By They say the cloud is just someone else’s computer, and while that may one way of looking at it, it’s essential that agencies choose well when deciding which tech behemoth’s “computer” to trust with hosting client websites.
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If you sell website services, selling hosting as a web hosting business can also help you add more value for clients, saving them the trouble of having to seek out a hosting provider themselves. But is AWS good for website hosting, or is Google a better fit for your SMB clients?
We happen to think Google has the edge here. Stick with us and we’ll cover exactly why.
What is AWS website hosting?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon’s answer to cloud computing, making up around 13 percent of the company’s revenues (Visual Capitalist). Like other cloud hosting providers, AWS provides the storage and connectivity required for a website to be up and running.
Customers can purchase different kinds of hosting services depending on their size, traffic, and other variables. These are shared hosting, virtual private server (VPS) hosting, and dedicated hosting. Let's take a look at how these differ.
Shared hosting
Shared hosting gives websites access to servers that are used by many other users at the same time. All users of the shared server use the same available resources, such as RAM. This can be sufficient for low-volume websites compared to cloud hosting, but spikes in traffic to other sites on the same server can slow down the rest of the websites.
VPS hosting
VPS hosting offers a “section” of a server that is cordoned off just for one website. This type of hosting enables websites to better manage their performance since they’re not sharing their portion of the server with anyone else.
Dedicated hosting
Finally, dedicated hosting gives users an entire server to themselves. This is the most expensive, but also the most secure and personable hosting option.
Is AWS good for website hosting?
AWS is a widely used website hosting provider, and many businesses find it can meet their needs. However, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Answering whether AWS is good for website hosting depends on the needs of websites or agency using it.
Pros of AWS for website hosting
- Affordably priced plans. AWS web hosting plans and prices provide various options to suit different budgets. Amazon Lightsail is AWS’s VPS product, and it offers cost-effective bundles at pay-as-you-go prices that can be convenient for students, small businesses, and others getting started with hosting.
- No firm traffic limits. AWS doesn't impose strict traffic caps, so users don’t have to worry about fluctuations in traffic necessarily causing major performance disruptions.
- Fast speeds. There’s no denying that Amazon has an extensive global infrastructure of servers around the world for AWS, ensuring low latency and resulting in a positive user experience for website visitors.
- High capacity for hosting. For those willing to invest handsomely in their web hosting, AWS’s extensive network offers virtually unlimited capacity.
What does small website hosting cost on AWS?
AWS web hosting prices depends on the requirements of the site.
So, how much does hosting a website on AWS cost for small sites? Static sites can start around $1-3 per month if they have limited traffic and storage needs (Amazon). More complex ecommerce websites hosted on AWS may require plans that cost $40-$50 or more per month (LinkedIn).
AWS uses a pay-as-you-go model, so as needs change, plans (and pricing) can adjust accordingly.
Cons of AWS for website hosting
- It can be too complex for new users. AWS can be too technical for some SMBs, making it difficult for them to effectively navigate and utilize the platform without dedicated IT support.
- Support is lacking. Speaking of support, AWS’s customer service is very limited. To access quality technical support, AWS users have to pay for a more advanced support plan, effectively adding to the cost of hosting a website on AWS. Since hosting-related concerns can be very serious for businesses, costing them conversions or compromising security, not having around-the-clock support is a major drawback.
- Monthly billing reporting is complicated. AWS billing reports include a very detailed breakdown of line items, which over-complicates users’ ability to understand their costs at a glance.
- Service quotas can affect new users. Amazon’s EC2 cloud hosting tier has service quotas that limit the number of instances, storage volumes, and other resources available to users. These quotas can be increased upon request, but the process might be cumbersome and limit scalability for some users.
Whether AWS is good for website hosting will depend on the user, but it’s not the only cloud hosting provider in town.
5 reasons to host websites on Google Cloud Platform instead
Google Cloud Platform has emerged as a front-runner in the world of cloud hosting, providing a robust, reliable, and user-friendly solution for web hosting businesses, developers, and agencies alike.
Thanks to Google's extensive infrastructure, cutting-edge tech, and best-in-class security, Google Cloud Platform delivers in the ways that matter most for your business: performance, cost, and scalability.
Let’s take a look at how Google Cloud Platform meets the needs of today’s digital agencies.
1. Cost
When it comes to AWS vs Google Cloud pricing, Google Cloud is generally more affordable than AWS (Kitrum). Hosting pricing alone isn’t likely to be a very significant cost as a provider of digital solutions, but extras like AWS’s separate service plans can add up.
Vendasta’s Website Pro includes Google Cloud hosting, making it the perfect platform for building and managing client websites—no matter how many website projects you have on the go. You can avoid the extra monthly charges for customer service as well, since Website Pro with Google Cloud hosting includes around-the-clock support, no matter where you are. Website Pro also includes a free content delivery network (CDN), which can speed up websites without any added expense.
Scaling your website design business to more clients? Agencies building and managing many websites can reduce their cost of Website Pro with Google hosting even further by accessing wholesale pricing through Vendasta’s membership tiers. This can tilt the balance of Google Cloud vs AWS pricing in further favor of Google.
Bundling hosting and web design with SEO or other services will quickly render the cost of hosting negligible, creating a reliable, repeatable monthly income stream from hosting clients.
