What is the difference between cloud server and dedicated server?

Dedicated Server is hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else.The Client have to look into the maintenance of the server and once the server capacity is exhausted more hardware(servers) needs to be introduced. Cloud Server is elastic shared server where a number of servers are set up and maintained by the hosting provider such as AWS .The client gets shared server and the capacity of server can be scaled up or down(elastic) as per clients requirement.The client pays for the instance of server he uses i.e. 'pay per use'.Cloud Server is flexible and elastic.

As with most things, it depends on the specific situation. While there is a lot of talk that the cloud is more cost effective than dedicated servers, that's not always the case. I thought this was an interesting case study that a company I work with did. http://www.interworx.com/community/feedbin-shows-dedicated-hosting-cost-effective-cloud/

Dedicated Hosting provides greater reliability, flexibility, scalability, and incredible performance, while giving unprecedented flexibility and elasticity in comparing with cloud server hosting. There are chances to rank better in Google results by choosing dedicated server rather than cloud hosting. Read the blog to know the full reason- https://www.rackbank.com/blog/dedicated-server-seo-benefits/

In Cloud Server you can only host websites and run your apps and it support only those programming language which the hosting provider supports But in dedicated server you virtually owns a server to that extenct that you can even change the Operating System of Your Server

In general terms, a dedicated server means you have exclusive access to server hardware whereas cloud servers give you access to a portion of the hardware in the forms of a virtual machine that is shared with several customers. The virtualization layer enforces security between different virtual machines and ensures fair sharing of hardware resources. Choosing which is right for you comes down to your specific needs and budget. Here’s an article that breaks down the differences more specifically to help you decide which was to go: http://blog.servermania.com/the-difference-between-virtual-private-servers-dedicated-servers-and-cloud-servers/

Cloud Servers can be scaled up and down with minimal effort, using software only. You can increase or decrease RAM, Hard Drive space. Where as Dedicated Servers require fussing with hardware to scale them up or down. A cloud server consists of a node of computers, this can be 2 or more computers, these computers have the exact same information whereas the Dedicated Server is a totally self-contained computer sharing nothing with anyone. Source:http://www.digitalserver.com.mx/cloud-servers-servidores-cloud.shtml