Cloud Web Hosting is a website hosting service that comes pre-installed with runtime environments for common website development languages, databases, and management tools. It lets you publish and host websites easily and affordably. This topic describes the features, types, billing methods, and advantages of Cloud Web Hosting.
Features and advantages
Features
Pre-installed with common website runtime environments and databases.
Provides a visual control panel.
Includes basic DDoS protection to improve data security.
Ensures fast website performance using an 8-line Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) connection to ISP backbone networks. This provides full network coverage from major carriers, such as China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile.
Alibaba Cloud manages the servers, which lets you focus on website configuration without worrying about underlying server maintenance.
Comparison of advantages
Cloud Web Hosting and Elastic Compute Service (ECS) each have distinct advantages that cater to different users, from beginners to enterprise website builders:
The main advantage of Cloud Web Hosting is its simplicity. It is ready to use immediately after purchase, is designed for building websites, and does not require professional technical staff for maintenance. For more information, see Website building product comparison and Scenarios.
ECS is an elastic computing service that supports the flexible scaling of various applications. It can be used as a standalone web server or application server, or integrated with other Alibaba Cloud services to build comprehensive solutions. This service is suitable for developers and users with the technical skills required for server configuration and maintenance.
The following provides a detailed comparison:
Comparison item | Shared Cloud Web Hosting instance | Exclusive Cloud Web Hosting instance | Elastic Compute Service |
Target users | Beginner website builders | Users who build enterprise websites | Developers and users with technical skills who understand server configuration and maintenance |
Shared | Exclusive | Exclusive CPU, except for shared ECS instance types | |
Memory | Shared | Exclusive | Exclusive |
Bandwidth | Shared | Exclusive | Exclusive |
Build your own website runtime environment | Not required | Not required | Required |
Billing method | Annual payment | Monthly or annual payment | Pay-as-you-go or subscription |
Log on to the server | Not supported | Not supported | Support |
Runtime environment ownership | User | User | User |
Product types
Alibaba Cloud offers two types of Cloud Web Hosting to meet different website building needs:
Shared Cloud Web Hosting instance: A single server is partitioned into multiple spaces of varying sizes. Each space has separate FTP and web access permissions. Multiple users share the server's hardware resources.
Exclusive Cloud Web Hosting instance: With an exclusive Cloud Web Hosting instance, you have sole access to all of the server's software and hardware resources. This means that the server's CPU, memory, bandwidth, and disk are dedicated to a single user. It also includes unlimited traffic and an independent IP address. Exclusive resources provide more stable performance and greater data reliability compared to shared resources.
Both shared and exclusive Cloud Web Hosting instances are available in Enhanced and General Purpose editions, which provide different performance levels. The Enhanced edition, based on Nginx, provides higher performance and stability. For more information, see Product types.
Billing methods
Cloud Web Hosting supports the subscription billing method. For some products, you can also purchase value-added services, such as additional bandwidth, traffic, and web space. For more information, see Billing overview.
How to use Cloud Web Hosting
To get started, register an Alibaba Cloud account. Then, purchase a Cloud Web Hosting instance in an available region from the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. After the purchase is complete, you can build and host your website on the instance. For more information, see Quick start and Use a Cloud Web Hosting instance to install a website.