Finding the right web hosting isn’t easy. Don’t feel bad if you feel lost in the world of so many web hosting services. We will compare shared hosting vs cloud hosting to help you decide which one is the best for your needs.
Shared hosting refers to web hosting that allows multiple websites to share a server. Cloud hosting refers to web hosting in which all the data for each website resides on its server. It sounds simple, but when you look closely, you’ll realize that there’s more than what meets the eye with regards to shared hosting vs cloud hosting.
Our team analyzed over 40 top hosting plans to understand the key differences between shared and cloud hosting. Our research parameters included performance, security, price, ease of access, and more. So, without further ado, let’s get acquainted with the differences between shared and cloud hosting.
Shared Hosting vs Cloud Hosting
| Shared Hosting | Cloud Hosting | |
| Server Space | Server resources are shared among many sites | Dedicated server resources for each site |
| Price | Low | High |
| Performance | Decent Performance | High Performance |
| Traffic | 1000-100000 visitors (Depends on plans) | 100000+ visitors |
| Scalability | High | Low |
| Management | Easy | Relatively Difficult |
| Custom Support and Ease of Use | Excellent | Average (Usually) |
What is a Shared Hosting?
Shared web hosting is when multiple sites share one server. This means that all the files, databases, and other resources needed to run a site reside on the same server. You must purchase a supplemental plan if you need to add additional space.
When comparing shared hosting vs cloud hosting, you should know that shared hosting are generally cheaper, offer a more comprehensive range of plans, and are an excellent choice for small-scale website and new businesses.
Today, shared hosting is very popular, and web hosting providers take extra care to ensure the security and independence of all sites on the server. Shared Hostings are often made for the purpose. For example, many hosting providers offer WordPress Shared Hostings. These hosting are explicitly built to keep the WordPress needs in mind. As a result, they rarely fail and can be a much better choice for inexperienced ones. This is a significant point in favor of shared hostings.
Since multiple sites run together on a single server, the hosting providers take extra care of all the sites’ safety and security. In case of downtime, a single shared hosting server can impact 1000s of sites instantly. Hosting providers take extra steps to ensure your site is always online.
| Pros | Cons |
| Much more affordable and provides a better bang for the buck | Performance is not as good as Cloud Hostings |
| Easier to set up and can include services like WordPress | Not suitable for custom use cases |
| Generally, a much more helpful customer service experience | |
| Better handling of small bursts of high traffic | |
| Upgrading to a bigger plan to handle more traffic is easy |
What Is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud hosting is when multiple websites share one server. Each website has its virtual machine (VM) that runs independently of each other. You can scale up or down as needed by adding or removing VMs.
If you compare shared hosting vs cloud hosting, you’ll observe that cloud hosting has an edge in terms of performance, load handling capacity, and more.
Cloud hosting is far more customizable and is independent of other sites/customers of your web hosting provider. It means you can easily use your server for any use case, including building a WordPress website.
Cloud hosting advantages include ample resources available exclusively for your site, ensuring there’s never a slowdown. Since you are the only owner of that virtual space on your server, you can configure and customize it to the extent that it can’t be achieved by conventional hosting. In shared hosting, a fake/spam website on your server could also harm your reputation (since all sites in a sharing have the same IP address), but in cloud hosting, you are safe from the activities of other places.
| Pros | Cons |
| Far more customizability and freedom to do anything | Significantly more expensive than shared hostings |
| Better server resources (RAM, SSD, CPU) ensure faster performance | Generally requires a bit of knowledge and experience in managing sites |
| Allows to build for any use case you want | |
| It supports a lot more visitors than shared hostings Generally included additional perks like Cloudflare | |
| CDN’s paid plan for free, image optimization, or a special caching plugins. |
Difference Between Shared Hosting and Cloud Hosting
There are many subtle differences between shared hosting and cloud hosting in terms of performance, price, security, customizability, and ease of use. We’ll explain them in our shared hosting vs cloud hosting analysis.
