web hosting is usually comprehended as the cheapest form of web hosting in the web hosting domain. It is also realized that shared hosting is designed specially to provide the industry beginners with a stepping stone that can be proven to be an ideal option for testing purposes. On the other hand, shared Cloud hosting is designed to grow on this success by providing users with shared web hosting within a Cloud environment and delivering users a committed uptime upto 100%. Various comparative factors can be used between shared web hosting and Cloud hosting, and as a user, one must be able to identify these services. With the constant rise of Cloud Hosting, the average cost of shared plans for these hosting services tend to go down. Through Cloud hosting services, the Cloud providers are looking to provide much more reliable and secure services backed with round-the-clock assistance and support. With Cloud, users get enhanced levels of hosting experience, allowing them to build a successful website without being worried about the upgradation of their plans.
Below are certain comparison factors that are usually drawn between these two hosting forms-
Reliability: The reliability of Cloud hosting plans might outweigh the overall uptime offered by a shared web hosting service. This is because Cloud infrastructure has been designed to ensure users get a guaranteed uptime of up to 100%. Talking about the average shared web hosting plan will have a single server configuration, i.e., if the server is managed correctly, the user won’t get an uptime exceeding 99%/month. The base of a Cloud environment depicts a cluster of servers used in conjunction with network-attached storage or NAS devices. These NAS devices ensure data remains evenly distributed across all machines, allowing the hosting organizations to ensure that Cloud services‘ performance doesn’t get hampered if any servers go down. Cloud SLAs often accompany a significant amount of Cloud Hosting services. An SLA tells the user in detail what all he is eligible to get if the Cloud provider fails to meet the uptime commitments. The compensation is an option for businesses that can declare their lost earnings due to uptime’s unfulfillment.
Pricing Structure: Talking of both the hosting services, each comes with its own set of different pricing models. For most of the part, Cloud providers allow users to design their Cloud plan featuring the resources required from web hosting plans, allowing them to get the flexibility in selecting the resources that they will be using. With such flexible pricing plans, users don’t tend to pay for unutilized resources, causing significant cost savings. Standard web hosting services have a preset pricing plan, allowing users to choose from one of these set by the hosting providers. With shared web hosting, users might also end up paying for additional resources that they haven’t utilized.
Security: With Cloud hosting services, users get much more secure hosting solutions since the Cloud servers communicate privately by vLAN channels, where there is less number of public servers. The concern with a single server configuration in the case of shared web hosting services is that all the critical data and applications are stored in a single place, giving the hackers easy access. In the Cloud hosting services, user data and applications are distributed across multiple servers, meaning in case a server gets compromised or hacked, cybercriminals won’t be able to get away with anything valuable. With the emphasis being on security, web hosting providers, even the web hosting providers, are securing their servers to offer a multi-layered secure hosting environment to their customers, similar to the case of Cloud hosting.
Scalability and Upgradation: With most standard web hosting services, users don’t get any scope for upgrading services. The primary reason for this is that he is only allowed to choose from the existing service plans offered by the web hosting provider. Hence, there might be high chances that the users would be considering other forms of hosting services to cater to their needs. However, on the other hand, with shared Cloud hosting, users can easily add additional resources to their web hosting as and when required without actually upgrading their entire hosting plans.
For instance, if the user demands additional bandwidth or storage resources, these resources incrementally increase to his chosen plan, giving him the flexibility to pay only for the resources consumed, ultimately resulting in significant cost savings.
Wrapping Up:
A shared hosting plan can offer additional reliability for a user while allowing him to customize the plan as per his business needs. Shared Cloud hosting is the best available option, and web hosting providers have now started phasing out their services to promote Cloud products. Opting for shared Cloud hosting can be a handy option even for beginners as it is an easy-to-use and completely scalable solution.