What Is Cloud Hosting?

Website Development
What Is Cloud Hosting?
Article by Maria Martin
Last Updated: February 20, 2024

Cloud hosting took the throne of shared hosting as the most popular type of web hosting in 2019, and is projected to surpass a market size of $1.63 trillion by 2030. 

So why exactly is cloud-based hosting becoming a fan favorite? 

We’ll answer this question by explaining how cloud hosting works, sharing the benefits, and presenting the top web hosting providers to consider for your website. 

What Is Cloud Hosting? 

Cloud hosting is an essential component of web development. Also known as cluster server hosting, it utilizes cloud resources such as data storage and servers to store and host websites. 

Instead of hosting your website on a single, physical server, the cloud allows you to spread your website content across multiple interconnected servers in a virtual environment, also known as the cloud. 

Cloud hosting is grouped into four types: public, private, hybrid, and managed cloud hosting.

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How Does Cloud Hosting Work? 

Cloud-based hosting works through virtualization, a technology that creates a virtual version of something that is usually physical, like a server. 

In cloud-based hosting, virtualization splits a physical server into multiple virtual machines or cloud servers. They’re not like traditional hosting plans where your website is only relying on one server. These multiple servers interconnect, creating a virtual system to host your website or provide email hosting. VOIP hosting is another possible use of cloud hosting. 

Think of cloud server hosting as web hosting with a safety net. Because there are multiple servers, even if one of your servers fails, your website won't crash since it has other servers to depend on. 

Additionally, when it comes to cloud hosting costs, many platforms offer a pay-as-you-go system, where you only pay for the computer power that you use as you go along. This makes for easier scalability. 

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Top 10 Cloud Web Hosting Providers 

Leaning toward cloud-based hosting for your website? Here are three cloud web hosting providers you can partner with. 

1. Cloudways

Cloudways takes pride in providing 24/7 support all year round. 

Offering reliability, unmatched performance, and around-the-clock support, Cloudways is the top choice for cloud-based hosting, whether you own a dynamic startup or a thriving eCommerce store. 

With Cloudways, you can: 

  • Use unlimited applications 
  • Leverage automated backups 
  • Access 24/7 real-time monitoring 
  • Secure your website thanks to free SSL certificates, firewall protection, and regular security patching 

Price: Cloudways offers four plans, which start at $12/month and go up to $96/month. 

2. Kamatera

Kamatera is an internationally acclaimed cloud hosting provider with 13 data centers located worldwide. 

Kamatera is known for extensive cloud security features, including load balancers, private networks, and firewalls. 

With Kamatera, you can: 

  • Access unlimited bandwidth 
  • Pause and restart your servers at any time 
  • Assign roles to your administrators 
  • Utilize automated backups 

Price: Kamatera provides a 30-day free trial on cloud products, and offers plans starting at $4/month. 

3. RunCloud

Launched in 2016, RunCloud is an affordable web hosting option that starts at $4/month, which offers reliable storage,VPS hosting server configuration options, and 24/7 website monitoring (read more onVPN vs VPS). 

With RunCloud, you can: 

  • Utilize automated backups 
  • Benefit from website security, such as free SSL certificates and firewall protection 
  • Access automated server configuration and security updates 

Price: Runcloud plans start as low as $6.67/month for the basic plan, $12.50/month for the pro plan, and $37.50/month for the premium plan. 

4. HostGator

Founded in 2002, this is one of the most cost-effective cloud hosting providers today. Their lowest tier of service called shared hosting starts at $2.75 per month. However, its low price doesn’t mean quality is sacrificed.  

With HostGator, you can:  

  • Get a free SSL certificate on all plans 
  • Access a dashboard to easily monitor website performance 
  • Take advantage of free site transfers 
  • Be guaranteed a 99.99% uptime 

Price: HostGator provides three cloud hosting packages with the following introductory pricing: Hatchling Cloud for $4.95 per month, Baby Cloud for $5.95 per month, and Business Cloud for $9.95 per month.  

5. Nexcess

Brought to you by Liquid Web, this cloud server hosting solution is deemed perfect for eCommerce websites. Nexcess is great for rapidly growing businesses that need a solution that can keep up with their growing demands.  

With Nexcess, you can:  

  • Boost load times with Nexcess Cloud Accelerator 
  • Access 24/7 support 
  • Access a built-in CDN 
  • Enjoy no traffic limits, no overage fees, and no metered pageviews 

Price: When it comes to cloud hosting costs, Nexcess provides six options, with the cheapest at $49 per month (hosting up to 11 sites) and the highest tier at $849 per month (hosting up to 51 sites).  

6. Hostinger

This platform is one of the many cloud hosting providers with many useful features. It has data centers that span the globe. However, they lack Windows OS servers; they only have Linux hosting available.  

