coin mining with hardware vs cloud mining

The cryptocurrency is booming. But to start this type of investment we need to consider a few things.
1. Hardware cost
2. Maintenance fees (electricity, internet, etc.)
3. When will the hardware arrive and begin the mining process (most of the time the hardware is preorder and is being shipped a few months after ordering)
4. Crypto currency difficulty fluctuations (for bitcoin it's up up and away, for other crypto currencys it is goin up and down).

Recently I have discovered cloud mining, where you invest your money and start mining right away, most of the time hashing power cost alot less then to buy hardware and maintain it. But there are also downsides to this. The company you invest in, mines in it's own pool, so you are not able to pick another pool or mine solo.
Right now i know 1 company that mines Bitcoin (along with Namecoin, Ixcoin and Devcoin), the hashing power is kinda cheap and seems to be going down as of the time of this writing.

This company also alowes you to use your own mining hardware in addition to hashing power you purchased there to mine in they'r pool. Later on if you decide so, you may sell your hashing power to other users and have a return on your investment (but do keep in mind that prices are going down, so if you only aim at buying and then reselling at a profit, this may not be the case. But no one realy knows)

And there is another company that mines Scrypt based crypto currency's (multiple) and the coines generated are converted into bitcoin's and transfered to your account (that you can use to purchse more hashing power or withdraw).


Though scrypt mining is more profitable, the hasing power also costs more, always keep that in mind. As you can see, I only got a few kilohashes right now. To be honest I just bought some, to see how it turns out. :)