Shared hosting has been around for decades, and over the years, it has proven to be an ideal launchpad for everything from personal blogs to small business websites.
Cloud hosting is a much more recent phenomenon, and it has transformed the way established online businesses set up and maintain their IT infrastructure.
Shared hosting is praised for its affordability and ease of use.
Cloud hosting is considered the most powerful yet flexible service of its kind.
In light of all this, you’d think the two types of web hosting are aimed at two completely different demographics.
Let’s not jump to conclusions, though. Instead, let’s put shared and cloud hosting head-to-head and see the exact differences, their pros and cons, and try to determine which one best fits your requirements.
Cloud Hosting vs Shared Hosting: Technical Differences
One thing should be clear to everyone: shared hosting and cloud hosting serve the same purpose – they provide your website with the hardware resources and network connectivity to ensure it can be accessed and interacted with from anyone with an internet connection.
However, we’re talking about two completely different setups. To understand just how dissimilar they are, we need to analyse every individual technical aspect of the services, see what sort of technologies are utilized by shared and cloud hosting plans, and examine the different approaches.
Let’s start with the hardware.
Architecture
Shared hosting: The host utilizes a single powerful physical server, deploying hundreds of customer accounts on it. All websites utilize the same CPU and RAM resources, and they all rely on the same operating system, web server, and database management platform to function.
Cloud hosting: The host sets up a cluster of interconnected servers and uses their combined hardware resources to power a large number of websites and applications. Yet again, multiple projects use the same physical hardware, but this time, each one is deployed in an isolated environment (a virtual machine or a container).
Control & flexibility
Shared hosting: All shared plans come with a control panel featuring a graphical user interface and tools for installing website-building applications, managing files and databases, and creating email accounts. FTP access is also available, as well as non-root SSH in some cases.
The host is entirely responsible for deploying and configuring the underlying technology stack. When you sign up, you can’t choose an operating system, and the environment prevents you from making any changes to the server’s behavior or core settings.
Cloud hosting: Account management in the cloud is entirely dependent on the setup. With some providers, you have a dashboard that allows you to deploy your account, featuring specific options for tweaking the technology stack. Once that’s done, everything is managed via the command line.
The scenario is slightly different when the cloud hosting service is based on a virtual private server. A VPS is a completely isolated environment, so during signup, some hosts give you a choice of operating systems.
They can also equip your virtual machine with a server management platform, such as SPanel, which simplifies everything. You still have SSH access (with or without root, depending on the service type), but you also get a point-and-click interface that allows you to perform a wide range of tasks, from managing files and folders to deploying new projects, switching web servers, applying server-wide firewall rules, monitoring and restarting services, and more.
Resource management
Shared hosting: A shared account has preset limits on the number of websites and databases it can host, as well as the emails users can send, among other restrictions. Those are all set in the shared server’s core configuration files. Things aren’t quite as clear-cut when it comes to allocating hardware resources.
All websites hosted on the shared server share the same CPU and RAM resources simultaneously. The host’s job is to ensure that no accounts place too much load on the hardware and slow it down. Typically, when a website experiences a traffic surge, the provider notifies the owner, advising them that they may need to consider upgrading to a more robust plan. Other companies are more aggressive, though. They automatically terminate the troublesome processes, which can lead to unexpected service disruptions for the website’s owner and visitors.
Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting services based on virtual machines use hypervisors. Those running containers rely on container orchestration solutions. There are a few differences between the two technologies, but they both differ from the shared hosting plan in that they provide a hosting environment with dedicated resources.
Every account has its own hardware configuration. For example, customer A has 1 CPU core and 2GB of RAM, customer B has 2CPU cores and 4GB of RAM, etc. Resources are not shared between individual accounts.
Storage & data handling
Shared hosting: All websites on the shared server share a single filesystem. Every account has its own home directory, which contains all the files and folders associated with it. Access is restricted, and the owner of one account can’t open another account’s home directory. However, all data is stored on the same physical device.
Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting is powered by distributed storage – technology that allows hosts to replicate data across multiple physical machines. Thanks to it, they can build clusters of servers and have them work together to power the same websites.
Data replication is entirely seamless, and it’s not confined to a single data center, meaning a cloud cluster can consist of servers located in different parts of the world.
