What is cloud hosting? Understanding its benefits and when you should use it

If you’re looking to take your business site to new heights, switching to cloud hosting is undoubtedly the right choice. Compared to shared hosting, it offers greater stability, faster performance, and better security.

How does cloud hosting work exactly? Is it the right hosting solution for my project? Find all the answers in this guide!

How does cloud hosting work?

Before launching a website, you need a web server to store all its files and connect the site to the internet.

While it’s possible to use your personal computer as a server, advanced technical skills are required to set it up. Not to mention, your computer will have to run non-stop so that your site stays online.

Another option is to build and manage your own data centers. However, given the high cost and effort involved, this approach isn’t viable for small to medium-sized businesses.

This is where managed cloud hosting comes as a solution. In this setup, you essentially rent virtual servers from a third-party provider to host your website.

The cloud provider will handle all the technical stuff, like server maintenance and protection. This way, you can focus solely on scaling your business.

Cloud hosting offers a much easier and more affordable solution than running your own physical servers. You have the flexibility to choose a plan based on your needs and budget.

Cloud hosting vs traditional web hosting

Now, how does cloud hosting differ from traditional web hosting? From a technical standpoint, both solutions work similarly—you rent virtual space within a physical server to store your site data.

The only difference is the amount of computing power and features you will get.

For example, our cloud hosting plans offer 20x more resources than traditional web hosting, giving you more room for growth.

You will also get more PHP workers to handle hundreds of user requests simultaneously. In other words, your site will perform flawlessly, no matter how busy it gets.

What’s more, our cloud servers come with a dedicated IP address. Unlike a shared IP in traditional web hosting, your site won’t be affected by any performance or security issues on other sites.

Using a dedicated IP address also improves email deliverability. This is because many email providers use IP reputation to determine whether emails from a domain are legitimate.

In traditional hosting, your site could end up sharing the same IP address with malicious websites. It just takes one problematic site engaging in spam or phishing to cast a shadow over all the sites sharing that IP address.

A dedicated IP allows you to build a positive reputation for your domain. It improves the chances of your emails reaching your recipients without being flagged as spam.

Benefits of cloud hosting

Whether you’re planning to host your first website or upgrade from a traditional hosting plan, our managed cloud hosting offers plenty of benefits:

• User-friendly. Since our cloud hosting solution is fully managed, you don’t need any technical knowledge. It offers an easy-to-use control panel called hPanel for managing domains, monitoring performance, fixing issues, and more.
• Superior uptime and speed. Our cloud plans come with a content delivery network (CDN) proven to speed up your site by 40%. Users can still retrieve your site’s content from the closest CDN server even when the origin server is down.
• WooCommerce optimized. Install WordPress and WooCommerce in one click, and start selling online in no time. Our cloud servers have enough power to handle hundreds of products and thousands of visitors per month.
• Scalability. You can easily upgrade your plan to get more CPU cores, RAM, and storage space in just a few clicks.
• Greater security. Thanks to a dedicated IP address and advanced DDoS protection, your site will be less prone to security issues and cyber threats. We also provide automatic daily backups to keep your data safe.

Who should use cloud hosting solutions?

Cloud hosting is the perfect choice for anyone who needs stable and reliable website performance but lacks the necessary skills or budget to maintain their own server.

Cloud hosting offers more PHP workers and computing resources, so your site can better deal with traffic spikes during promos or seasonal events. Plus, it offers a dedicated IP for better security, making it ideal for eCommerce stores.

Moreover, it’s suitable for websites that need more processing power, bandwidth, and disk space to handle large fragments of data. Those include content-rich news portals, discussion forums, SaaS platforms, and aggregator sites.

Last but not least, our managed cloud hosting solutions are great for web professionals who manage multiple clients and projects.

With hPanel, you can access your clients’ accounts from your own dashboard, organize websites with custom tags, and invite your team to collaborate on projects.

It’s also super easy to monitor everything that matters to you and your clients, such as site performance and security.

Which cloud services should you choose?

Hostinger offers three plans ranging from 0/month to 0/month, depending on your chosen package and subscription duration.

