Cloud Hosting Vs. Web Hosting: Differences

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is buying or renting space for a website on the web. When you choose a web hosting plan, you choose a hosting provider to allocate a specific location on your web server where you can store your website-related files. When a website is hosted on a server, it is visible over the internet.

The space allocated to a website on the server depends on the hosting service chosen by the website owner, which can be shared, dedicated, reseller or VPS hosting. Along with website hosting, domain hosting tends to connect web browsers to the correct server that hosts a website's files.

As a business owner, you should choose a web hosting plan that meets specific requirements, such as website hosting needs, website features, bandwidth allocation, the expected number of visitors per month, etc.

What is Cloud Hosting?

Cloud hosting mainly refers to hosting business applications on third-party cloud servers to gain additional benefits of enhanced security and remote access. This hosting works through virtualization - a process of dividing a physical server into multiple virtual machines or servers. These server units are then allocated to different customers to meet their hosting application needs.

The underlying infrastructure of cloud hosting distinguishes it from the traditional website hosting solutions. While the former allocates individual cloud servers to each customer, the latter can use a centralized server to host multiple websites. Furthermore, depending on business needs, customers may also require a dedicated server to host websites and applications.

As you can see here, cloud and web hosting are pretty similar in use cases. However, each of them offers distinct benefits for businesses like yours. Although some web hosting providers also host business applications on their servers, this is only sometimes the case.