I will not delve into it, even because the terms are used very, I would say, random.

You have a question here explaining what is cloud computing and pinning on the web.

Web

Web computing is one that works over the HTTP protocol. This can occur in several ways. The server may be in the cloud, or not. Eventually the customer may even be in the cloud, though highly unusual and I do not know if it makes sense to do this.

Cloud

Cloud computing does not require specific protocols, it only needs to meet some criteria exposed in the linked question. The fact that it is accessible by web is a coincidence, it is something possible, eventual. For the cloud it does not matter.

Local

We need to better define what "local" means, but it is a mistake to say that both are not local. Usually people use remotely (another physical location), but they can be local yes, and it's more common than it looks. Even though location means running on the same computer, you can still say that being local is a possibility.

Term

The term cloud today is used as a marketing rather than engineering tool. People talk about the cloud when it does not go anywhere near it. Some people consider that if it is web, it is cloud. Some even consider the billing model as definitive if it is a cloud, that is, if it charges for use and not a fixed amount, it is a cloud.

Utility

In fact, few organizations actually need the cloud.

• They need web
• Need to be centralized
• Being remote
• They need virtualization, even locally
• Need good organization of features and deployment and maintenance facilities.

In some cases they may even be able to use technologies used by clouds, but without the typical feature of cloud scheduling.

Cost X benefit

True cloud often comes out too expensive (but sells like it's cheaper) and takes some of the flexibility out of what you can do.

Even renting a virtualization usually comes out more expensive, but there are cases that are more interesting, as well as the cloud by the type of use it will have.

Just taking the structure from within the company and moving to third parties without adding any real value is just bad management of resources made because someone who goes in fashion for lack of knowledge of what is doing.

Example

So this site here does not use cloud. When you have real engineers at work, do not fall into market traps.

For example, I have a server that is essentially used to serve web. Officially he is in the cloud, but my hiring is not like cloud in fact. It's a virtual instance, it comes out relatively cheap. As the use is very low and in Brazil the costs of communication of data are absurd, it ends up compensating. If these specific costs were lower I would have, even something small, here with me.