What is cloud web hosting?
Simply put, Cloud hosting web hosting is a method of hosting that uses a network of multiple servers connected together to act as one. In other words, cloud hosting can be seen as the complete opposite of traditional server web hosting which uses a single server to power hosted websites.
So when you use cloud web hosting, you are actually using a network of servers instead single isolated physical server or dedicated server to store and manage your website’s files, database, emails, and more from your website. The network of servers is what we call the cloud.
The servers used in a cloud hosting arrangement are virtually linked. It is this form of servers arrangement that gives your website more flexibility in dealing with traffic, as well as better load balancing, higher uptime and reliability rates.
Best Cloud Hosting Companies (Ranked)
- Recommended for:
BlueHost is an excellent cloud web hosting provider with an easy-to-use interface for beginners. It is built for Speed, Website Protection, Online Marketing and Great Customer Support. By standard, BlueHost offers a Free domain, Free SSL, Free CDN and 30 days money-back guarantee on all their hosting plans. BlueHost’s Pricing starts from only $2.95/month (Up to 70%) on Cloud Shared Hosting Plans.
BlueHost also offers a variety of hosting products such as Dedicated WordPress Hosting, E-Commerce Hosting, VPS and Dedicated Cloud. If you are advanced, you have the option to use the dedicated resources unmanaged or with full control.
What separates BlueHost from most cloud hosts is that most of the business features are readily added to the platform to help you market your business with ease, these include: Google Ads, Google My Business, SEO Services, Full Website Help by Experts, and Business Mail. These tools are great for beginners who are just getting started with their first website.
NameHero Pricing: Starts from
- $2.95/month – Cloud Shared Hosting
- $2.95/month – WordPress Hosting
- $9.95/month – WooCommerce Hosting
- $19.99/month – VPS Hosting
- $79.99/month – Dedicated Hosting
How Cloud Hosting Works?
Practically, cloud web hosting allows multiple physical machines to act as one system. Meaning, with cloud web hosting service, visitors aren’t accessing just one machine. They’re accessing several instantaneously.
The main advantage of this data storage approach is that if one of the machines or server components – RAM, CPU, hard drive or power components are having a problem then other machines will always be available for rescue, keeping everything balanced altogether and providing you the reliability and maximum uptime possible.
Furthermore, because cloud web hosting also runs on a network of virtual servers, this drastically eliminates most of the hardware and server set-up costs, providing you with low monthly costs to host your site. Also, web hosting resources can be allocated on-the-go to meet all the hosting requirements of your website.
Cloud Hosting vs Traditional Hosting
Cloud based hosting is basically an improvement to traditional web hosting. Traditional web hosting uses large mechanical or physical servers that are kept in a facility called a datacenter or a server room, whereas cloud hosting uses a network of smaller, low-maintenance servers operating as a single system and leveraging virtual resources.
In a cloud hosting system, the parts being used are not necessarily in one place, which is why it is referred to as a cloud – you can just imagine it as “just being up there”. Therefore, since cloud hosting uses a network of machines that are hosted off-site, resources such as disk space, RAM, and computing power, can be added or upgraded easily – without necessarily causing any downtime.
This is part of the reason why big companies such as Apple, Google, Dropbox, Microsoft, etc. never experience downtime on their cloud storage services rendered to clients. Or why it is difficult for anyone to possibly destroy the servers of a cloud hosting company.
The main problem with traditional website hosting servers is that they have a single point of failure (i.e. one dedicated server). If there is a hardware fault (a hard drive goes out) the entire machine is brought down until it is replaced.
Similar can be said if there happens to be a power cut problem, the entire machine goes out until power is switched on again. Or if the server has a large traffic spike, the entire machine can begin to lag and struggle to perform until resources such as RAM and CPU are physically added or upgraded. See the illustration of cloud hosting vs traditional hosting below.
Benefits of Cloud Hosting - Why Cloud Hosting?
While there are many benefits of cloud hosting, The main one ares are low operating and monthly hosting costs, scalability or upgradability, high performance and speed, high security, maximum uptime and reliability. Here’s how these benefits came about:
1. Low Hosting Costs
The elastic nature of cloud computing enables you to scale up and down based on your hosting needs, ensuring you never waste resources or over-pay for what you don’t need.
Cloud hosting is more sustainable to operate and reduces so much load of maintenance costs than an on-premise hardware. This is why reputable hosting companies such as BlueHost, NameHero, and Godaddy are able to give you hosting packages with unlimited space, security features and more at almost a price to nothing.
2. Scalability and Ease of Upgradability
3. Cloud Hosting gives Faster Hosting Speeds
Cloud hosting uses modern technology advancements that are easily deployed to give you faster hosting speeds. These include the use of faster SSD Cloud storage vs traditional mechanical HDD hard drives, web caching technologies such as LiteSpeed Web Server and Content Delivery Networks (CDN) such as Cloudflare with Railgun and QUIC.cloud (A product of Litespeed).
Unlike with a traditional web hosting system, websites only load faster in areas closer to where the server is located and they become slower the further you are from the server. This is a reason why it is smart to use cloud hosting if you have an international website, E-commerce store or blog.
Also, cloud hosting infrastructure also leverages the use of open source software such as CloudLinux for top speed. The combination of everything used in the system means people can easily access your website, from any part of the world with very low latency in data transfer.
4. High Security
Security in cloud hosting generally comes in three forms: Private data encryption through a trusted SSL, Daily backups and Protection from malware attacks.
On a cloud hosting platform, most of the components used in the system are virtual or leveraged through software. Hence things like automatic backup technologies, automatic malware scanning, software patching and file hardening are easily added and can be updated easily.
5. Maximum 99.9% Uptime
Server hardware failure in a cloud hosting network doesn’t necessarily lead to downtime since other machines in the network are always available for rescue. In addition, by leveraging software such as CloudLinux, cloud hosting companies are able to distribute resources such as RAM, CPU, I/O to your website with ease, creating an extremely reliable network with 99.9% uptime.
I/O stands for input/output. It basically refer to the speed of data transfer between the hard disk and the RAM. Or simply “throughput”.
Conclusion and Recommendations
As you have seen, traditional web hosting is a thing of the past, and cloud hosting is the future. When you deploy to the cloud, you get to enjoy an abundance of advantages and focus on growing your business rather than fixing downtimes and constantly seeking technical support.
Also, Cloud hosting can be obtained at a very low prices and yet gives you an abundant amount of convenient web hosting benefits.