2. User interface
Whether you manage all aspects of your clients’ hosting in-house, you outsource to white-label experts, or you resell website solutions to your clients, user-friendliness is a valuable attribute when it comes to cloud hosting. Through Website Pro’s suite of developer tools, anyone can quickly learn to manage all the important aspects of their hosting solution.
Users can take extra back-ups on top of the regularly scheduled ones and clear their cache to optimize loading speeds on demand by clicking a button in the Website Pro dashboard. Developer tools can be also be accessed through phpMyAdmin with the click of a button, without having to log into a separate hosting provider account to access MySQL. When managing a long list of WordPress websites, having these developer tools and Google Search Console insights quickly accessible becomes a meaningful time-saver.
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Instead of having to log into each unique hosting account for every website your agency builds and manages, Website Pro with Google Cloud Hosting can be used to manage all of your websites from a single dashboard.
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AWS may be good for website hosting, but if it trips users up with technical details, it’s more likely to cause frustration for customers.
3. Performance
Choosing a cloud hosting provider that reliably delivers optimal performance isn’t just important for your client websites: it’s a reflection of your agency’s reputation. If you offer website services, bundling with hosting is a no-brainer. But as a hosting reseller, the performance of your cloud hosting provider will directly impact how reliable and trustworthy your clients perceive your agency to be.
That’s a tall order for a cloud hosting provider, and Google Cloud Platform is up to the task. Thanks to the most up-to-date infrastructure in the world, your Google Cloud WordPress websites will run perfectly, every time. When almost half of visitors expect pages to load in 2 seconds or less, that matters (Vendasta). Server provisioning and network configurations are automatically managed, so that you can focus on the more critical aspects of your business.
A truly stress-free solution, using Google Cloud Platform to host your clients’ WordPress websites means their sites will never go down. This means you don’t have to worry about clients losing sales, website traffic, or conversion opportunities due to a hosting issue. When using the best servers in the world, you (and your clients) can have the peace of mind that everything is running as it should, even with no one constantly fussing over it.
4. Scalability
Scaling is good, but only when you have the solutions in place to manage multiple small business websites effectively. Hosting your clients’ WordPress websites on the Google Cloud Platform means they can grow painlessly—at least when it comes to their hosting solution.
Huge spike in traffic? No problem, thanks to unlimited visits per month and unmetered bandwidth. Rapidly increasing storage needs? Unmetered SSD storage is included in Website Pro with Google Cloud hosting. As client demands grow, their website solution and hosting provider can effortlessly grow along with them.
Scaling your agency
We’ve talked about scaling to meet your clients’ hosting needs, but what about your agency?
Since Website Pro and Google Cloud hosting go hand in hand, it’s worth mentioning the website design and building side of the solution as well. Regardless of which vertical your clients operate in, building on-brand, purpose-built websites hosted on the best and safest network available takes just a few clicks. Whether using a template or building from scratch using a drag-and-drop page builder, client projects can be completed quickly, resulting in responsive, beautiful websites, every time.
If you don’t have the capacity in-house to design, create, and manage a growing list of client websites, and you don’t want to deal with the risks and challenges of hiring, you can resell Website Pro as a white-label website builder for clients to use directly, or outsource to white-label experts. By using Vendasta’s white-label web design services, you can continue to offer full-service website design, management, and hosting at scale, without having to spend any of your previous time delivering it. Instead, leave it to the pros working under your agency’s banner.
5. Security
An attractive price, user-friendly interface, great performance, and effortless scalability aren’t worth much if they aren’t backed by security. Offering a reliably secure solution to your SMB clients is a must. In an age of increasing cyberattacks, the importance of protecting your clients from malicious attacks and cyber crime is paramount.
The cost of failing to do so is serious: from legal liability to costly settlements and lawsuits, businesses have a lot to lose if they don’t properly protect their client data.
Website Pro with Google Cloud hosting includes free SSL certificates from Let’s Encrypt for every website, ensuring that all client projects have this important layer of protection preventing attackers from scraping private data like credit card info or password credentials.
Automated daily backups add another valuable layer of protection, ensuring that websites are preserved and can quickly be re-instated if anything goes wrong, such as a plugin update breaking the front-end of the site. In the event that a back-up needs to be used to restore the website, doing so takes just one click and can easily be done by clients.
The bottom line: Google is the most trusted source on the internet for a reason, and this extends to hosting.
Frequently asked questions
Is AWS hosting worth it?
AWS hosting is widely used by many businesses, individuals, non-profits, and government agencies to provide cloud hosting. AWS hosting a reputable option, and affordable plans are available, making it worthwhile for many users. However, AWS isn’t necessarily the best cloud hosting provider on the market. Google Cloud Platform offers affordable, fast, and secure hosting for websites of all sizes and needs.
Which cloud is best for web hosting?
Google Cloud Platform is an excellent option for cloud-based web hosting. It has the most up-to-date server infrastructure in the world, ensuring that client websites are safe, secure, and never go down. It also features affordable plans for hosting all kinds of websites, from static sites to ecommerce platforms. As one of the most trusted tech companies in the world, Google Cloud Platform is a good choice for web hosting.
