If you are a blogger, you know web hosting is what you would need if you want to make your blog go live. That is precisely where the question of choosing the right kind of hosting comes to the fore. No, we are not talking about the hosting provider, but the type of hosting you would need to check out. There are several hosting types available, and you need to choose the right option depending upon your exact requirements. In that context, we thought of bringing up the definite differences between shared web hosting and cloud hosting. How do they differ from each other and which one should you go with? Let us cover those subtle differences in more exquisite detail.
What is Shared Hosting?
Well, the name itself should be indicative of it. It is the kind of web hosting where the resources on one server are shared between multiple websites and users. This shared nature of the hosting would make it one of the cheapest options for your hosting requirements.
Almost all web hosting service providers provide shared web hosting. One of the most widely used hosting services, it would have a single host server which shares resources dynamically amongst different tenants (users). Each of these websites on the server will get shared amount of bandwidth. One account will share multiple sites – at times it will take around thousands of sites on a single server.
You can use services like https://viewdns.info to see who else is hosted on your shared server. Now, here are some disadvantages to using a shared host:
- Noisy Neighbour: If any of the other hosted sites is highly active, it might affect the performance of your website. Yes, all of the shared tenants have finite resources (inodes), but it could be a factor to consider.
- Shared IP: Yes! you can opt for a shared host with a dedicated IP. But, in most cases, webmasters seldom go for it. Now, if any tenant on the same host is accused of SPAM, you might be affected as well.
- Performance: Since resources are allocated dynamically, your host might not be able to keep up with sudden spikes of traffic, thereby affecting user experience.
What is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud hosting is what can be defined as the stark opposite of shared hosting, while shared hosting is about hosting multiple sites on a single server, while cloud hosting is about the hosting your single site on various chunks of servers and resources like BLOB storage.
This can be one of the best options, and it lets you migrate your site to another server when there is an issue with one of the host servers. The hosting technology is based on cloud computing technology and offers a guaranteed SLA & uptime with the presence of a multitude of servers.
Cloud Hosting vs Shared Hosting – A One to One Comparison
Now that we are aware of what are cloud hosting and shared hosting and how they work, it would be much easy to understand the differences between them. We will compare the two hosting services based on a few key parameters.
The Uptime
Shared hosting services tend to provide you with an uptime of over 99.99 percent. However, achieving this uptime in practice may be quite tricky. The issues arise because of the shared nature of the hosting. If one of the sites hosted on a particular server experiences a spike in traffic, all the other sites on the server will face downtime or slower performance issues.
Cloud hosting can live up to the expectations of the core. It has the best uptime performance when compared to the shared hosting. The uptime performance is indeed quite excellent. Even when there are downtimes on one of the servers, you will end up migrating your site to another server almost automatically.
Security
Shared hosting offers protection based on databases and applications. This will make it more susceptible to security attacks. Since the hackers only need to access one server, it would be easy to hack into all the sites on it. In essence, security threats are much more prevalent on shared hosting.
Cloud hosting, on the other hand, offers excellent control over security issues. Hosting services opt for encrypted algorithms for enhanced security functionality. Since cloud hosting provides dedicated servers, the users tend to have complete control over security measures.
Support Channels
Again, cloud hosting offers you an incredible upper hand in comparison. You have access to everything unlimited. Whether storage, bandwidth, and database. Shared hosting does not come with this freedom. The resources are shared. And yes, even when the hosting service providers claim that they offer unlimited resources, you may not be able to use them genuinely unlimited.
Pricing
This is an area that is reserved for shared hosting. The sheer nature of shared resources makes it one of the best options for an affordable hosting. When the resources are shared, the cost will get distributed across multiple users. In fact, paying for more extended periods can even help you save more.
Cloud service can be a little expensive. But that is what you should pay for the exemplary service that cloud services would offer you. However, the cost would be dependent upon the way you build your infrastructure. If you are not using a particular app or service, you need not pay for it.
Speed
In shared hosting, the servers share several websites between them. This would ideally make all the servers running to its full capacity. And even if one of the websites gets unusually higher traffic, you will end up experiencing slower speed on all other sites. This can also result in considerably worst load times.
Cloud hosting negates this possibility. If you are using cloud hosting, you will get all the resources to yourself. Even when there is any hardware issue affecting your server, you will never end up with a non-working website. Your site is automatically migrated to another server, and you are up and ready. Ideally, you will never face any outage or slow speed instances.
Performance
The resources are shared on shared hosting, and this is bound to restrict the performance of individual sites to some extent. There can be frequent downtimes or outages. Of course, web hosting service providers take measures to control the issues you may face, but still, the sheer nature of the shared resources may not be able to provide you with optimum results.
Cloud hosting promises you an extremely fast, customizable solution for all your needs. The site will never go slow even in cases of high traffic. If you have a website that experiences more massive traffic, it should be the best option to go with cloud hosting alternative. It has a lot of resources offered to its users, and this is precisely what would help them live up to the expectations.
Is Cloud Hosting Better?
Of course, we would treat Cloud Hosting to be one of the excellent options for your needs in hosting. Of course, it may have a few cons that may go against it. But overall, cloud hosting is one of the best options you would go with.
A good option will be to make a beginning with the shared hosting if you are just starting off. Once your site begins getting traffic, it would be advisable to check your options to migrate to cloud hosting for better performance. There are a host of applications that are dependent upon cloud and service providers offering better pricing packages; we would consider that the future belongs to the cloud.
In essence, if you want to stay true to the future and stay tech savvy in the years to come, cloud hosting should be the ultimate goal by any standard.
A Few Good Cloud Hosting Services
Now that we have voted in favor of cloud hosting services, we thought that it would be apt to introduce you to a few top clouds hosting services for an insightful choice into the best facilities in hosting your sites on the cloud.
1. HostGator
Offering scalable and reliable hosting services on the cloud, HostGator indeed provides you a few great plans. What makes it one of the prime choices is the fact that it provides you with the kind of services that are easy to work with in tune with the shared hosting services.
The user-friendly tools from HostGator make cloud hosting simpler for most non-technical users. Moreover, there are a few attractive pricing options that make it budget friendly to make a move to the cloud hosting bandwagon. Scalability is one of the excellent features that HostGator offers you. If you think your site is facing issues, you can up the ladder to use up to 8 cores and up to 8 GB of RAM without hassles. An extensive range of plans should be another excellent option for you.
2. Cloudways
If you are looking for a middle approach for the best cloud experience, Cloudways should be your prime option. While there are several entry-level options in the form of 1&1 and high-end options like Amazon, Cloudways should be your excellent option to choose between the two options.
You get a managed cloud hosting, unlike the full-fledged cloud hosting. You can make a choice between the popular cloud services among Amazon. Vultr, Google, Linode or Digital Ocean. You can configure them using the simple to use web portal. The service provides some of the excellent services and features including cloning, backup and restores, integrated Git and team collaboration tools. High-end performance at lower cost and more straightforward usability should make it one of the excellent services in its genre.
The Concluding Thoughts
Well, that is all we have concerning the comparison between cloud hosting and shared hosting. We assume that we have been able to address the queries you may have had. The exact choice of the hosting service that you would opt for should be dependent upon the requirements you may have.
We would recommend opting for shared hosting during the initial days of your starting and can migrate to cloud hosting later on. Make a learned choice, and we assume the discussion above should help you opt for your decision.