With Hostinger's cloud hosting service, you can:  

  • Have free SSL certificates and a free domain  
  • Get a dedicated IP address 
  • Get unlimited site hosting  
  • Enjoy a 30-day money-back guarantee 
  • Automated daily backups 

Price: Hostinger offers has a three-tiered plan offering, with the lowest tier (Startup) at $9.99 a month and the highest tier (Enterprise) at $29.99 a month.  

7. InMotion

An underrated solution, InMotion provides the best cloud hosting services for advanced users. It offers WordPress hosting, shared hosting, and VPS hosting. InMotion is also perfect for small business owners because of its scalability.  

With InMotion, you can:  

  • Have a dedicated IP address 
  • Be guaranteed a 99.99% uptime  
  • Access the Resource Monitoring Dashboard to monitor RAM, load usage, and bandwidth 
  • Enjoy free SSL and cPanel license 
  • Get free auto backups 
  • Benefit from a 90-day money-back guarantee 

Price: InMotion offers several cloud hosting services for applications, resellers, small businesses, and enterprises. The price starts at $6 per month for its cloud application service.  

8. A2 Hosting

Despite not offering traditional cloud hosting services, A2 hosting is still worth looking into as it’s one of the fastest hosting platforms in today’s market — up to 20x faster than traditional cloud services. However, their plans are only limited to Linux systems.  

With A2 Hosting, you can:  

  • Enjoy faster SSD server storage  
  • Rely on a 99.99% uptime 
  • Pay only for used resources based on cloud server configurations 
  • Have access to 24/7 customer support 

Price: While A2 Hosting is the best cloud hosting platform for faster web hosting, it remains to be cost-effective. It offers both unmanaged and managed cloud hosting, starting at $5.99 per month for the lowest tier of managed hosting. 

9. AccuWeb Hosting

This cloud-hosting platform has been in the industry since 2003. Rest assured, they know what they’re doing. AccuWeb offers several server locations, so it’s perfect for websites that want to maximize the location where they get the most traffic. 

With AccuWeb, you can:  

  • Choose between Windows or Linux servers 
  • Enjoy stellar customer service  
  • Be guaranteed a 100% hardware uptime  
  • Enjoy instant account activation and DDoS protection 

Price: AccuWeb provides three cloud hosting plans, each with a three-year term. The cheapest is Personal, with a monthly fee of $6.49. On the contrary, the highest tier is Enterprise at $20.49 per month.  

10. DreamHost

While other best cloud hosting platforms on this list focus on Linux OS, DreamHost can be used on Windows and BSD as well. DreamHost is best for beginners because of its easy setup — you can go live within 30 seconds. However, one of its biggest downsides is the limited customer support. You can only contact them via live chat or email, and they’re only available 16 hours per day.  

With DreamHost, you can:  

  • Have full root access, allowing you to scale apps horizontally and vertically 
  • Get flexible cloud server options 
  • Be guaranteed a 99.77% uptime 
  • Use it on Linux, BSD, and Windows operating systems 

Price: Its pricing structure is the most unique one on this list of the best cloud hosting providers. That's because it’s hourly, instead of monthly. You pay for what you use. Rates begin at $0.0075 per hour for 512 MB of RAM. For 8 GB of RAM, rates start at $0.08 per hour. 

5 Benefits of Cloud-Based Hosting

From making your website available at all times to increased data security, here are the key benefits of cloud hosting.

  1. Increased Reliability
  2. Improved Security
  3. Recover Backup Data
  4. Lower Costs
  5. Faster Access to Data

1. Increased Reliability

If your website relies on a single server, your website can be at risk if your server crashes. 

eCommerce giant Amazon learned this the hard way during Amazon Prime Day2018. 

On July 17, 2018, Amazon did not have enough servers to handle the massive amount of traffic, causing the website to go offline for 13 minutes. 

Knowing that Prime Day is an anticipated day for online shoppers, Amazon could have spread their website data among multiple servers (more than usual) to accommodate the traffic surge they experienced. 

They lost an estimated $100 million in sales due to server downtime. 

This is where the cloud comes in handy. 

Thanks to its multiple interconnected virtual servers, cloud-based hosting allows your website to still be accessible, even if one server goes offline. 

2. Improved Security

Compared to other types of web hosting, cloud-based hosting is less vulnerable to cyber attacks. 

Cloud-based hosting providers offer security solutions such as data encryption, firewalls, backup recovery, and storage segregation. 

In addition, cloud-based hosting is equipped with a load-balancing feature that prevents distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks from occurring. 

