Web hosting is a crucial element to make your website accessible on the internet. However, it can be challenging to know which web hosting is perfect for your website and your business requirements. You should consider different factors before you reach the point where you are sure about your web hosting. For example, server reliability, pricing, renewal cost, backup options, and features. But it can be overwhelming to know it all on your own.
Being a website owner for the past decade, I have done my research on how to select the best among the rest. In this article, we will discuss two different hostings along with the pros and cons. They are Cloud Hosting and WordPress Hosting. Read this blog post until the end to understand the difference between Cloud and WordPress hosting.
You might have heard about shared VPS or a dedicated one. Unlike those, Cloud Hosting is a type of virtually hosted platform with various servers around the world. It is mostly suitable for big businesses or ecommerce stores, considering the level of stability and performance it provides.
You will usually get more bandwidth and storage when hosting through the cloud. It is ideally designed for growing sites and businesses.
The best thing about this hosting service is you pay-as-you-go, which, in simple terms, means you pay for the resources that you use.
Some of the best cloud hosting providers are DreamHost, Cloudways, HostGator, SiteGround, Hostwinds, Hostinger, Kamatera, and InMotion.
WordPress hosting is designed specifically for WordPress websites. It works similarly to other common types of hosting (shared, VPS, and dedicated), but it focuses on making hosting for WordPress sites very easy. Features like one-click installations and automatic updates for WordPress are common in WordPress hosting.
There are mainly two types of WordPress available – Shared and Managed.
Shared hostings are mostly suitable for personal or simpler websites with less traffic. It is ideal for beginners who are working around a budget. Managed WordPress hosting is a little expensive but saves time in maintenance. It is designed for scaling your online presence and is mostly used by growing websites. It comes with automatic updates and improved security for faster loading of websites.
Some of my best WordPress hosts are WPX, SiteGround, Bluehost, A2 Hosting, HostGator, and DreamHost. They are known for their hosting packages with good support and a strong uptime guarantee.
With intense research, I have evaluated both hosting types to make an informed decision. Below are the pros and cons of both. By weighing these pros and cons, individuals and businesses can determine whether cloud hosting is the right choice for their specific needs and requirements.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| You pay for what you use | Lack of control over specifics |
| Scalable | Dependent on the internet connection to get your data |
| Unlimited features and bandwidth | Difficult budgeting |
| Ideal for ecomm businesses |
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Only available for WordPress sites | Cannot be used for Non-WordPress sites such as ecomm business |
| Highly secure | Little expensive than Cloud Hosting |
| Fast loading of sites |
Here, we will be comparing basic features that come with both cloud hosting and WordPress hosting.
| Cloud Hosting | WordPress Hosting |
|---|---|
| High uptime and fast performance. | Allows you to choose resource limits that give your site breathing space |
| Scalability and flexibility available | You know where you stand month-on-month in terms of costs, as you pay the same fees every month |
| Cost-effectiveness and potentially unlimited capacity with cloud plans | Managed hosting is hassle-free with expert technical help |
| Ideal for high-traffic sites | The only downside can be seen as limited scalability options |
| Virtualization ensures better performance and stability than single-server hosting services | Limited to WordPress websites (as stated before also) |
| Can save more money by paying for the resources you need, which can be more or less from month to month | You have to get the whole package, whether you really need some of the features or not. |
| Flexible and adaptable |
Security is one of the top priorities when choosing the type of hosting. Mostly because it helps you prevent cyber threats such as hacking and DDoS attacks. But at the same time, as a website owner, you want to safeguard the data of your consumers and yourself. This helps in building credibility among visitors and also helps you rank your website on SERP.
When it comes to comparing both Cloud hosting and WordPress hosting in terms of security, I would go with the WordPress one. Why? When your website is hosted on the cloud across multiple servers with other sites, even if one of the sites is compromised, you will be at risk too.
On the other hand, WordPress hosting is split. In simpler terms, WordPress hostings are hard to penetrate externally. Not to mention, you get an automatic backup option along with malware scans and firewalls. So, if your data is compromised or lost, you still have a backup to work with. Not to mention, you can go for any advanced firewall that will protect your website from being vulnerable.
The performance of web hosting really just means how well your site is up and running. As a site owner, the worst possible case is when you face downtime, and there is no way to understand what could have gone wrong.
Given my experience, I believe my choice or go to would be Cloud hosting. Firstly, it is designed to handle more visitors. And secondly, you can easily adjust your resources as per the traffic you get from your site. So, if you have sudden traffic on your site, you may face some downtime in the case of WordPress hosting, but with Cloud, you can adjust your bandwidth and run as smoothly as possible.
WordPress ones are more standard on what they can handle at a given point in time. Sure, you can take advanced packages with time, but there is no crisis control at sudden times. You have set resources, and you have to work around it. But as long as you have things under control, performance won’t be an issue, even with WordPress hostings.
