When your web requirements is far beyond a shared hosting environment, the two popular choice would be VPS or cloud hosting. Because they both have similar features, we always have to compare a lot in order to choose the right solution for our web requirements. Indeed, they look similar but difference are more. We will compare the main features between the two products so you will get a basic ideal when you need a VPS and when should go with cloud hosting.

Relationship between VPS and Cloud hosting

No matter what kind of hosting, they're all configured on actual server hardware/software. Both VPS and cloud hosting server have the actual amount of disk space, memory and network bandwidth etc. They both can be managed via web base control panels. Because of this, more and more server providers begin to offer a new type hosting – cloud vps hosting. It's becoming a more popular choice comparing to traditional service plans, we also see the advantages of cloud computing.

Difference between VPS and Cloud Hosting

Comparing to trandtional VPS server, coud hosting is based on newest technologies so there're lots of difference. In order to understand their main difference, we can compare in the following orders

Scalability and stability

All VPS resources are pre-configured and could not be changed while running, services like disk space, RAM are all setup during purchasing. On the other hand, the cloud hosting server resource is active, means it can be added/removed instantly based on your resource usage and bills accordingly.

As for stability, the VPS servers are sharing the single dedicated box resources so if one of the users over used it's allocated resource then other vps users will be affected. However such case does not happen to cloud hosting. In theory the cloud hosting server resources can be unlimited, so a single user over use will not affect other customers.

Customization and Security

VPS is working like a small dedicated server and user can perform almost whatever they like. Since all vps data is stored on a single local disk partion so it's easy to maintain and security protection can be ensured mostly. On the other hand, the cloud hosting resources are distributed across many machines. This limites the control over data and security because you're not sure where the data is stored in any given time. There's still a long way to go for cloud computing security. On this point of view, VPS has more advantages over security protection.

Cost

VPS is charged based on your chosen specs such as disk, RAM, bandwidth etc. Because of this we have good control over the budget for predictable usage. The cloud hosting billing can be charged per minutes. It's perfect option if we're not sure how much resources to use and don't wish the web service going down. The disadvantage is we can't control over the cost especially for some heavy traffic applications.

Is VPS better than Cloud hosting?

Based above comparison we should have learnt it really depends our actual web requirements. If we have predictable usage and need reliable security protection for the server, VPS would be better selection. If it's a big application with high server resources usage, cloud hosting would be right solution if we have good budget.

Best VPS and cloud hosting solutions

There're many quality vps hosting providers, we recommend the top 5 vps hosting names in case you need our recommendation. Also the myhosting custom vps hosting plan is also highly recommended if you like to make a custom vps server. For cloud hosting we highly suggest checking out the main datacenter providers such as rackspace, softlayer etc because they're direct service provider with no extra cost.