Networking
Shared hosting: Usually, a shared server has a single IP address that is used by all projects hosted on it. In addition to receiving requests from browsers when visitors try to open the hosted sites, the IP is also utilized when account owners send and receive emails.
Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting accounts typically come with dedicated IP addresses. Both containers and virtual private servers have individual addresses that are reserved for the account owner’s project only.
Takeaway
Shared and cloud hosting offer two distinct approaches to providing website owners with a reliable hosting environment. Cloud hosting requires a more technically advanced infrastructure, which can be more challenging to build and maintain. However, the extra complexity means that website owners can get full isolation and complete access to the software components powering their business, guaranteed resources, and a dedicated IP.
Cloud Hosting vs Shared Hosting: Price
Shared hosting is known for being the most affordable service of this kind, with the cheapest plans starting at well under $10 per month. If you need more storage, bandwidth, and features, you can expect a price closer to $15 per month, especially when considering renewal rates.
The price of a cloud hosting solution depends on numerous factors, including the type of virtualization technology, the operating system, the management level, etc. However, the most critical price-determining component is the hardware configuration.
You can start at a very reasonable rate. There are solutions with minimal processing power and as little as 1GB of RAM, available for around $5-$10 per month (domain registration fees aren’t included in this). This could theoretically be enough to host a standard WordPress website, although traffic would need to be very low.
If you up your budget to around $15-20 per month, you can find cloud solutions that offer more power than the upper-tier shared plans. So, pound for pound, cloud hosting doesn’t seem much more expensive than the shared alternatives at this point, especially given the technical advantages.
Cloud hosting also offers solutions for larger websites. If you register around 1.6 million monthly visits, you can get a managed cloud-based VPS solution from ScalaHosting and achieve the performance you’re after for around $65 per month.
That’s not where it tops out, though. The sky is literally the limit with cloud hosting, and large corporations using complex cloud solutions pay well in excess of $1,000 per month.
Takeaway
Cloud hosting can be very cheap, but it can also be costly. Shared hosting, on the other hand, is always affordable.
The truth is, if you’re on a very limited budget (less than $10 per month) and your site isn’t very popular, you’re better off with a shared plan. Cloud solutions in that price range are usually too tricky to set up, and they don’t offer much in the way of performance or options.
However, as soon as your site starts growing, a cloud-based service starts making a lot more sense. It has numerous advantages, and thanks to its flexible resource management, it’s widely considered the most cost-efficient way of hosting a website in the long run.
Cloud Hosting vs Shared Hosting: Performance & Scalability
A lot goes into creating a fast and responsive website, but the very first step is to understand your project’s requirements and ensure your hosting environment meets them. This could be easier said than done.
There is a general rule of thumb to follow, though: opt for a shared hosting account only if your site is relatively simple and your traffic levels are low.
Shared servers are powerful, but when they’re used by so many people, you can only expect so much of them. This isn’t even the biggest problem.
Loading speeds depend on the server load, and in a shared environment, the server load is entirely outside your control. If one of the websites on the server starts consuming excessive processing power or memory, it will affect every single project hosted on the machine.
Modern websites are fairly complex, and numerous factors can cause fluctuations in resource usage. Sometimes, it may be a new plugin that creates a conflict with existing software. In other cases, it may be a dodgy update that generates a ton of database queries. And sometimes, it’s more obvious – a marketing campaign that has been more successful than initially anticipated.
Remember that this could happen to any of the hundreds of websites hosted on the shared server. You can’t predict or prepare for it, and although hosting providers have measures in place for such occasions, they’re rarely enough to ensure the performance remains smooth.
Of course, you shouldn’t always blame others. Sometimes, the slower loading speeds stem from the fact that you’ve outgrown your hosting plan. In a shared environment, your options are limited. You can upgrade to a more expensive solution with increased storage and bandwidth, but if your site’s demands continue to grow, you can’t realistically expect to obtain the necessary resources from the shared solution.
The situation is vastly different if your site is hosted in the cloud.
For one, no one can affect your site’s loading speeds. The virtualization layer isolates your account completely, so a traffic spike on another website is no longer a problem. The processing power and memory are reserved specifically for you and are available 24/7, ensuring both strong and consistent performance.
