Why do I prefer a cloud platform?
The reason is simple, it's a matter of accommodation!
With a cloud platform I don't have to bother with stuff like:
In the middle of the configuration process something fails
I will have more time to focus on what I should, that is Web Development, I will spend less money per month and I will have specialized people that can answer my issues and give me support if is the case.
The first and the one I use every day at work is Heroku, what I love in Heroku is the simplicity of their service, their support is very handy and awesome, people do want to help you even if you application is something without importance (You understand what I mean). They also "offer" you 750 hours per month, in case your application isn't being too much used (visited) you will not pay anything if you don't reach those 750 hours of processing.
With this I can prevent myself from loosing money without need, if nobody cares and nobody use my application, why should I pay? In a traditional service I have to pay something around 20$ a month, 240$ per year!
Nowadays you have more services like Heroku, like PHP Fog, or the recently service from Red Hat, Open Shift.
https://openshift.redhat.com
See if any of them fit your needs, you may thing this is strange at the beginning, and that you will pay a lot when you probably will not, you application will not have so many users as you thought at the beginning and etc..
But thing for a moment that you will have peace of mind in what concerns to things others then your application, you will no longer need to waste hours understanding your server and see what is wrong with it, there are specialized people for that.
Time is money, and when you are not doing your main work you are loosing money.
What do you think about this?