Spatial Hosts vs. Ellipse Drive: Choosing the Right Platform for Geospatial Infrastructure

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Spatial Hosts vs. Ellipsis Drive: Choosing the Right Platform for Geospatial Infrastructure

As cloud-native GIS operations become more mainstream, organizations are faced with a key decision: how to host, share, and manage their geospatial infrastructure and data. Two platforms at the forefront of this space — Spatial Hosts and Ellipsis Drive — offer different strengths depending on your goals.

While they may serve overlapping industries, they are fundamentally built to solve different parts of the GIS operations puzzle. Here’s how they compare.

:globe_with_meridians: Core Focus

  • Spatial Hosts is designed for cloud deployment and management of complete GIS environments — including ArcGIS Enterprise, databases (e.g. PostgreSQL + EGDB), and supporting network services — across major cloud providers.

  • Ellipsis Drive is built for data sharing and collaboration, allowing users to manage and distribute spatial data (raster/vector) in real time using a web-based, interoperable platform.

:building_construction: Infrastructure vs. Data Layer

Feature Spatial Hosts Ellipsis Drive
Primary Use Case Deploy & manage cloud-hosted GIS infrastructure Share & collaborate on spatial datasets
Hosting Full-stack infrastructure: VMs, networks, DNS, apps Cloud-hosted file & data service
Target IT/GIS teams managing applications & systems Analysts and teams managing data access
Data Handling Hosts applications that use data Hosts the data itself (raster, vector)

:wrench: Integration & Interoperability

  • Spatial Hosts:

    • Seamless ArcGIS Enterprise deployments
    • DNS management and cloud networking
    • Future support for AWS, Azure, GCP, and disconnected environments

  • Ellipsis Drive:

    • Compatible with tools like QGIS, ArcGIS Pro, AutoCAD
    • API-first design for automated workflows
    • Built-in version control and access logging

:bust_in_silhouette: Target Users

  • Spatial Hosts is built for:

    • GIS managers and administrators
    • DevOps and IT teams
    • Solution integrators and Esri partners

  • Ellipsis Drive is ideal for:

    • GIS analysts
    • Data providers
    • Teams that collaborate on live spatial datasets

:moneybag: Pricing Philosophy

  • Spatial Hosts: Usage-based pricing by Resource Group, app, and cloud usage. Optional enterprise plans for larger deployments.

  • Ellipsis Drive: Subscription pricing based on storage, users, and team data access. Flexible for teams sharing many datasets.

:white_check_mark: When to Choose Each

Choose Spatial Hosts if you:

  • Need to launch full GIS environments quickly (e.g., ArcGIS Server, Enterprise)
  • Want to isolate infrastructure per project or client
  • Require DNS, monitoring, and multi-cloud options

Choose Ellipsis Drive if you:

  • Regularly share spatial data with external stakeholders
  • Need data versioning, access control, and web-based delivery
  • Work across multiple GIS tools and need universal access

:handshake: Better Together?

Absolutely. Many organizations can benefit from both:

  • Use Spatial Hosts to spin up reliable GIS infrastructure.
  • Use Ellipsis Drive to make the resulting spatial data easy to distribute and collaborate on — without custom servers or portals.

Final Thoughts

Spatial Hosts and Ellipsis Drive aren’t competitors — they’re collaborators in the same ecosystem. While one builds the environment, the other enables the data flow. By understanding their strengths and pairing them together, GIS organizations can unlock agility, scalability, and collaboration like never before.

Want help implementing both? Reach out to GeoMarvel for infrastructure services or Ellipsis Drive for data onboarding.