Cloud hosting is a way of moving the infrastructure of your website or application to the cloud. Instead of a single physical server, data and processes are spread across multiple virtual machines that work together on a single platform - sounds simple, but has its nuances.
The biggest advantages are scalability and flexibility of resources - this seems obvious, but it's worth emphasizing: during a sudden increase in traffic (for example, an online store promotion with several thousand visitors per hour), the system can automatically increase processing power and bandwidth. When the traffic returns to normal, the resources shrink and you pay only for the services actually used; you just have to be careful, because with a bad configuration the costs can be surprising.
In practice, cloud hosting usually provides higher availability than a traditional server - the failure of one machine does not necessarily mean downtime, because the load is taken over by other nodes in the cluster. In addition, it is easy to create backups, replicate data in different locations and maintain separate environments (test, staging, production).
This solution works especially well for projects that require performance: dynamic online stores, high-traffic portals, SaaS applications (e.g., a project management system supporting hundreds of teams) or multimedia services. Containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes make deployment and scaling easier, although they also require a different approach to operations and security.
It may be worth adding that the cloud is not a magic cure-all - vendor selection, architecture and security policy are all critical. In my experience, a well-planned implementation brings real benefits; impulsive moves rarely pay off.