As businesses move forward to their target that aims to achieve performance and scalability, the debate of cloud hosting vs dedicated hosting becomes all the more important. Do you know this, for example? Based on the Cloud Computing Market Analysis that was carried out concerning the size of cloud computing, cloud computing is forecasted to reach a figure of USD 0.68 trillion in the year 2024. Its goal for the following year has been set at USD 1.44 trillion. The overall compound annual growth rate indicated in the analysis for the period of forecasting, from 2024-2029, stands at 16.40%. Whereas, dedicated servers remain a popular favorite since they are a secure solution for companies that need security and control. You will know which option suits your business needs if you understand the difference between cloud server and dedicated server.
This blog explains the key differences between cloud hosting and dedicated hosting for making an informed decision.
Table Of Content
What Is A Cloud Server?
In simple terms, a cloud server is an IT infrastructure available over the internet. This server serves multiple users on-demand in real-time. Cloud servers are designed to offer the same functions to their users with the same operating systems. Generally, they provide similar performance to all its users. Cloud servers can be located anywhere in the world and they deliver through a cloud computing environment.
Cloud Server Highlights
- Cost-Efficient: Cloud servers managed by third-party providers are less expensive to purchase and maintain.
- Easy to Configure: Cloud servers can be configured with just a few clicks with an efficient control panel.
- Utility-based Billing: You only have to pay for the resources or data or service you use for your website or application on the cloud server.
- Scalability: You get scalability and flexibility, you can use the resources as per your requirements.
- Data Backups: When you store data in the cloud, there are regular backups of your data and you will never lose the important data.
- Collaboration: The cloud platform removes the time and data constraints so that the data and services are available at all times.
- Enhances Software Capabilities: Cloud hosting enables the businesses to access all the features of the applications without having to divert the resources to your own IT infrastructure.
Related: What Is Cloud Hosting? Answered
What Is A Dedicated Server?
A dedicated server is completely dedicated to your hosting account, website, application, or software. The dedicated server provides extreme power and freedom. Most enterprises generally start with cloud servers; but, with time they feel the importance of upgradation from a cloud server to a dedicated one.
Dedicated Server Highlights
- Increased Traffic: If your website is growing and you need to handle the increased traffic, you should opt for a dedicated server solution.
- More Security: The security of your website is a prime concern if your system stores sensitive information like confidential emails, customer information like debit and credit card numbers. With a dedicated server, you have complete control over those resources.
- Less Downtime: Opting for a dedicated server reduces the downtime of your website and makes a significant positive impact on your page loading.
- More Control: Dedicated server solutions give you optimum control to configure your server as you like.
- Unique IP Address: Every dedicated server has its own unique IP address, this is very important for large business websites and ecommerce websites.
- Enhanced Performance: You get maximum uptime for your website when you opt for dedicated server. Get more stability and reliability.
Related: Top 5 Benefits Of Fully Managed Dedicated Server
Common Features of Cloud and Dedicated Servers
Cloud and dedicated servers both perform the same actions. They store the information and when you demand that information, they cater you that information after processing. In this era of advanced IT technology, cloud and dedicated servers can serve any type of service like a website, or mobile application. However, the difference lies in the performance.
Dedicated and cloud services support any kind of application you want to host. The two servers also rely on the same backend tools. As compared to shared and VPS hosting, cloud and dedicated servers might:
- Offer a more robust and customized system architecture,
- Handle significantly more traffic,
- Provide faster response times,
- Ensure greater app resiliency at lower price points.
Both dedicated and cloud servers represent excellent options for the hosting of data if managed properly. They do not lag in performance at any time due to a spike in traffic, and they process data faster than both shared and VPS servers.
Differences Between Cloud & Dedicated Servers
There are significant differences between cloud servers and dedicated servers. The cloud server is a server in the virtual environment and the dedicated server is a physical server. Although they offer the same services, they differ a lot in terms of the scalability, migration options, pricing, and operations.
Performance:
If you are looking for performance, you should go for dedicated servers. No doubt, they will offer you fast processing and fast access to data. This happens as the processors inside dedicated servers are designed to solely serve your host application or website. In the case of cloud servers, the requests go through SAN or storage area network which can slow down the process.
Scalability:
Scalability happens in dedicated and cloud servers in different ways. In the case of dedicated servers, the upgradation of processors or drives needs more planning and resources. It is a little complicated as it can lead to downtime. Cloud servers are super easy to scale as they have a virtual and partitioned environment.
