VPS And Cloud Server: What’s The Difference?

Comparing VPS vs cloud hosting feels like finding your way around a maze. Exciting things such as designing the look and feel of your own website or configuring an email address can enthrall you as a newbie. However, trying to weigh all the technicalities associated with the web hosting services and performing these tasks can prove to be an overwhelming experience.

From VPS hosting and cloud Hosting to dedicated servers with so many options available, it leaves you in confusion about what’s best for your needs. Moreover, dozens of hosting providers with their own unique features and benefits don’t make the thing any easier.

Well, let’s throw some light on two power-packed hosting types: VPS vs cloud. In this blog, you’ll learn the distinctions between them, their benefits, and which one serves your needs better. All of these concepts will be simplified so that you can make a confident and smart choice.

VPS Hosting Overview

1. Definition Of Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

VPS: This stands for Virtual Private Server. It is a form of web hosting whereby a single physical server is partitioned into various smaller virtual servers. Each of these virtual servers behaves like a standalone dedicated server environment, although they are physically part of the same server.

In this way, since it gives its own partition of the server to each user, it has its own allocation of resources and, as such, the ability to customize and configure one’s server partition however the user wishes. In addition, there is no sharing of data or file access between accounts on the VPS server.

The major disadvantage of using VPS hosting is that every VPS using that server goes down if that specific physical server goes down. Generally, the performance of a VPS may be significantly affected if a very busy website utilizes all the resources of the physical server, but most hosting providers make the effort to partition the different VPS sections off in such a way as to reduce this risk.

2. How VPS Hosting Works

After understanding what is VPS hosting, let’s now try to understand how it works. VPS is similar to a dedicated server hosting environment, where you only share one server physically with other users. A hypervisor-i.e.- a virtual layer – on top of the OS on the physical server is set up by your hosting provider to create virtual slots. This enables every virtual compartments to run its own OS and software, allowing each environment to function independently from one another. 

Related: VPS Hosting VS Dedicated Hosting

While you are technically sharing resources with other users, in reality, your resources are guaranteed. You pay for a defined amount, which is allocated to your VPS and cannot be used by another account.

3. Key Characteristics of VPS Hosting

1. Stable Performance: VPS hosting consists of independent CPU, RAM, and disk storage that guarantees efficient performance even during traffic peaks, unlike shared hosting.
2. Increased Security: VPS hosting creates an individual environment that significantly minimizes the risk of local breaches by other websites and allows more advanced security parameters.
3. Guaranteed Uptime: Generally, VPS hosting provides high uptime that enable keeping the website available for users around the clock.
4. Seamless Scalability: The resources such as CPU and RAM shall be upgraded easily as the website grows, making VPS hosting a scalable solution.
5. Cost-Effective Performance: VPS hosting is not just affordable but delivers some dedicated server-like performance at a fraction of the cost that small and medium businesses can afford.
6. Custom Software and Application Compatibility: Allows the users to install and run unique software or apps making the user’s hosting environment customized as per particular needs. 
7. Automated Backup and Restore: The web host incorporates regular backups of your data and a speedy recovery during any system failures or errors.
8. Faster Speeds for Websites: With dedicated resources and optimized infrastructures, VPS improves page loading time drastically and enhances user experience.
9. Far More Flexible: VPS hosting enables the user to exercise total authority over the server environment where the advanced custom configuration is based on individual needs and experiences.

Cloud Hosting Overview

1. Definition of Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is when a hosting plan taps into a near-unlimited pool of virtual machines connected by a network. An underlying network of connected physical servers will be relied upon by all these virtual machines. Thus, all virtual machines will be connected together to work like one big VPS.

A definitive difference in what cloud hosting and VPS relate to is that with VPS, one particular server is dedicated to your website whereas clouds distribute resources across a number of different physical machines.

With cloud hosting, you are leveraging your resources with the use of several servers and you get to use more available resources. You can increase the power of your server whenever you like to meet varying traffic needs. While you get relatively more flexibility out of cloud hosting than traditional VPS hosting, you do not get as much customization.

2. How Cloud Hosting Functions

Having discussed what cloud hosting is, we need to understand how it works. Cloud servers operate just like any other traditional server, except that it doesn’t have a fixed location since it is reachable from anywhere around the globe. The complete opposite of this is a traditional or dedicated server, which is usually conditioned to be hosted on-site so that only users at that specific location can access it.

Unlike dedicated servers, cloud servers allow memory and processing power to be shared across connected virtual servers, supporting the complete range of cloud computing delivery models, such as IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS. Cloud data servers also come preloaded with all the required software to run, so no need to stress about upgrades.

2. Key Characteristics of Cloud Hosting

1. Scalability: Because cloud hosting does not heed to one server for content storage and delivery, it easily scales with the website or application by spinning up more servers throughout the cloud network when usage grows.
2. Flexibility: Cloud hosting offers the freedom to use any appropriate solution required to meet particular needs through the instant provisioning of cloud resources.
3. Cost: Cloud hosting usually operates on a pay-as-you-go system, meaning that costs may increase or decrease according to the usage. 
4. Security: It offers robust security, to guarantee online data protection for all kinds of websites and applications from being attacked by online malicious hackers. The cloud hosting security measures include firewalls, identity management, and access control, SSL for securely transmitting data, and many others.
5. Reliability and Performance: Cloud hosting offers exceptional reliability and uptime by leveraging several servers that are spread across the cloud network. If one server fails, though, another server can fill in and still provide services. 

