Updated September 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team
Cloud hosting runs a website or application on virtual servers drawn from a pool of physical machines, so capacity can grow, shrink and move when hardware fails. This guide explains what cloud hosting is, IaaS versus PaaS versus serverless, its advantages and disadvantages, the cloud hosting companies that matter, real examples for websites and applications, what it costs, and how to decide whether your site needs it.
On this page · 11 sections
- What is cloud hosting?
- IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and serverless
- Cloud hosting advantages
- Cloud hosting disadvantages
- Cloud hosting companies
- Cloud hosting examples
- Cloud hosting cost
- Cloud hosting management
- Do you need cloud hosting? A decision rule
- How Progression Agency uses cloud hosting
- Cloud hosting pros and cons
The short answerUse cloud hosting when a site or application needs to scale with traffic, survive hardware failures, or use managed services such as databases, queues and storage; that covers most web applications and SaaS products. Most brochure and business websites do not need raw cloud infrastructure: managed WordPress hosting or a static platform (which themselves run on the cloud) is cheaper and simpler. The main cloud hosting companies are AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud for full platforms, and DigitalOcean, Linode (Akamai), Vultr and Hetzner for simpler cloud servers.
Comparisons are based on each project’s official documentation as linked in the text. Progression Agency builds with all of the technologies compared and has no affiliate relationship with any of them.
What is cloud hosting?
Cloud hosting provisions virtual servers, storage and services on demand from a shared pool of hardware, billed by usage. If a physical machine fails, workloads move; if traffic rises, more capacity is added, automatically or with a click. The NIST definition of cloud computing (SP 800-145) lists the essential characteristics: on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and measured service. IBM, Google and AWS publish plain explanations: IBM, Google Cloud, AWS.
IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and serverless
| Model | You manage | Provider manages | Examples | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS (infrastructure as a service) | OS, runtime, app, data | Hardware, network, virtualization | AWS EC2, Azure VMs, Google Compute Engine, DigitalOcean Droplets | Teams with operations skills |
| PaaS (platform as a service) | App and data | Everything below | Heroku, Render, Railway, Google App Engine, Azure App Service, Vercel | Product teams without ops |
| Serverless / FaaS | Code | Everything else, scaled per request | AWS Lambda, Cloudflare Workers, Azure Functions, Cloud Run | APIs, spiky workloads, edge logic |
| Managed services | Configuration | Operation | RDS, Cloud SQL, S3, SQS, managed Kubernetes | Databases, storage, queues |
| SaaS | Usage | Everything | Shopify, HubSpot, Google Workspace | Buying a finished product |
Cloud hosting advantages
- Elasticity: add or remove capacity with demand, so launches and seasonal spikes do not take the site down.
- Resilience: hardware failure moves workloads; multi-zone and multi-region designs survive data-center outages.
- Managed services: databases, storage, queues, caches and AI services without running them yourself.
- Pay for what you use, with no hardware purchase and quick provisioning.
- Global reach: regions and edge locations near users.
- Security and compliance tooling: identity management, encryption, audit logs and certifications inherited from the provider.
- Automation: everything can be defined as code and reproduced.
Cloud hosting disadvantages
- Complexity: hundreds of services and settings; misconfiguration is the common cause of breaches and bills.
- Unpredictable cost: usage billing needs budgets, alerts and periodic right-sizing; egress charges surprise people.
- Skills: operating cloud infrastructure well needs DevOps capability or a managed partner; see DevOps services.
- Lock-in: managed services differ between providers; portable designs (containers, Postgres, object storage) reduce it.
- Overkill for simple sites: a brochure site on raw cloud infrastructure costs more time than it saves.
