Cloud hosting and shared hosting are two cheaper hosting solutions. Cloud hosting is the new kid on the block, with the shiny new features and popular name. Shared hosting is the old solution, a great way for upstart websites in the beginning of the internet to get a foot in the door without shelling out thousands for a server.
Both solutions are still in use today, and are great solutions for a number of different websites. There’s certainly no right or wrong to this solution. It will really just depend on what you’re going to need for your website. Shared hosting is a cheap and effective way to run a website, while cloud hosting is a slightly more powerful and expensive solution.
In this post, we’re going to look at the pros and cons of cloud hosting and shared hosting. We’ll start by talking about what they both are and then move to some comparisons so that you can figure out which one is the best solution for your internet needs!
What is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud hosting creates virtual private servers (VPS) by using a number of different physical servers. The physical servers create a single cloud environment which is then partitioned into different virtual private servers.
Cloud hosting therefore ends up costing similar amounts to traditional VPS hosting. Traditional VPS hosting uses a single server split into different server environments, instead of a whole cloud environment.
Note that cloud hosting doesn’t necessarily use more data than typical VPS hosting. You can create a cloud from a single physical server, meaning that cloud hosting, for most practical purposes, is really similar to VPS hosting. There would be a similar amount of space and resources available in both cases.
Cloud hosting, unlike VPS hosting, generally provides a bit more scalability and flexibility. The cloud can constantly shift the amount of resources that each site receives at a time, instead of having more rigid distributions of power.
Cost
Cloud hosting runs from about $5 to $50 a month (you can compare cloud hosting prices here), depending on the kind of resources that you’re trying to secure. This is comparable to VPS hosting a lot cheaper of an option than dedicated server hosting.
Pros
- Scalability: Cloud hosting can dynamically scale as more traffic hits your site
- Security: While not offering as much security as a dedicated server, a cloud solution offers more security than shared hosting offers.
Cons
- Cost: While not expensive, it certainly costs more than shared hosting would.
- Speeds: Because the cloud environment allows different sites to draw resources, the overload of one site could slow your site down without proper failsafes in place.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Scalability- Security
Cons
Cost- Speeds
What is Shared Hosting?
Shared hosting emerged in the earlier days of web hosting as a cheaper solution for websites and companies that didn’t want to spend the resources on dedicated servers of their own. The system splits a single physical server into a number of different resource allocations to run different sites.
Shared hosting is the cheapest way to acquire web hosting. It requires little administration and less power on the end of the host, allowing them to offer it for cheaper than cloud and VPS hosting models. The shared server environment, therefore, is also a lot less powerful, flexible, and secure than the other models.
It’s the cheapest and not the best. Still, overpaying for features you don’t actually need is a terrible business model.
Cost
Shared servers are generally about half the cost of cloud and VPS hosting solutions. You can get shared hosting for $2 a month up to $20 a month, as can be seen here.
Pros
- Cost: It’s the cheapest way to get your website up and running. If you don’t need a lot of power and security concerns won’t keep you up at night, then go ahead and sign for shared hosting.
- Hard resource allocations: Cloud hosting can, without proper failsafes in place, cause certain websites to run really slow when other websites are getting a surge in traffic. If someone’s puppy meme generates a ton of traffic, the speeds on your website could suffer. With shared serving, this doesn’t happen. You get a set amount of power and even if a different website is straining to keep with traffic you won’t lose power.
Cons
- Limited speed, space, and resources: You get what you pay for. And in this case you aren’t really paying a whole lot. It’s called shared hosting because you’re sharing the server with a bunch of other people. And because you’re splitting that cost you’re also splitting those resources. It just makes sense.
- Security: Shared hosting is the least secure way to host your website. Cloud hosting and VPS hosting both have hard divisions between the different sites so it’s really difficult, actually near impossible, to hack one site and then jump around the virtual environment to other websites. Not so with shared hosting. With shared hosting, a single compromise could let in unwanted visitors to all the different sites on the server.
- Scalability issues: In order to get a bunch more power than you currently have, you’d basically have to convince the company that you’re working with to turn your server into a dedicated server.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Cost
- Hard resource allocations
Cons
- Limited speed, space, and resources
- Security
- Scalability issues
Final Advice
Finding the hosting plan that’s right for you doesn’t mean just paying a bunch of money for the most amount of resources. Shared hosting has been around for a long time, and it’s still around because it works. It may not work as well as cloud hosting for certain things, but if you’re not doing those things, then you shouldn’t be paying for them.
The bottom line: shared hosting is a cheap and effective way to run a website on the internet. If you need faster speeds, more resources, more customization, and more scalability, then it might be worth investing in cloud hosting.