Cloud hosting also renders the best performance; with its servers strategically scattered across the different regions, it brings content closer to users and therefore, faster.

Related: Everything You Need to Know about Cloud Computing [Features, Benefits, Challenges]

VPS Hosting vs Cloud Hosting: What’s the Difference?

VPS hosting provides dedicated resources on a virtualized server where one can have more control over its configurations, but cloud hosting is based on multiple servers to be more flexible and scalable. The main difference between these two is how resources are managed and this differs in the scalability option from one user to another.

– Overview of Primary Differences

– Virtualization Technology in VPS Vs Cloud Infrastructure

While both VPS and Cloud hosting employ virtualization technology, the implementation is somewhat different. With VPS hosting, a single physical server is divided into multiple isolated virtual environments, each having its own dedicated resources. 

Related: VPS Hosting Guide For Beginners

This enables each VPS to enjoy control and stability since the resources are all solely available for that VPS. On the other hand, cloud hosting employs virtualization in a distributed network within which one can have a dynamic allocation of resources and total scalability.

Cloud infrastructure could thus easily up-scale or down-scale resources, thus creating flexibility when dealing with variable workloads. Both provide virtualized environments, but since cloud infrastructure tends to be a little wider and more flexible, they are said to be rather more versatile for the rapidly growing businesses.

Pros and Cons: VPS Server vs Cloud Server

In this part of the discussion, we are going to compare VPS hosting vs cloud hosting that will enable you to find out the best solution for yourself. VPS hosting is best as it provides exclusive  resources and more control. While on the other hand, cloud hosting is highly scalable and affordable to use. Balancing the pros and cons of VPS hosting vs cloud hosting will help you get closer to making a proper decision for your website or business.

Benefits of Virtual Private Server

1. Better Efficiency: In VPS hosting, unlike shared hosting, where all account holders share fixed resources, every user gets to enjoy better performance. Each virtual compartment has its operating system and resources. Therefore, the performance workload of one user does not affect the performance of the servers of other users and vice-versa. This is one of the best benefits of VPS hosting.
2. Scalability: It allows users to add resources as per their needs, therefore, it hardly experiences downtime on peak-demand days.
3. Access: The account holders have full root access and control over their server environment, allowing them to customize their applications and websites according to the needs of their business.
4. Security: Every VPS user is allocated an isolated hosting platform which helps in protecting the data and applications of the user in case the server of neighboring users gets compromised or infected.

Drawbacks of Virtual Private Server

1. Cost: Though very efficient, VPS hosting is definitely on the pricier side compared to shared hosting. For small companies with a tight budget, VPS seems to be quite an expensive option.

Related: Shared Hosting vs VPS Hosting – A Comprehensive Guide

2. Technical Knowledge: The basic technical know-how is necessary for the management of a server. Ideally, even in the case of self-managed VPS hosting, one is expected to have technical knowledge for the smooth functioning of the website.
3. Regular Maintenance: A server that is not rightly configured can be a major security hazard. Maintenance goes along well with updating security regularly to the latest version. It is here that the hosting service provider plays a great valuable role. Hence, one should select VPS hosting from a reputed VPS hosting provider only.

Benefits of Cloud Hosting

1. Scalability: Cloud hosting has no dependence on a single server to deliver content; it easily expands from additional servers across the cloud network when the scale of a website or application tends to increase.
2. Flexibility: Cloud hosting gives you the freedom to automatically provision the parameters of cloud servers across the entire network so that you can use them effectively to meet the needs of your growing website.
3. Cost: Cloud hosting often works on the pay-as-you-go model where costs also tend to move up or down depending on usage. As against this, web hosting typically works on a monthly or annual fee.
4. Security: Advanced server security is usually provided on the network level by cloud providers, protecting your data on servers from malicious attacks. Security layers within cloud hosting comprise firewalls, identity management, and access control, Secure Sockets Layers (SSL) for the delivery of data, among others.
5. Reliability and Performance: The fact that cloud hosting uses multiple servers across the network means that it can be very reliable and if one part of the server fails, it will be compensated for service provision by the other. Cloud hosting nearly guarantees much better performance since, with servers located throughout different regions, users will be able to access content quickly.

Drawbacks of Cloud Hosting

1. Dependency Upon the Internet: As such, cloud services are, dependent on a strong internet connection. Without this, it would be difficult to access and process data, especially during times of outages or when bandwidth proves inadequate. 
2. Vulnerability: As everything in cloud computing is online, it is vulnerable to intrusion attacks and security breaches. 
3. Cost Considerations: Cloud hosting does save plenty for small businesses, yet it may spell hidden costs for bigger companies. 
4. Privacy: Storing sensitive data and applications online makes them very susceptible to cyber threats like hacking, data breaches, and malware attacks. 
5. Compliance: In general, the main issue is to have compliance with regulations, which change from industry to industry and depend mostly on the cloud jurisdiction as well. 
6. Vendor Lock-In: The more a company moves to cloud-based infrastructure from its single provider, the stronger the risk of vendor lock-in. 
7. Specialized Skills: Engineers need specialized skills to master new cloud skills, like identity and access management (IAM).

