Over the years, the web hosting landscape has evolved to accommodate the different needs of website owners. Some commonly used hosting types are shared hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated server, managed WordPress hosting, VPS, etc. Each of these has unique characteristics allowing site owners to benefit from them. However, most users tend to compare hosting types to find which is best suited to their requirements. In this article, we will illustrate the difference between two hosting types – Shared and Cloud hosting.
What is Shared Hosting?
In shared hosting, multiple websites are placed on the same server and share the resources amongst themselves. It is cheap and simple to use and is popular among websites that experience lesser traffic.
What is Cloud Hosting?
In cloud hosting, the website is placed on a network of virtually connected multiple servers which is controlled by an algorithm. This algorithm helps store, retrieve, and rebalance data for optimum performance of the site.
Difference between Cloud Web Hosting and Shared Hosting
| Cloud hosting | Shared hosting | |
| Scalability | Resources like CPU/RAM are easily and instantly scalable. | Scalability is a time-consuming process since resources are fixed. |
| Security | Multiple recovery options and latest security tools make it more secure. | Less secure since the shared environment means your website is more susceptible to attacks. |
| Pricing | Cloud hosting is costlier than since you get dedicated resources and the flexibility of scaling up/down along with better security. | Shared hosting is cheaper than most hosting types since the resources are shared. |
| Speed | Due to multiple servers, cloud hosting offers better page load times and overall site speed. Caching and CDNs add to the speed of the site too. Cloud hosting is faster than shared hosting. | Shared hosting is slower since your website shares resources with multiple other sites. Also, heavy traffic on one site affects the performance of the others sharing the server. |
Summing up
Before you decide on either of them, remember that both cloud and shared hosting serve different purposes. Shared hosting is usually preferred by sites which need to come online quickly and do not expect heavy traffic. Also, websites opting for shared hosting do not have the speed or maximum uptime as a critical requirement for the products/services offered by them. Cloud Hosting on the other hand, is preferred by those who need 99.9% + uptimes, blazing fast page load speeds, best security for their data and instant scalability to accommodate traffic spikes.
Also, before choosing a host, it is recommended that you assess your requirements from the host carefully by analyzing your website and the content that you wish to share with people online. Such an assessment will make the process of selecting a good host simpler and faster. Hope this article helped you get an overview of the difference between cloud hosting and shared hosting. Please feel free to share any views/suggestions in the comments below.
