What’s the Difference Between Public and Private Cloud?

To put it simply, a public cloud is provided by companies that sell their services to anyone, like OneDrive or Dropbox. Meanwhile, a private cloud lets you maintain your own infrastructure or rent a dedicated server to create a personal cloud experience, similar to running your own version with software like NextCloud. It's all about control and privacy!

The difference is pretty straightforward! A public cloud means you're using a service hosted on someone else's system, like Google Drive or AWS, where multiple users share the same resources. On the other hand, a private cloud is like renting your own server where the hardware and software are exclusively for you. Think of it as having your own personal space in the cloud where you don’t have to share with anyone else.

In technical terms, public clouds operate under a Software as a Service (SaaS) model where you share apps and hardware with others. In contrast, a private cloud provides dedicated servers and resources just for you, which means no sharing with other tenants. This offers much more control and security for sensitive data.

You can think of public clouds as owned by commercial companies offering services to everyone, while private clouds are about using your organization's own computers. For example, instead of relying on a public provider, you might create your own private cloud for a class of IT students to have dedicated resources without sharing with external users.