Migration:
In the case of migration, dedicated and cloud servers can offer flawless migration. For migration from a dedicated server, you need better full-proof planning.
Management:
In the case of a dedicated server, you are solely responsible for the management of your server. You should keep in mind that you employ more resources to do this. Some of the managed dedicated server providers can present the server in a fully managed and monitored environment. On the other hand, cloud servers are simplified when it comes to monitoring & maintainence.
Cost:
The cost matters a lot while choosing between cloud and dedicated servers. Generally, during entry, the cloud servers will cost you far less than dedicated servers. This happens due to the utility-based billing of cloud servers. However, keep one point in mind that the cost of a cloud server increases as time passes and your usage increases.
The table below compares the broad aspects in which a cloud hosting vs dedicated hosting differ.
| Aspect | Cloud Server | Dedicated Server |
| Resource Allocation | It operates in a virtualized environment with resource allocation across multiple physical machines so that dynamic resource allocation can be allowed according to demands. | Offers exclusive access to all the resources of a single physical machine, which makes the performance stable. |
| Scalability | Highly scalable; resources can be adjusted rapidly based on fluctuating workloads. | Restricted Scalability; since upgrading typically requires hardware changes, usually time-consuming. |
| Performance | Such a performance may not be as true as multi-tenancy would render it in its infrastructure. | Assured to provide high performance at scale, suitable for resource-intensive applications. |
| Cost | Has a pricing model that uses a pay-as-you-go method which is very cost-effective for many workloads and requires no significant upfront investment. | It involves a higher initial cost because there is dedicated hardware, but it will tend to be cheaper over the long run for stable high resource utilization. |
| Security | Provides adequate and powerful security features; however, being a common platform, it might fall short of fully meeting many compliance criterias. | Provides better-increased security with separated resources, often used by organizations with more stringent requirements for compliance. |
| Management | In most instances, the service provider will take care of this, meaning no need for in-house IT management. | Needs in-house control or more managed services, which means that full control of the server environment is provided. |
| Customization | Minimum customization due to the standardized virtualized resources. | There is quite a lot of room for customization available where configuration can be adjusted for particular business needs. |
| Reliability | Massive redundancy; if one machine fails, services can be carried on another. | The hardware will determine reliability; failures without a backup or failover systems will result in downtime. |
Cloud vs Dedicated: Which One Is The Better Choice?
Before you finalize your hosting choice, consider the following factors:
- Your budget for hosting
- Uptime and performance needs of your system
- The skillset of your resources
- Your scalability requirement
- Your business objective and goal
Once you perform the above tasks, consider what type of server you need.
Related: 5 Reasons To Leave The Shared Server And Join The Cloud Server
Cloud servers are best if you are going to host:
- E-commerce site or application with less traffic
- Small business applications
- Email servers
- Systems with no downtime requirement
You should choose a dedicated server if you have:
- Large applications or websites with high traffic
- Applications that need more CPU processing, RAM, and disk space usage
- Systems with sensitive customer data
Do not tie your business to the wrong server type. Setting up a cloud or dedicated server will require a great amount of work and time as much as investing money in it. So make sure you do not make a wrong decision here. Knowing both types of servers one would be able to know the true difference between cloud and dedicated servers and hence make an informed decision and also will not fall for the trap of investing in a server that does not fit the intended purpose or business needs.
FAQs
When is the time to upgrade to Cloud Hosting?
When your website starts to see a lot of traffic and an increased need for flexibility, reliability, or very high resource management than shared hosting and can’t afford dedicated hosting, upgrade to cloud hosting solutions.
When is the time to upgrade to Dedicated Server?
It is time to upgrade to dedicated hosting when controlled traffic on your website becomes higher and starts requiring more security, wants total control over server resources, and thus needs improved performance for resource-intensive applications.
What are the primary differences between cloud server and dedicated server?
Cloud server adopts virtualized resources distributed across various machines, which offers scalability and flexibility whereas, a dedicated server offers total access to server infrastructure, thus, improving performance consistency and more control.
Cloud vs dedicated server: Which one scales better?
Unlike dedicated servers that require physical hardware upgrades for scaling, cloud servers have their resources allocated flexibly and on-demand; thus, they scale better.
Dedicated server vs cloud server: Which one is more flexible in terms of deployment models?
More flexibility is offered in cloud servers concerning deployment models. They can also be easily scaled up or down as needed for different workloads.
