Why Choose Cloud Hosting Over Shared Hosting or VPS

Why choose cloud hosting over shared hosting or VPS? With how popular cloud hosting has become nowadays, this is a question many small business owners are asking themselves. Lots of cloud hosting providers are offering free trials as well, which only provides more temptation to switch. What advantages does cloud hosting offer over shared hosting or VPS, though? And are there any disadvantages to choosing cloud hosting over shared hosting or VPS?

The Advantages of Cloud Hosting Over Shared Hosting and VPS

There seems to be many advantages to choosing cloud hosting over shared hosting or VPS. The number one advantage is cost. Cloud hosting literally costs pennies a day to run, and the usage is usually scaled according to how much computing, storage, and bandwidth you use – which is vastly different from the flat fee based methods that shared hosting and VPS use. Because of this, cloud hosting often comes with very handsome savings.

Additionally, cloud hosting comes with all of the bells and whistles you normally have to pay extra for when you use shared hosting or VPS. You can create as many databases as you want, as many emails as you want, connect as many domains as you want, etc. What you do with your cloud is your own business.

What is cloud hosting, exactly? Well, cloud hosting involves the usage of a virtual server, in a similar fashion to VPS. Only you literally get a virtual machine that you can uninstall and reinstall the operating system on and do anything you like with.

In a way similar to shared hosting and VPS, many cloud hosting providers offer direct installations of your favorite operating systems and apps. You also have complete freedom to use FTP, SSH, the web based platform, and any other connection protocols to work with your cloud server. Cloud hosting providers also offer an API to make development easier for their virtual machines.

Since everything you purchase with cloud hosting is dedicated to your use and yours alone, cloud hosted virtual servers are also very fast both in their computing speed and in their bandwidth. You will never have to worry about your cloud server slowing down due to heavy network congestion. To sweeten the deal, cloud hosting providers also provide a service called load balancing. Load balancing balances your traffic across multiple virtual servers, in a similar fashion to a content delivery network. This prevents the traffic from putting too much strain on your virtual servers, creating a much speedier experience for your viewers.

The Disadvantages of Cloud Hosting Over Shared Hosting and VPS

Of course, there appears to be some disadvantages to cloud hosting over shared hosting and VPS. Cloud hosting is definitely not intended for novices. If something goes wrong with your virtual server, it is entirely up to you to fix it. Backups generally are not automated either and it is up to you to set up some form of automatic system for creating and downloading updates. The only real methods to work directly with your virtual server is via SSH or FTP, which some users may not be comfortable with doing – there is no CPanel for cloud servers.

Since there is no CPanel, one must learn a new way of operating entirely, so there is a definite learning curve that goes with cloud hosting. Each cloud host has their own unique web based control panel, so this can often change from host to host. You cannot easily switch hosts without having to learn a new control panel, either, like you can with shared and VPS hosting.

Phone and email support for cloud servers is very basic and mostly regards billing. While cloud hosts usually have very robust knowledge-bases, these knowledge-bases assume the user has some degree of technical savvy. So again, cloud hosting is definitely not for anyone that doesn’t know anything about web hosting.

Which One Is The Right Choice For You?

Which of these are the right choice for you comes down to what you need from a web host and how technically savvy you are. It also depends on how much assistance you have in setting up your web hosting. And also it is always good to read some web hosting reviews before making your decision. If you have an IT team, or are technically savvy, you definitely can consider cloud hosting as one of your options. If you don’t have an IT team and are not technically savvy, then at this time cloud hosting is not something for you to consider.

If you find you are not using all of your available resources with your current hosting package, or are in need of more resources than your host offers, then you may want to consider giving cloud hosting a shot. It’s also something to consider if you find that your current hosting is getting too expensive for you to afford, since cloud hosting operates at about half the cost of shared hosting for the same amount of computing, bandwidth, and disk space.

Cloud hosting has really opened up a whole world of new opportunities for small and big businesses alike. As a cost effective solution, it is hard to imagine any new technologies beating them. It is exciting to see what new features they will have to offer in the future as the technology matures.

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