We have already discussed the significant pros and cons of shared and cloud hosting. But, for some people, a particular feature outways everything else. For example, some may value security to the point that they want the best protection, even if it means paying a lot more. That’s just an example. There could be many more cases.
1) Performance
Regarding performance, the shared hosting vs cloud hosting battle is easily won by cloud hosting. Cloud hosting has significantly better performance than shared hosting. Dedicated server resources, performance caching tools, and server-level optimizations ensure that the cloud hosting is always performing as expected.
On the other hand, shared hosting has limited server resources and generally doesn’t have perfect server optimizations. They can usually do the jobs for new businesses/bloggers with low traffic. Still, for any moderate to high-level traffic, you would struggle to provide your users with a decent experience.
Winner: Cloud Hosting
2) Price
Shared hosting comes in a variety of price ranges and a variety of features. As a result, they can be bought regardless of how small your budget is. You can often find a good discount or coupon to reduce the shared hosting price further. If you are looking for a quality, cost-effective shared hosting service, then Bluehost is the place to go. Click the link below to buy Bluehost WordPress shared hosting at a discounted rate.
Cloud Hostings are generally more expensive and offer fewer options to choose from. Most of the hosting providers would give you not more than 2-3 options to choose from. Cloud Hostings are not known for providing a good bang for the buck.
Winner: Shared Hosting
3) Security
Cloud hostings ensure that your site is not affected by any other site. This ensures that you are entirely safe from inside the server. Generally, cloud hosting uses the latest and modern standards and thus is secure. Most Cloud hosting would provide you with additional security enhancements and fortifications at the server level.
Shared Hostings are very secure as well. Most shared hosting provides users with free SSL certificates. Furthermore, they generally have security features to ensure that the servers remain secure. Shared hosting is managed by the hosting provider themselves in the backend. This means the hosting provider’s firewall itself would take action to avert any attack.
In a nutshell, the shared hosting vs cloud hosting comparison shows that both types of hosting are safe and can be trusted easily.
Winner: Tie, both have their advantages
4) Customizability
Cloud hosting always has wholly different and unique server resources. It means that you can independently choose how your resources work. That’s why cloud hosting is highly customizable and supports various applications, use cases, and services.
Shared hosting shares the resources with many more people. As a result, it’s up to the web hosting provider to allow the apps and services you want to use. Generally, most providers would support things like WordPress, WooCommerce, Joomla, etc., but beyond that, it’s up to the providers. Please check with your web hosting provider before buying if you have a particular use case with precise requirements.
Winner: Cloud Hosting
5) Ease of Use
The hosting provider manages shared hosting, and the providers have greater access and control. As a result, if you ever screw up, the provider can quickly help solve most of your issues. Furthermore, since all the tools are built into your hosting, you can manage them easily without needing much technical knowledge. Most hosting providers also have advanced page builders to give you an even better experience.
Cloud hosting, by nature, gives users a lot of independence and options. As a result, when comparing shared hosting vs cloud hosting, you will see that cloud hosting support staff might be incapable of helping you with the specific CMS and services you are using. Also, as cloud hosting provides many more options, only those who understand everything can make it work.
Winner: Shared Hosting
FAQs
The Verdict: Which Hosting Should You Buy
If you’re looking for the best type of hosting for your business, then you need to understand what each option offers. There is shared hosting and cloud hosting. You can choose the hosting type that suits you best based on your needs. We tried to best explain and elaborate on all aspects of shared hosting vs cloud hosting.
As a rule of thumb, if you want a hosting that supports high server load, handles high traffic, or allows implementation of a wide range of use cases, then you should go for a cloud hosting. Otherwise, shared hosting will do the trick for most people.
| Parameter | Winner |
| Performance | Cloud Hosting |
| Price | Shared Hosting |
| Security | Tie |
| Customizability | Cloud Hosting |
| Ease Of Access | Shared Hosting |
Comments