Most cloud hosting solutions offer a dashboard that provides detailed resource usage statistics, allowing you to monitor processing power and memory usage at all times. When you see that you’re close to hitting a limit, you can easily add another CPU core or some RAM to the configuration to ensure there’s no drop in loading speeds.
Usually, the process involves clicking a few buttons in your client area. However, some providers also offer auto-scaling, which automatically adjusts your account’s hardware resources according to your current usage. When the load increases, the system allocates additional resources to meet the demand. When the traffic settles, the additional power is removed.
Even without auto-scaling, your upgrade and downgrade options are incredibly flexible. Instead of fixed plans with predetermined configurations, you can adjust individual components to suit your specific needs. For example, if you’re adding a lot of high-resolution images to your site, you can increase the account’s storage capacity without adding more CPU cores or memory. Similarly, if a new plugin starts consuming too much RAM, you can add memory without touching the rest of the configuration.
This sort of flexibility is unmatched by any other type of hosting. Cloud hosting ensures excellent performance for your site while also preventing you from paying for unused resources.
Takeaway
Shared hosting can be a good launchpad for a new project, but as your website starts picking up momentum, you’ll soon reach the limits of the shared environment.
At that point, you can choose a traditional dedicated server, which will likely deliver the performance you’re after, but at very high costs. Plus, when it comes to upgrades, your options will be limited.
Cloud hosting sits head and shoulders above every other type of service in this particular aspect. It scales with a single mouse click and adapts easily to any resource usage.
Cloud Hosting vs Shared Hosting: Reliability & Uptime
Any hosting infrastructure, regardless of the type, is a complicated system that consists of multiple components. Even a single one experiencing a glitch could spell trouble for the entire service.
In a shared hosting environment, uptime and reliability are largely dependent on a single physical machine and its capacity to handle load. Hundreds of websites utilize a single CPU, motherboard, and storage device. They also use the same web server and database engine.
Each of these components is a potential point of failure. If there’s a problem with any of them, the entire server slows down, or worse, gets knocked offline. That’s not the only issue, though.
Server resources are shared, and their usage is not hard-capped. For example, if one account owner is setting up a new WordPress blog, they will need a bit more memory for the CMS installation process. Meanwhile, another account may require more CPU power during an update.
Resource allocation between accounts fluctuates constantly, and for the most part, this isn’t a problem. However, things can change quickly.
For example, suppose one website on the shared server experiences a sudden surge in traffic. In that case, it will consume a significant amount of processing power and memory, leaving no free resources for the other projects. The same thing happens when one of the account owners sets up too many heavy cron jobs, installs a dodgy plugin, or is targeted by a DDoS attack.
All these events could lead to service disruptions, and since you have a single physical server handling so many websites, troubleshooting the issue could take a while and result in prolonged downtime.
Cloud hosting, on the other hand, has become synonymous with reliability and consistency. First and foremost, there is no single hardware point of failure. Your website is deployed on one of the servers in the cloud. Theoretically, it can go down, but even if it does, the rest of the nodes in the cluster are ready to take up the slack immediately, which minimizes downtime. Some cloud infrastructures are built across multiple locations, so even if there’s a facility-wide outage at one of the data centers, the service won’t be interrupted.
Another factor making cloud hosting more reliable is the isolation layer. In the cloud, your project is hosted either in a virtual machine or in a container. In both cases, it’s not sharing its resources with anyone else, meaning you don’t have to worry about another website experiencing a traffic spike and affecting your project’s performance.
Takeaway
A hosting environment’s reliability depends on several factors, including hardware health, connectivity, and core configuration. When it comes to shared hosting, you must also consider the behavior of hundreds of websites and their owners, which can increase the likelihood of service interruptions and performance issues.
Cloud hosting is much more resilient. The cluster of servers eliminates the single point of failure, and the isolation of individual accounts means your site’s uptime is not affected by what other people do.
Cloud Hosting vs Shared Hosting: Ease of Use
Shared hosting’s primary purpose is to help users launch their first-ever online project, so it’s designed with novices in mind. Deployment takes mere seconds, and every shared account is managed through a control panel with a point-and-click interface.
