Key Differences Between Cloud Hosting and Shared Hosting
The performance of a website relies heavily on the web hosting. Hence, as a site owner, choosing the right web hosting plan is essential for your website. There are numerous hosting options available, like Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Server, etc. While each service claims exceptional site performance, choosing the right one can be a difficult process. Some site owners spend weeks going through all hosting options and trying to find the one that offers the most resources at the lowest price. While we understand this approach, what it lacks is the relevance of all resources to the requirements of the website. Every website is different and has a unique hosting requirement. Hence, site owners must ensure that they understand what their site needs before looking for a plan.
If you have done the research and are confused between Shared Hosting and Cloud Hosting Services, then this article is written for you. Here, we will discuss some key differences between these hosting services to help you make a decision.
- Scalability of Resources
A web hosting plan allocates resources like RAM, CPU, etc. to every website to manage traffic and/or requests on the site. With social media platforms and search engines driving the majority of the online traffic, any website can receive a sudden spike in the number of visitors. To manage this efficiently, the site must have adequate resources or the ability to scale up when needed.
Most cloud servers offer instant resource scalability making management of traffic spikes a breeze. Hence, site owners start with minimum resources and keep adding them as the site grows. On the other hand, in a Shared Hosting service, several websites share the resources of one web server. Also, these resources are not easily scalable. Hence, if a site hosted on a Shared Hosting plan experiences a traffic spike, then the visitors might have to face a slow or down site.
Hence, Shared Hosting is good for small, static websites with minimal traffic and no immediate plans for expansion. Also, websites using Shared Hosting must be okay with a little downtime without any consequence to the business. For everyone else, Cloud Hosting is a better option.
- Performance of the website
In many ways, the performance of a website depends on the available resources. In Shared Hosting plans, the resources are shared between several websites. Therefore, if one site receives huge volumes of traffic, then the performance of the other sites can get affected. On the other hand, in Cloud Hosting plans, the easy scalability and use of cloud-based storage solutions ensure better-performing websites.
If you are not running any critical applications or offering time-sensitive services for your clients, then Shared Hosting should suffice. However, if you are, then Cloud Hosting is a better alternative (for example, e-commerce platforms or banking websites).
- Site Security
When your website resides on a Shared Server, the performance of one website can affect the others. Hence, if one site gets hacked or infected, then all other sites carry the risk of being hacked too. This risk is not present in Cloud Hosting. Further, most Cloud Hosting providers use the latest security tools and proactively look for security loopholes making Cloud Hosting more secure than most traditional hosting services.
Conclusion
All hosting services have certain pros and cons. Hence, it is important to choose a plan based on your hosting requirements. While there are many benefits of migrating to Cloud Hosting if a site can perform optimally on a Shared Hosting plan, then buying a Cloud Hosting plan is unnecessary. Similarly, if your website demands a Cloud Hosting plan, then it will not perform optimally on a Shared Hosting service. Choose wisely.
