Creating an online business follows a series of steps and one of the earliest as well as the most important step is choosing a web host to serve your website.
There are several web hosting plans you can choose from where confusion on choosing one is very high especially among new users. When you outgrow your simple plans such as shared hosting plans, you need to upgrade to Cloud, VPS, or Dedicated hosting plans.
All of these three hosting plans are slightly on the more complex web hosting plans that you would find on the market. You can find a comparison between both cloud hosting and VPS, and VPS hosting and dedicated hosting, on other blog articles we have posted.
Therefore, here, we are going to discuss the comparison of the cloud and the dedicated hosting which will for sure, eliminate all of your confusion.
What is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud Hosting is the type of hosting where your website is hosting with the help of cloud servers. The cloud servers are able to be configured that allows its customers a high level of performance, control, and security.
The cloud hosting replaces the physical hardware server using the process of virtualization and creating a shared virtual environment. Another amazing factor about cloud hosting is that you benefit from the economies as you only have to pay for the exact resources you use.
Cloud servers allow their customers to scale up or down their online business as per their convenience. Cloud Hosting users do not need to pay for their idle resources or infrastructure allowing you to pay only a few pennies only when the demand is high
. Cloud servers and cloud hosting help you optimize your IT performance highly without the need to pay a fortune of purchasing and managing a fully dedicated infrastructure.
Key features
- Highly customizable environment
- Affordable price
- Distributed servers
- Handle traffic spikes
- Several virtual servers
- Increased reliability
- Better uptime
- Flexibility
- Efficiency
- Backup and disaster recovery
Pros
- Flexible pricing structure
- Scalable plans
- Redundant server environment
- High uptime and availability
- Easy and fast server setup process
- Handles scalable traffic
- Simple dashboard
Cons
- Network connection dependency
- Limited features
- Loss of control
- Security issues
- Technical issues
Best web hosts for Cloud Hosting
Kamatera
Established back in 1995, by the parent company OMC computers, Kamatera was launched in 1996 with amazing performances. As their first VPS was deployed back in 2002 making them the pioneer of the VPS hosting industry.
Key features
- Instant scaling
- 99.95% uptime
- Affordable
- No hardware maintenance
- Low total cost of ownership
- Pay as you go module
- Instant and easy server setup
- Simple backup and monitoring
- Full control
- Pricing: You can build your own server and the pricing depends on the type of server you build and buy once. The standard pricing however is $4 per month excluding the server’s price you buy.
DreamHost
Another amazing web hosting service provider that has been in the hosting industry for nearly about 25 years now. Over the past 25 years, DreamHost has been hosting 1.5 million websites all around the world with uptime of 99.94% and loading speed of 648ms.
Key features
- Unparalleled speed
- Full root access
- Highly scalable
- Accessible anywhere
- Multiple layers of security
- Free bandwidth
- Block storage available
- Pricing: Starts at $4.50 per month
Hostwinds
A relatively new web hosting service provider that provides amazing cloud services to its customers is Hostwinds. It was established back in 2010 which had the objective to provide all in one experience to its users. It is the US-based online web hosting company that has been hosting thousands of websites worldwide.
Key features
- Pay as you go order
- Full management
- SSD drives
- Custom templates
- SSH key management
- Instant scalability
- Enterprise firewall
- Block storage volumes
- Select your data center location
- Pricing: Starts at $4.99 per month
What is Dedicated Hosting?
Dedicated hosting is the most expensive and complex web hosting plans that provide dedicated server with dedicated resources for a single client. The dedicated servers are ideal for WordPress and any other website with high traffic with a high number of visitors.
Dedicated hosting gives full control over your web server and is ideal for larger organizations with even larger traffic. Almost every dedicated plans come with both managed and the unmanaged hosting server where you can choose whether you want to manage and handle all the controls of the hosting server or not.
