IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS: How to Choose the Best Cloud Computing Model

The usage of cloud computing services is a hot topic for all types of businesses. When you dive into the cloud for your business, you lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale easily once your business needs change.
If you consider switching your business to the cloud, you need to know the differences and advantages of various cloud services. Let’s discover the types of cloud services and the main differences between them.
Cloud computing allows storing and accessing data and apps in remote data centers. That means you no longer need to keep all the data on your hardware since you get on-demand computing services over the Internet on a pay-as-you-go basis.
Today cloud services are becoming increasingly popular among businesses and replacing on-premises technologies.
We will highlight three main reasons for the demand for cloud computing:
Introducing new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, empowers more and more companies to use cloud computing and accelerates cloud servicing growth. Grand View Research says that its respondents expect the global cloud computing market to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.7% from 2022 to 2030.
Cloud computing helps businesses survive continuity challenges occurring due to the lockdown and other negative impacts on the market and servicing.
In this article, we will describe the three most popular types of cloud service solutions: software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Looking at the IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS definition, their similarities and key differences will help you choose the right product for your business among cloud solutions.
It’s important to make the right decision as early as possible to save human resources and costs in the long run. SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS offer different levels of autonomy and control and are suitable for different business needs. See the table below.
As you can see, IaaS gives you the most freedom of control as it lets you manage your applications, data, middleware, and operating system. By choosing PaaS, you will manage your data and applications only, and with SaaS, you will have the least control, and everything is managed by your service provider.
If you compare the resilience of IaaS vs SaaS vs PaaS, IaaS will take the first place. But stability and security will mostly depend on the provider you choose. IaaS customers pay for the services on a per-user basis, typically by the hour, week, or month. Sometimes the price is based on the amount of computing power or virtual machine space. We recommend that users keep a close eye on their IaaS environments to avoid overpaying for unauthorized services.
Looking at PaaS, we can highlight, above all, an opportunity to engage in advanced high-level programming, helping businesses optimize processes by streamlining and simplifying high-level tasks. PaaS technologies make it possible to create different applications quickly and cost-effectively. However, as the application expands, the price will increase. Besides, by choosing a PaaS provider, you become tied to the chosen environment and interface.
SaaS solutions are more preferable over PaaS and IaaS, making it a better choice for individuals and small businesses. But having a price advantage over PaaS and IaaS, this choice grants users the least control over management.
In choosing between IaaS vs SaaS vs PaaS the differences, their specific features and functionalities are crucial for companies to understand before they decide between cloud computing IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS and determine the ideal services for business.
Now, let’s look in detail at each of the cloud service models and IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS examples.
SaaS is very popular among cloud services. This cloud computing model provides user-friendly software that doesn't demand any installation as the web applications run straight in the browser. Users do not need to make updates and perform support of the software. Everything is done by a third-party vendor on a subscription basis. Providers also manage potential technical issues such as data, middleware, servers, and storage, allowing for optimized maintenance and business support.
The SaaS model doesn’t require any significant costs or provide the trouble of downloading and installing the software, but it is heavily based on outside vendors' support, and the user has little to no control over its changes. You may know these examples of SaaS applications: Google Workspace, Dropbox, Cisco, WebEx, Jira, Slack, and Agolia.
Let’s look closer at some pros and cons of SaaS.
SaaS is a cloud model that has a lot to offer. Here are some benefits of using the SaaS model:
Among the main drawbacks of SaaS solutions are:
SaaS applications will be the right choice for:
PaaS (platform-as-a-service) provides a cloud environment for developing, running, and managing applications. PaaS does not deliver software but spares developers any worry about infrastructure, operating systems, or data storage.
PaaS offers the following:
Comparing PaaS vs SaaS vs IaaS, you will find a nice set of pros, but to sum it up:
PaaS brings plenty of pros but there are definitely some downsides that need to be pointed out:
Platform-as-a-service solutions will be a preferable choice if:
Infrastructure as a Service is a model of cloud services that allows businesses to access and monitor hardware. They use on-demand resources for different purposes, such as process monitoring, data storage, visualization, networking, and many more. An IaaS client gets complete control over the entire infrastructure through a dashboard or an API without a need to buy, physically maintain or manage all of it.
The main features of IaaS cloud services are:
Among key players, offering IaaS solutions are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Digital Ocean, Cisco Metacloud, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
The IaaS cloud model is best for:
IaaS is the best solution in the following cases:
Find below the main benefits of IaaS:
Let’s point out a few disadvantages that come with using this model:
PaaS vs SaaS vs IaaS each has particular characteristics and gives some advantages that need to be considered. Each offers different levels of flexibility, scalability, and control to meet different business needs.
IaaS will be the best option for startups, small, medium and large enterprises – all kinds of them, thanks to its flexibility. By providing a high level of control, IaaS solutions will be the right choice for those businesses who are eager to handle own data. If you need to grow fast, its scalability will best suit your needs. Indeed, a high level of customization makes this model an excellent choice for the particular needs of various entities.
PaaS is the best option when the time-to-market is the key point. It helps set up infrastructure faster based on the list of predefined configurations and services. PaaS solutions are quite cost-effective and will be the right choice if you are on a tight budget. PaaS auto-scale functionalities enable to build customized applications faster by a zero-downtime scaling method.
Obviously, SaaS will be the best choice for you, as it allows quickly running applications without having to worry about server or software issues.
Cloud models are flexible solutions and you are sure to find one that suits your business.
Cloud SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS will enable your business to keep up with changing standards and gain a competitive edge. This is essential to improve the quality of service for your customers, and to grow your business as a whole. If you're ready to begin your journey into the cloud, DigitalSuits will determine what best suits your needs and budget and offer the one that's best for you. Contact us, and we will help your business free up time and space to become a successful enterprise that conquers the opportunities ahead.
CTO at DigitalSuits
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