Cloud hosting companies
| Company | Category | Strengths | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services | Hyperscaler | Broadest catalog, largest ecosystem and talent pool | Applications and SaaS of any size; see hosting a website on AWS |
| Microsoft Azure | Hyperscaler | Microsoft integration, enterprise agreements | Enterprises on Microsoft; see hosting on Azure |
| Google Cloud | Hyperscaler | Data, Kubernetes, developer experience | Data-heavy products; see hosting on Google Cloud |
| DigitalOcean | Developer cloud | Simplicity, predictable pricing, App Platform | Startups, agencies |
| Linode (Akamai), Vultr, Hetzner | Developer cloud / VPS | Price, regions, bare metal | Cost-driven technical teams; see VPS hosting |
| Cloudflare | Edge platform | Global network, Workers, R2, Pages | Edge and static; see Cloudflare vs AWS |
| Vercel, Netlify, Render, Fly.io, Railway | Platforms (PaaS) | Zero-ops deployment | Front ends and small back ends; see Vercel vs Netlify |
| Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, OVHcloud, Rackspace | Enterprise / regional | Specific enterprise needs, data residency, managed services | Regulated or legacy workloads |
Cloud hosting examples
| Scenario | Setup |
|---|---|
| Marketing site | Static build on Cloudflare Pages or Netlify (cloud CDN), forms via a serverless function |
| WordPress business site | Managed WordPress host running on Google Cloud or AWS, Cloudflare in front; see WordPress hosting guide |
| Next.js SaaS product | Vercel for the app, managed PostgreSQL (Neon or RDS), S3 or R2 for files, Stripe; see SaaS hosting |
| Django or Node API | Containers on Cloud Run or AWS App Runner, managed database, queue; see backend hosting options |
| Ecommerce store | Shopify (a SaaS running on Google Cloud) or WooCommerce on a managed cloud host |
| Enterprise application | AWS or Azure landing zone, containers on EKS or AKS, multi-AZ database, private networking |
Cloud hosting cost
Small sites cost $10-$30 a month on a single cloud instance or nothing on a platform free tier; production applications with managed databases and load balancing $150-$600 before traffic; scaled systems far more. Reserved and committed-use pricing cuts steady compute cost by 30-60%. See website hosting cost and AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud.
Cloud hosting management
Someone must design the landing zone, define infrastructure as code, set budgets, patch, monitor and respond. Options are an in-house DevOps engineer, a managed service provider, or a platform that hides the infrastructure. For most small and mid-size companies the platform route (Vercel, Cloud Run, managed WordPress) is the right level of cloud; see DevOps services and cloud migration services.
Do you need cloud hosting? A decision rule
| Situation | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Brochure or small business site | No raw cloud; managed WordPress or a builder (which run on the cloud for you) |
| Content or marketing site built by an agency | Static platform on a cloud CDN (Cloudflare Pages, Netlify) |
| Web application or SaaS | Yes: platform first, containers when scale or compliance demands |
| Steady heavy load, single tenant | Dedicated server may be cheaper; see dedicated server hosting |
| Regulated data | Cloud with compliance controls and a BAA, or dedicated |
How Progression Agency uses cloud hosting
We deploy applications to AWS, Google Cloud or Azure and to platforms built on them, with infrastructure as code, budgets and monitoring, in the client’s own accounts. Sites that do not need it go on managed hosting instead. See hosting types compared.
Cloud hosting pros and cons
The pros and cons of cloud hosting are the mirror image of a dedicated server. Cloud hosting pros and cons in short: on the plus side, elastic capacity, per-hour billing, managed databases and global regions; on the minus side, bills that grow with usage, a learning curve, and egress fees that surprise media-heavy sites. Hosting vs cloud hosting is therefore a question of variability: steady traffic is cheaper on fixed servers, spiky or global traffic is cheaper in the cloud. Choosing a cloud hosting company comes down to which managed services you will use; cloud hosting best fits are set out in the provider table above, and cloud hosting what-is questions are answered at the top of this page.
Wondering whether to move to the cloud?
Tell us what you run and what it costs; we will recommend the right level of cloud and estimate the bill.
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Frequently asked questions
What is cloud hosting?
What are the advantages of cloud hosting?
What are the disadvantages of cloud hosting?
What is the difference between cloud hosting and VPS hosting?
What is IaaS cloud hosting?
Which are the best cloud hosting companies?
Is cloud hosting good for a small business website?
Is cloud hosting secure?
How much does cloud hosting cost?
What is cloud hosting management?
What is an example of cloud hosting?
Can I move from cloud hosting back to a server?
Does Progression Agency manage cloud hosting?
Which cloud should I choose?
Need help choosing or moving hosting?We recommend, set up, migrate and manage hosting for the sites and apps we build, and for sites built elsewhere.
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