| Upfront costs |
There are no upfront costs. Users pay only for what they consume. |
There are no upfront costs. Users pay only for what they consume. |
Users have no upfront costs; they pay a subscription, typically on a monthly or annual basis. |
| User ownership |
The user is responsible for the purchase, installation, configuration, and management of their own software operating systems, middleware, and applications. |
The user is responsible for the development of their own applications. However, they are not responsible for managing the server or infrastructure. This allows the user to focus on the application or workload they want to run. |
Users just use the application software; they are not responsible for any maintenance or management of that software. |
| Cloud provider ownership |
The cloud provider is responsible for ensuring that the underlying cloud infrastructure (such as virtual machines, storage, and networking) is available for the user. |
The cloud provider is responsible for operating system management, and network and service configuration. Cloud providers are typically responsible for everything apart from the application that a user wants to run. They provide a complete managed platform on which to run an application. |
The cloud provider is responsible for the provision, management, and maintenance of the application software. |
