Discount hosting – cloud or traditional?

Cloud computing and cloud-based web hosts are all the rage these days, but how exactly does it stack up against more traditional hosting services? If you’re wondering which hosting solutions is the best for your website – and your budget – read on!

What is hosting?

At the most basic level, a web host is just another computer system that is connected to the internet. Specifically, the computer is set up to acknowledge and respond to requests on port 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS).

The more powerful the host computer is, the faster your website will load. More complex websites and scripts may require even more resources, and of course, a high number of visitors can also slow things down. Imagine how slow your home computer gets when you try to open five files at once. Now imagine 100 web visitors are all trying to open five files at once, each!

Cloud Advantages

Where the cloud advances beyond traditional hosting is with redundancy and scale. Most hosts are a single machine at a single location, but cloud computing uses multiple data centers. If there are a hundred users each asking for five files, they may end up receiving their requests from ten different data centers. This can also reduce lag related to geolocation – if a user in India tries to request a website hosted in Texas, they’re probably going to have to wait a few moments while the info transfers across the net.

Cloud Disadvantages

There are a few additional technical details to consider when setting up a cloud hosting account, but the real downside is the extra cost. A single data center will always be cheaper to manage than a dozen, so even for the same computing power, the distributed nature of the cloud will almost always end up costing more.

Do you need that extra power and accessibility?

For busy websites and sites with CPU intensive programming, the cloud might be the way to go. But if your sites are already optimized, quick to load, and hosted near your geolocation targets, the cloud might just be an extra expense you don’t need.

Looking for other hosting coupons, discounts, and saving ideas?

Our latest list of 2020 hosting coupons has been updated and reviewed to ensure the best discounts are available. Whether you settle on a traditional web host with a shared, VPS, or dedicated plan, or whether you jump about the cloud bandwagon, there are always way to save a few bucks on the monthly hosting bills!