To help you choose the right plan, here’s a comparison of our cloud hosting options:

Features	Startup	Professional	Enterprise
Pricing	0/month (for the 48-month term)	0/month (for the 48-month term)	0/month (for the 48-month term)
Number of websites	100	200	300
Number of email accounts	100	100	100
RAM	3 GB	6 GB	12 GB
NVMe SSD storage	100 GB	200 GB	300 GB
CPU cores	2	4	6
PHP workers	100	200	300
Visitors per month	200,000	300,000	400,000

All our hosting plans include a 30-day money-back guarantee, giving you certainty while exploring our cloud hosting services. If you choose a Cloud Startup plan, visit the Hostinger coupons page to claim your discounts.

Comparing cloud hosting with other types of web hosting

Cloud hosting is a great choice, but it’s not for everyone. Some users may need advanced customization, while others prefer a more affordable option.

To help you choose the right hosting plan, we’ll discuss other popular hosting service types and how they compare to cloud hosting.

Cloud hosting vs shared hosting

In a shared hosting environment, one server stores data from multiple websites. While it’s similar to cloud hosting, shared hosting offers much less bandwidth, storage capacity, and processing power.

Unlike cloud hosting, you will also get a shared IP address instead of a dedicated one. This means your site will be more susceptible to security issues and spam reports.

Given its limited resources and the fact that server maintenance costs are divided between users, shared hosting is usually the most affordable hosting option. As such, it’s an excellent choice for small businesses and personal websites.

Pros

• Affordable. At $1-15/month, shared hosting is the least expensive hosting option. In comparison, many cloud hosting providers charge between $10-200/month. Check out our web hosting cost guide for more information.
• Beginner-friendly. No coding skills are required to get your website up and running.
• Easy maintenance. The web host handles the technical aspects of maintaining a website so that you can focus more on optimization.

Cons

• Limited resources. Your site might slow down or even crash during traffic spikes due to limited bandwidth, processing power, and storage capacity.
• Prone to security risks. If one site hosted on the shared server is compromised, the others may be affected.
• Shared IP address. You’ll share an IP address with other sites. This can hamper your email deliverability, as providers like Gmail and Yahoo tend to associate shared IPs with spam.

Cloud hosting vs VPS hosting

Virtual private server (VPS) hosting uses a technology called virtualization to separate a physical machine into multiple virtual servers.

Each virtual machine has its dedicated CPU, RAM, and storage, providing even more power and stability to run resource-intensive websites and applications.

VPS hosting also offers root access, which allows you to customize the server settings to your liking. This feature is not available with managed cloud or shared hosting services.

However, VPS hosting is often self-managed by the user, making it more suitable for tech-savvy individuals.

Pros

• Stable performance. Since each user gets dedicated resources, traffic surges on one website will not affect the others.
• Highly customizable. In terms of server configuration, virtual private servers offer more flexibility than managed cloud-based services.
• Dedicated IP address. VPS and cloud hosting providers offer a dedicated IP address for better protection. Having a dedicated IP address also improves your site’s credibility.

Cons

• Not beginner-friendly. Users must possess the required skills and knowledge to manage VPS hosting.

Cloud hosting vs dedicated server hosting

Dedicated hosting is the most powerful type of hosting. It gives you complete control over an entire server—from installing custom software to using all the available resources.

That said, it is significantly more expensive than shared, cloud, and VPS hosting. As a result, it’s more geared towards large organizations with a big budget.

Pros

• Unbeatable performance. Dedicated hosting offers the best site performance since you get the power of an entire physical server.
• Unlimited resources. With a dedicated server, you will have all the necessary resources to grow a large-scale website.
• Complete control. Users can fully control the hosting environment, including customizing the operating system and installing server-wide software.

Cons

• High cost. Compared to other hosting plans, dedicated servers have the highest cost. Expect to spend between $80-500/month or more just for maintenance.
• Advanced skills required. Server management knowledge is necessary to operate and maintain a dedicated server.

Conclusion

Cloud hosting is essentially a faster, stronger, and more secure alternative to shared hosting.

It offers far more computing resources for top-notch performance and better security measures to protect your site’s sensitive data.

Given its superior power, cloud-based web hosting is perfect for:

• Business sites driving thousands of visitors per month
• eCommerce stores selling hundreds of products
• News portals with a lot of pages and multimedia content
• Social networks and forums with a large user base
• Aggregator platforms that handle and process thousands of data

The best part? You can still get the user-friendliness of traditional web hosting with our managed cloud hosting services.

Using hPanel, you can perform all sorts of hosting management tasks, from registering custom domains and creating email accounts to monitoring site performance.

What is cloud hosting FAQ