SPanel, ScalaHosting’s in-house developed solution, is one of the best platforms of its kind. When used in a shared environment, it offers a comprehensive range of tools that help manage everything from emails and files to databases, website-building applications, subdomains, and DNS records.
All in all, setting up and launching a website on a properly configured shared hosting account shouldn’t be a problem even for the most inexperienced user.
This is more than can be said about many cloud hosting solutions. Some services offer no graphical user interface at all. The host gives you an operating system and not much else. You use SSH to access it, and because you have root privileges, you can set up additional software, configure core OS settings, apply custom firewall rules, and so on.
Solutions like the one above are referred to as self-managed. They’re designed for experienced website owners who know their way around the command line and need to create a custom hosting environment for their projects.
But what if you want to combine this flexibility with ease of use?
Fortunately, there are many managed cloud hosting services that allow you to take advantage of the setup’s benefits without requiring any sysadmin experience. This time, the virtual machine is set up and configured to host your website out of the box. Instead of dealing with software installation and setup tweaks, you can start work on your project straight away.
To do this, you use a control panel. SPanel is available on cloud hosting platforms, and to say that it makes users’ lives easier would be an understatement.
The first step after your virtual server has been deployed is to create an Admin SPanel user and log in to the Admin Interface. Inside, you’ll find tools for managing backups, switching the web server and database management system, monitoring services, and many more.
That’s where you also set up an SPanel user account, and through it, you start work on your new website. It provides access to the User Interface, featuring the same dashboard and tools used by shared hosting users.
Takeaway
Shared hosting was designed from the outset to be the starting point for a regular online website. This means that it needs to be both affordable and novice-friendly. The technical setup ensures the service is suitable for people on a tight budget, and the control panel boosts its usability.
When cloud hosting first emerged, it was primarily targeted at more experienced website owners and app developers who needed a more easily customizable hosting environment. Those people can still find a cloud hosting solution that fits their requirements. However, because cloud setups are so versatile, you can now also find newbie-friendly cloud solutions that are managed through an intuitive control panel.
Moving From Shared to Cloud Hosting: What To Look Out For
If you’re looking for a hosting solution for a small website, you’ll most likely consider getting a shared plan to keep things simple and cheap at the beginning. However, bear in mind that as soon as your site starts growing, you will eventually need to switch to a more powerful solution.
A cloud-based service is the most obvious choice. Cloud hosting delivers better, more consistent performance, and it’s more flexible and easily scalable than any other alternative on the market.
The thing is, switching to a completely different setup may seem daunting, especially to less experienced users, and indeed, it can turn into a bit of a nightmare if you’re not careful.
Let’s have a look at some actionable tips that will help you avoid quite a few headaches.
- Ensure you have the correct technical setup in place.
Most shared hosting solutions out there use the so-called LAMP stack. LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, and it encompasses the technology used by most modern websites.
Not all cloud hosting solutions utilize the LAMP stack, though, so you should exercise a bit more caution when selecting a service.
For example, if you opt for a Windows- instead of Linux-based cloud service, it may be tricky, if not impossible, to deploy your website. That being said, you don’t necessarily want to stick to the standard LAMP setup. Sometimes, you can find alternative technologies that not only support but can actually improve your website’s performance and stability.
For example, with ScalaHosting’s cloud VPS solutions, you can enable OpenLiteSpeed and LiteSpeed Web Server – two platforms that are both lighter and much faster than Apache.
In other words, take a close look at the technology supported and offered by various cloud-based solutions and see how it can impact your site’s performance.
- Add enough hardware resources to ensure excellent performance.
You’re switching to a cloud hosting platform because you want to have a faster website. Ideally, you’ll want to see the performance boost immediately, so ensure your website will have sufficient resources post-migration.
It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get it exactly right – cloud hosting is flexible enough to allow you to upgrade whenever you want. So, if you’re not happy with the loading speeds, you can simply add more power.
However, if you contact your host’s support team and ask them to assist with the configuration, you can make the transition completely seamless.
- Choose the best server location for your project.
Identifying a specific target audience is critical in the development of any online project. And it all starts with pinpointing the physical location of most of your site’s visitors.
