Cloud-Hosted FusionAuth vs Self-Hosted FusionAuth

Once you have chosen a FusionAuth plan with the features you want, you need to decide where to host your FusionAuth instance:

• Self-hosted: host FusionAuth yourself with an on-premise server or a cloud service provider.
• Cloud-hosted: use FusionAuth Cloud to host your instance.

Your decision to self-host or register for FusionAuth Cloud is independent of which plan you choose. No matter where you host your instance, plan features stay the same.

Let's first consider how each hosting type works, then assess the advantages of each.

How Each Hosting Type Works#

Self-hosted#

For self-hosted FusionAuth, you download our software (as a Docker image, zip file, RPM, or DEB), and deploy it with a database and optional search engine. You have full control over the configuration of FusionAuth, but also manage and maintain the following considerations:

• Database backups
• Monitoring and error checking
• Networking
• Updates and upgrades to your database, search engine, and FusionAuth
• Server scaling and migration as your users increase
• Load balancing
• Proxy configuration

For a full list of self-hosted limitations, see the limitations documentation.

To learn how to run FusionAuth on your own host, read the Docker install or the the app install documentation.

Cloud-hosted#

For Cloud-hosted FusionAuth, create a FusionAuth Cloud account and choose a plan. You can then create as many instances of FusionAuth (called deployments) as you want through the web interface. You pay for each deployment as long as it runs, but need not worry about any of the self-hosted considerations we listed above.

You choose what geographic region your deployment runs in. You can manage your deployment using the Admin UI or the API. You control the upgrade cycle.

To estimate the fees for the deployments in your account, use the pricing calculator.

FusionAuth Cloud has the same limitations as self-hosted FusionAuth, in addition to managed service limits.

Advantages Of Each Hosting Type#

Self-hosted#

Self-hosted gives you complete control over FusionAuth, including the ability to use Kickstart to start an instance with the exact configuration you need (e.g. sample applications and users).

You can use Kickstart in conjunction with GitHub or continuous deployment services to deploy any number and configuration of FusionAuth instances. You can set up proxies and otherwise limit access to FusionAuth should you need to for compliance or security reasons. You can monitor and instrument FusionAuth using any Java-compatible tooling. You can turn off usage data reporting.

The FusionAuth database runs on your database. You can make FusionAuth highly available in the same way you would any other web application. With database access, you can run any SQL queries against it to extract data for analytics. However, running any queries which modify the database will void your support warranty.

Cloud-hosted#

In exchange for convenience, Cloud-hosted offers less control than self-hosted. With Cloud-hosted, starting and stopping a deployment takes only a few clicks, as does updating to the latest version of FusionAuth. Deployments scale as your number of customers grows. Backups are automated and available should you need to roll back your database at any time.

A team of FusionAuth experts manages the cloud environment and is available if you need support. You can also purchase a 99.99% uptime service level agreement (SLA) to guarantee that your app's authentication will always be available. FusionAuth is also available in cloud marketplaces, allowing you to use your pre-approved spend to pay for FusionAuth as a single line item.

Use Cases For Each Hosting Type#

Self-hosted#

Self-hosted is free, other than any required license, compute, and network costs. Self-hosted makes it easy to test FusionAuth, experiment with local development, or use spare resources you already have on an existing server.

You can host FusionAuth anywhere, even on a private network, which may be a requirement for your organization's data regulations. Self-hosted is a good choice if your team has the knowledge and time to manage FusionAuth.

Cloud-hosted#

Cloud-hosted is a good choice for businesses that want to spend as little time as possible managing infrastructure or that don't know enough about FusionAuth and server management to host it themselves.

TL;DR#

If neither option offers you an obvious advantage, compare the cost of self-hosted and Cloud-hosted to decide:

• Self-hosted is a good choice when you have an infrastructure team with spare time to monitor and maintain your own instances.
• Cloud-hosted costs money but saves your infrastructure team time.

You can estimate the total cost of of each option using our pricing calculator. Don't forget the cost of maintaining FusionAuth with your own resources, and the potential cost of downtime if your self-hosted FusionAuth instance were to become misconfigured.