Although with the expensive price tag it comes with a hefty amount of resources such as bandwidth, storage space, and RAM. Also, managed dedicated hosting is a tad bit more expensive than the unmanaged dedicated hosting. It is because your website is handled and managed by the expertise provided to you by the web hosting company.
Key features
- Server configuration
- Operating system choices
- Hardware choices
- cPanel support
- Multiple levels of security
- Server management
- High-class technical support
- High availability
Pros
- Flexible
- Control
- Administrative powers
- Increased security
- Unique IP address
- Reliability
- High performance
- Scalability
Cons
- Expensive
- Not suitable for small businesses
- No physical access to the server
- Technical knowledge required
- The server is actually is the property of the web host
Best web hosts for Dedicated Hosting
Bluehost
One of the oldest web hosting company established back in 1996 and providing web hosting solutions is Bluehost. Founded by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in Utah, Bluehost has 6 data centers located all over the world. It is one of the three web hosts recommended WordPress.org itself.
Key features
- Free domain for the first year
- Free SSL certificate
- 30 days money-back guarantee
- Lighting fast speed
- RAID storage
- Storage upgrades
- Root access
- Dedicated support
- Pricing: Starts at $79.99 per month
GoDaddy
GoDaddy has been hosting all of its websites worldwide with stable uptime of 99.97% and blazing fast load time of 554ms. It was established back in 1997 in Baltimore by the entrepreneur Bob Parson.
Key features
- 99.9% uptime
- Money-back guarantee
- Easy to use cPanel
- Root access
- SSD or HDD drive
- Expert support
- Built-in security
- Free SSL certificate
- Dedicated IP address
- Pricing: Starts at $120 per month
iPage
Another oldest web host that was established back in 1998 and has been providing web hosting solutions to date is iPage. It has two data centers across the United States with millions of websites hosting worldwide.
Key features
- Managed support
- Free domain
- Pre-installed scripts
- Total customization
- Dedicated resources
- Cloud-based flexibility
- Pricing: Starts at $119.99 per month
Cloud Hosting Vs. Dedicated Hosting
Differences
| Parameters | Cloud Hosting | Dedicated Hosting |
| Definition | In cloud hosting, the server is outsourced and with the help of virtualization, runs on a virtualized environment and produces multiple instances. Multiple instances allow connecting multiple servers with one another. | Dedicated hosting is a more traditional hosting platform that follows a simple protocol where a user buys a physical server from a provider and pays monthly charges. |
| Performance | All the resources such as servers, storage, and network connections are shared in a cloud server which hampers in a 24/7 uptime guarantee. | Server resources such as CPU, IO, and network connections are dedicated to hosting a single website, hence it offers a 24/7 uptime guarantee. |
| Scalability | Any users can upgrade or downgrade the server or its resources without facing a possible downtime as the virtual servers are shared. | As the whole physical server so if you want to upgrade the resources then you have to face the possible downtime. |
| Reliability | The virtual cloud server is shared among various users with the permission of using one’s server if there is an emergency. Hence, it results in creating a highly available and reliable web host. | Using a physical server all by yourself is a tricky thing, which results in lesser availability resulting in less reliability. |
| Cost | Cloud hosting offers a pay as you go model providing users an opportunity to only pay for your resources. | After buying a server, you need to pay a monthly fixed rate even if you do not use the server at its optimum amount. |
Conclusion
Whenever you as a customer are confused about choosing the right web host for your website, the most important thing, you need to remember is your business’s needs. Any computing platform needs to be scalable, cost-effective, and have enough computing and operating resources.
These are the critical elements your web host and your web hosting plans must have. And the same goes to while selecting between cloud and dedicated hosting solution.
There is the need and place for both of the servers. One might need dedicated hosting to process intensive workloads while others use cloud hosting to take advantage of maximum platforms.
Before choosing one web hosting plan, you need to always look at:
- The current need of your online business
- The pros or advantages of each solution
- The cons or disadvantage of each solution
- Your future scalability needs