On the one hand, it’s essential for your content strategy, and on the other, you need it to deploy your site in the most suitable location.
When you’re signing up for a new cloud hosting service, you’re often given the choice of several data centers for the location of your account. With ScalaHosting’s cloud VPS solutions, for example, you get a choice of thirteen locations across four continents.
Select the option that is closest to your target audience. That way, you’ll reduce latency, the number of hops data needs to travel through, and the distance it covers before reaching your visitors’ browsers. This will ensure your site is as quick as it can be.
- Managed vs. Unmanaged cloud hosting services.
The cloud is an incredibly versatile setup that enables providers to build services that vary wildly in terms of technical setups and features. For example, when it comes to website hosting, there are two main types of customers. On the one hand, you have experienced website owners who require a custom hosting environment and possess the necessary technical skills to create it.
On the other, some users don’t need to install specialized software or tweak core server settings. They lack the sysadmin knowledge to deal with stuff like backups, updates, and OS configuration.
For the former, there are self-managed hosting solutions that offer root access and complete freedom to install additional software and tweak server settings per the user’s requirements.
For the latter, hosts offer managed plans that come ready to go out of the box. There’s no root access because all the tools and applications a typical website owner might need are already there. The hosting provider sets up everything, from the operating system to the backups and updates, and provides a control panel that offers the user an interface for managing their account.
If you have the experience and the need to build something more custom, a self-managed solution is your better bet.
If you want to focus on building a website without wasting time on overly technical tasks – a managed solution is your best option.
- Migration: Planning and Considerations
The transition from shared to cloud hosting should be as smooth as possible, so it is essential to plan it carefully. Your website must remain online while you’re copying the files to the cloud, so don’t rush to close the old shared account.
Ensure that everything is transferred to the cloud and functioning as expected before changing the domain’s DNS settings to redirect it to the new service. Then, wait for at least a day or two for the changes to propagate globally before shutting down the shared service.
The timing of the migration is also essential. Ideally, you’ll want to do it during the quiet hours of the day, when the traffic is at its lowest. But if you follow proper transfer guidelines (keeping the old account active and pointing the domain after the migration), you shouldn’t experience even a second of downtime..
You need to determine whether you have the technical skills to complete the transfer on your own. The technical procedure depends on the setups of the source and destination accounts.
For example, if both services use identical or compatible control panels, it’s most likely a case of making a full account backup at the shared server and restoring it on the cloud-based one.
If the management platforms aren’t compatible, you’ll have to transfer the files via FTP and then manually export and import the database.
Of course, if you’re a ScalaHosting customer, you don’t need to think about any of this. Every ScalaHosting account includes a free website migration as part of the package. Regardless of whether you’re switching from another provider to Scala or upgrading from one of our shared hosting solutions to a cloud VPS plan, our technical support agents will transfer your website, along with your emails, completely free of charge. You simply need to open a support ticket and specify a timeframe for the migration.
Conclusion
Shared hosting is a fine entry point for beginners and small projects. Its simplicity and low price make it perfect for taking your first steps in the world of website building and management.
However, as traffic and performance demands grow, the limitations of shared hosting become apparent, and cloud hosting emerges as the preferred alternative. Its reliability and scalability are unmatched by any other service, and if you choose wisely, you can have blistering performance at a very reasonable price.
In short, shared hosting is where your website can start, but cloud hosting is where it will thrive.
FAQ
Q: What is the main difference between shared hosting and cloud hosting?
A: In a shared hosting environment, multiple users share a single physical server. All the resources are available to everyone, making the service prone to peak loads and performance fluctuations. By contrast, cloud hosting relies on a network of interconnected servers providing users with guaranteed resources, better scalability, and improved uptime stats.
Q: Which type of hosting is better for beginners?
A: Shared hosting’s low price and novice-friendly approach have historically made it the best style of hosting for beginners. However, the development of intuitive server management platforms, such as SPanel, means that you don’t need any advanced technical skills or experience to work with cloud hosting, either.
Q: How easy is it to upgrade from shared to cloud hosting?
A: Because the two services operate on completely different infrastructures, an upgrade requires migrating your site’s files and database to a new server. With ScalaHosting, you don’t need to worry about the process, as our technical support experts will perform the migration for free.
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