DDoS attacks happen when a hacker floods your website with too much traffic which can cause it to crash. If a server experiences a DDoS attack, load balancers help by rerouting traffic from one server to another 

3. Recover Backup Data

The multi-server and interconnected nature of cloud-based hosting allows your data to be automatically backed up. 

Dedicated web hosting providers offer free automated backups, SSL certification, and 24/7 security monitoring. 

4. Lower Costs

Since cloud hosting plans are generally offered as a software-as-a-service (Saas), the task of maintaining the necessary hardware falls on the vendor. Customers only need to pay for services as they use them.  

This makes cloud server hosting a good option for small businesses that have a limited budget and can’t afford to buy and maintain on-site hardware.  

5. Faster Access to Data

With a cloud hosting service, content delivery networks (CDNs) can provide faster access to resource-intensive data, such as graphics, images, sounds, streaming video, and other similar types of content.  

The best cloud hosting platforms, such as Google Cloud hosting, can automatically identify which server is nearest to a user so that they can provide content from the nearest source. This then increases website speed and reduces loading time

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Cloud Hosting Frequently Asked Questions 

1. Which Is the Best Cloud Hosting? 

It’s hard to say which hosting provider is the best without knowing what you need. If you want a platform that provides the fastest loading time, you can turn to A2 Hosting. If you’re an advanced user, you may want to use InMotion or DreamHost.  

2. What Is the Difference Between Hosting and Cloud Hosting? 

With web hosting, the files for your website are stored on a single physical server. On the other hand, cloud hosting provides virtual servers that host your site. Data for your site is stored on multiple cloud servers, so if one server malfunctions, your website can still run on another server.  

3. What Is the Difference Between Dedicated Hosting and Cloud Hosting? 

Dedicated hosting is great for large businesses and companies that require a dedicated physical server for their website to meet high levels of data security or steadily high server capacity demands. Cloud hosting, on the other hand, is perfect for small businesses with varied needs and workloads. 

Expert Insights on Cloud Hosting

We asked experts: "What are the benefits of cloud hosting?"

Stephen Reece, Scrumfish Software, LLC:

"Choosing to host your applications in the cloud, being Azure, AWS, or another, can save you thousands, to ten of thousands of dollars a year while allowing you to give your customers a 99.99% uptime SLA. Often when evaluating the cost differential between self-hosting and cloud hosting, companies don't consider the cost of electricity, labor on maintenance, amount of bandwidth consumption, and other such items. Identifying the full cost of self-hosting is crucial to making the decision. When considering a 99.99% SLA, those self-hosting costs can rapidly spiral upward."

Pedro Pablo Pica Montesinos - Senior Web Developer, CEO and Founder of Makinable:

"At Makinable we offer scalable cloud hosting with Google Cloud. The result is impressive. We have great load times and our customers consume and pay only for the resources they need. It's like a perfect tailor-made suit. Version 2 : At Makinable we offer scalable cloud hosting. The result is impressive. We have great load times and our customers consume and pay for only the resources they need. It's like a perfect tailor-made suit."

Tim Volner, CEO at Poieo Dev:

"Cloud hosting allows a website to be dispersed in an efficient way worldwide to ensure visitors gets the fastest and most efficient experience."

John Emtage, Technical Solutions Specialist at Uclimb:

"Cloud hosting, services like Cloudways, offers distinct advantages and benefits such as: enhanced security over shared hosting, effortless vertical scalability, superior uptime, robust servers with reduced bloatware and enhanced performance, and cost-effectiveness for high specifications and adaptable on-demand hosting. These are some of the main benefits in a nutshell."

Chris Beecher, Principal and Lead Developer at Hivehouse Digital:

"Cloud hosting offers several advantages, allowing you to concentrate on your business without the need to assume roles such as systems administrator, network administrator, or web server administrator. With cloud hosting architecture, you can easily create duplicate environments for testing new development features and software upgrades. Additionally, each hosted application instance operates within its own isolated container, enhancing security compared to shared server instances. You also have the flexibility to select the location of your cloud hosting, which can lead to faster response times for the audiences most likely to use your website or application. Cloud hosting further provides insulation against server hardware failures and disruptions in Internet Service Provider (ISP) connectivity to the data center, ensuring continuous and reliable operations. Kinsta is a great example of a company doing cloud hosting the right way."

Wrapping Up on Cloud Hosting 

Cloud hosting is gaining popularity thanks to its numerous benefits, which include increased reliability, increased security, and backup data recovery. 

With cloud hosting, you don’t have to rely on a single server, which can prove disastrous if it crashes, and you don’t have to share servers and resources with other websites likereseller hosting, which can slow down your page loading speed. 

Cloud web hosting is an ideal option if you have a robust web design that demands high performance and bandwidth, and gains a lot of traffic. 

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