gets sent to your web hosting, and the web hosting replies back by displaying your website to them.

Web hosting comes in different types, and you can choose either of them depending on your requirement and what you are planning to do with your online website.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the most commonly used hosting plan offered by every single web hosting provider on the internet. Also, shared hosting is considered to be the cheapest plan available that you can purchase. Shared hosting is a single server that is being given to hundreds of websites with limited resources. Shared hosting is mostly used for rather static websites and doesn’t require much engagement between the website and users. This type of hosting is common amongst beginners who are trying out and getting their feet wet.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is a dedicated server that gives all the space and resources of a server. You have full control of your entire server and how you would want to use it. However, the downside of a dedicated server is its price. Dedicated hosting is considered the most expensive web hosting on the internet. It requires a team of administrators to maintain the server and keep it updated at all times.

VPS Hosting

VPS or Virtual Private Server is considered to be a mini dedicated server. A VPS hosting is still a shared hosting environment, but you can increase the resources you are using over time. For example, if you are running a website and need more space, you can always purchase an extra hard-drive for your website. A VPS is a medium-ranged hosting plan that is suitable for most websites on the internet.

Managed Hosting

Managed hosting is a plan. With managed hosting, there is no need to have a team of administrators to maintain your server, whether it is a VPS or dedicated; with the managed hosting plan, the hosting provider gives you a team of experts and should you require help with anything you can always ask them. Managed hosting can be expensive, depending on the plan you are choosing. However, it is worth it as you get a high-performing server that is fully optimized and presented to you.

What is Cloud Hosting?

As you can probably with its name, cloud hosting isn’t your typical hosting much like the plans we talked about above. With cloud hosting, you aren’t renting a space of a physical server. All of your resources (hardware) are virtual. Cloud hosting is fairly new, and not many people know exactly what it is, but they have most certainly heard about it. Cloud hosting has been growing over the years, and it has gained huge followers across the world.

With cloud hosting, you can increase your resources such as RAM, CPU, HDD, etc.; as much as you like, it is a perfect option for a growing website at a rapid pace. Also, it worth mentioning that whenever you feel like your server is underperforming, by contacting your hosting provider, you can ask them to change your server as everything is virtual; this process is possible.

Why would you choose cloud hosting?

Affordable and Flexible

Imagine you are just starting and don’t have that many views on your website; there is no need to pay any extra amount for your server; you will only pay for the resources you are using. You can expand the resources whenever your website is growing.
Scalable

If, in any case, your website’s traffic goes either up or down, you are going to need a hosting provider that can offer you the best services without asking you for tons of money. Suppose the basic shared hosting plan isn’t powerful enough for you, and you are going to need either a VPS or dedicated server resources but don’t want to pay any amount for the resources you are using. In that case, we recommend going with cloud hosting. As mentioned above, you will only pay for the resources that you are going to use.

Great performance and uptime

Having a server that is almost 100% up all the time is very important for any type of website. If, for any reason, your website is experiencing a lack of speed or performance, you can always switch your server to a better one without having to go through the trouble of backing up everything and migrating to a new server.

Difference Between Cloud Hosting and Web Hosting

With the traditional web hosting that is most common, you are limited to the physical constraints of the server you are using to store your website’s data. But as mentioned, that is not the case with cloud hosting, as everything is virtual, and you can have a unique configuration and increase your resources whenever you need it to. Cloud hosting has a unique configuration where it pulls resources from multiple servers, so if one of the servers goes down, there’s always another server backing up your website, which increases your site’s uptime.

As you probably know, with web hosting, all of your data is stored on a single server, and whenever users request your site, the files will be displayed to the user from that one server. On the other hand, with cloud hosting, because the resources are scattered across multiple servers, they can be pulled from multiple servers that increase your website’s speed and security.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed cloud hosting vs. web hosting. Web hosting is considered to be the traditional way of hosting your website on the internet. In contrast, cloud hosting is fairly new and has been on the rise. Both of them are commonly used. However, traditional web hosting is considered to be more expensive compared to cloud hosting.