Performance Comparison: VPS vs Cloud Hosting

Another important factor as far as web hosting plans are concerned is performance. You want to have trust that your website will deliver fast access and remain never off the hook when people would like to search for it. 

There are usually extremely high-performance guarantees with VPS plans since certain amounts of server resources are usually associated with them. Because each part of the server is sectioned off from the other parts, in most instances there are certain performance levels that shouldn’t be affected by other websites on the server. However, very rarely might the server reach its performance limits, after which the performance may suffer if many websites on the server face an exceptionally high demand at the same time. However, for the majority of people who choose the best VPS for hosting applications, this is an unlikely scenario.

Cloud hosting can promise an impressive uptime as all websites in the network share the workloads among multiple servers. If one fails or gets higher demands than usual, then built-in backups can be utilized.

Who is the Winner? Cloud Hosting. Well, for all practical purposes, this one comes down to a draw but because with the VPS plans, there is a risk that their performance could be hampered by high loads upon the server but that risk really goes away with cloud hosting.

Security Considerations: VPS vs Cloud Hosting

With lots of reports in the news related to websites being hacked, online security has become a really serious issue. The consequences are huge. A web host only adds to your overall website security to secure a VPS server, but certainly not to be neglected. 

VPS hosting is really secure. Not as good as dedicated hosting but beats shared hosting. Your VPS is not affected by all the other websites that share the same physical server; it is isolated and thus is protected from outside access. Well, there is some chance that if another website has compromised security, it may still impact your website in case your web hosting provider is not great about security practices.

The cloud hosting environment is mostly quite secure and is isolated from all other users who happen to be on the same physical server network. But at the same time, because it is entirely on the web, it could be more vulnerable to strike attacks.

Who Wins? VPS

If you choose a trusted web hosting provider, both VPS as well as cloud hosting packages usually offer a little more security. But having said that, the VPS server provides an extra layer of security because of its segregated platform in which the resources aren’t shared with neighboring users.

Comparing Costs: VPS vs Cloud Hosting

Price (Winner: A Tie)

Cloud and VPS plans are obviously beyond shared hosting service, and therefore pricing is always going to be significantly higher than that of the most bottom-of-the-range offerings from any provider. Costing less than a dedicated server (oftentimes by a lot), both of these types of plans will almost always fall right within the middle price-wise between shared and dedicated hosting.

Whether they would cost more, however, will rely on quite a couple of factors. If you select the cloud plan with MilesWeb, you’re going to pay less than what you’d pay for the VPS. With a number of providers, however, cloud hosting costs are greater compared to VPS hosting; making this category quite hard to pin squarely.

Who to determine as a winner? That totally depends on the impact of who you are asking. One must make sure while comparing the cost of a certain cloud plan to a certain VPS based on the offerings. 

Scalability: VPS vs Cloud Hosting

Some websites are expected to have pretty much their needs met on a monthly basis. Others may experience fluctuations due to some reasons like seasonality or on the rare occasion, as during a viral piece of content. An example could be an eCommerce store that has a traffic increase during the winter holiday season as compared to all the other seasons. 

This makes scalability a top consideration for many website owners before selecting the most appropriate web hosting plan. Therefore, it is important to check these things in VPS hosting before buying.

VPS guarantees you an allocation of certain server resources; thus you should be okay under normal traffic as long as it doesn’t exceed those typical requirements. However, if you have to really scale quickly with your website, you won’t find it easy at all. It may not be able to handle any influx of traffic depending on how much the current host handles.

Now, here comes the cloud hosting to shine: it can scale to meet any load. So you will have an entire network or servers ready to provide you with some additional storage or assist your rising traffic needs. Because of this impressive availability of servers, there’s going to be outstanding uptime and performance. If ever the physical server breaks down, then your website will be shifted over to another one. 

Who Wins? Cloud Hosting

That’s probably where cloud hosting shines the best. Expecting some inconsistency in traffic and necessity regarding your website? Then cloud hosting probably would be the best option.

VPS vs Cloud Hosting for E-commerce Websites

For eCommerce websites,

• Cloud Hosting: Performance is achieved through load balancing since the resources are distributed across various servers; cloud hosting, therefore, meets immediate demand with performance.

• Cost Efficiency: Generally efficient for cheap prices; VPS hosting costs are less for small to average-sized stores that would otherwise have to spend too much on having dedicated resources.

• Scalability: Its real excellence lies in scaling up and down without problems, making it best suited for developing businesses or very high sales periods.

Smaller stores may go with virtual private servers; larger dynamic stores, on the other hand, tend to find cloud hosting more advantageous.