Being a blogger, I cannot compromise on performance and uptime as it decides your site’s future growth. Considering this, I would recommend you take a look at Kinsta Hosting. This is one of my go-to hosts which many of my blogger friends use.
Under Kinsta, you get hosting services such as management WordPress Hosting, managed database hosting, application hosting, and more. They are unique as they prioritize the speed and security of your website along with a 99.99% uptime guarantee. Not to mention, you can get managed WordPress hosting for just $35 per month. And you can even save $70 by going for the yearly billing cycle. Kinsta also has multiple global data centers, a rapid-response support team made up of experts and an easy-to-use account dashboard.
Scalability refers to the ability of a hosting plan to scale up or down as needed, depending on the website’s traffic. With time, every site owner wants to scale up their business, and not all hosting supports this.
Cloud hosting is super flexible and can grow as big as you want it to. Instead of relying on just one server, your website gets resources from multiple servers. So, if one server is busy, it grabs what it needs from another. Plus, you only pay for what you actually use. You do not even want to enhance your plans, which you might not need at present. It’s like paying for exactly what you eat, with no extra costs for the fancy menu items you might not order.
On the other hand, we have WordPress hosting. WordPress hosting is scalable in a way you can enhance your plan from basic to premium and advanced. For example, every host that sells managed or unmanaged WordPress hosting will give you at least three plans based on the traffic you are getting on your site. So, if you see that your site is growing, you can then enhance your plan and accommodate your website into it. But even in them, you will have resource limitations such as limited bandwidth, RAM, and storage.
Maintaining a website can be really costly and time-consuming. Because you have to know the ins and outs of it, maybe hire a few subject matter experts and developers for some technical issues.
When it comes to technical support, WordPress hosting fairly wins the game. With managed hosting plans, you can easily book your ticket at your host site, and they will take care of the rest. This includes backups, server monitoring, security, storage, database, and files. Everything is updated for you, so you don’t have to worry about things like plugin changes. For the most part, all you have to do to make them work is accept them on your website. You can also set your site to get changes automatically to keep it running well and safe.
Some hosts will even give you pre-installed plugins, which are easy to manage and configure with toggle options.
Cloud hosting also comes with management options, features and setup are usually taken care of by the host, and you do not face many problems. However, in my personal preference, I have faced issues in reaching technical teams when it comes to support functions. But your experience can be different. It is actually very hard to determine a clear winner in this matter.
Pricing comparison can be a little subjective if we don’t see a comparison of a few famous hosts side by side. So, I will be comparing my best three hosts that I have personally used and experienced.
Some companies may ask you to pay basic rates along with enhancement options for better packages. But I will try my best to give you a clear understanding of how pricing works.
| Host | Cloud Hosting | Shared WordPress Hosting | Managed WordPress Hosting |
|---|---|---|---|
| WPX Hosting | Does Not provide Cloud hosting | $20-$80 | $20-$80 |
| HostGator | $12.95 – $19.95 | $14.95 – $27.95 | Does Not provide Managed WP Hosting |
| A2 Hosting | $5 – $371 | $7.99 – $24.46 | $24.46 – $75.48 |
| HawkHost | $5- $160 | $3- $11 | Does Not provide Managed WP Hosting |
| Bluehost | Does Not provide Cloud Hosting | $3.95 – $5.95 | $29.99 – $59.95 |
Cloud hosting and shared hosting have different prices that depend on several things. Prices for shared hosting plans range from $2 to $10 per month, which makes them a good choice for small businesses or personal websites that don’t get a lot of visitors.
When you use shared hosting, you put several websites on the same computer and share resources like CPU, RAM, and disk space between them. This also means that the price is shared among a few website owners, which is why it is quite affordable.
Cloud hosting plans, on the other hand, have more features and cost more than shared hosting plans. Cloud hosting works better for bigger companies that need more resources and traffic. Cloud storage can cost anywhere from $5 to $15 a month, but plans for large businesses cost more than $100 a month.
If you are looking for a reliable WordPress hosting provider, WPX Hosting is a great option. They are currently offering a 50% discount on the first month of all their monthly hosting plans when you use the promo code “Bloggingscout”. They offer three different hosting plans namely Business, Professional, and Elite. You can look at the features and choose what best suits your website. They also provide WooCommerce hosting along with Domain registration at affordable prices.
Finally, it’s important to think about things like scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and the needs of your website or business when deciding between cloud hosting and WordPress hosting.
Cloud hosting is better for businesses and websites that are growing and need more resources and traffic because it is more flexible and adaptable. However, WordPress hosting is cheaper and has a more stable monthly cost, which makes it a good choice for people who want to use WordPress websites but don’t want to do regular upkeep.
In the end, I hope this guide was helpful to you in making an informed decision about your website hosting needs. Happy Blogging!
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