MODEL 1: On-Premises Self-Hosted (Rare in 2025)
┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Your Data Center │
│ ├─ Physical servers (YOU own) │
│ ├─ Power, cooling (YOU manage) │
│ ├─ Network infrastructure (YOU own) │
│ └─ Everything else (YOU manage) │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
⚠️ Not covering this - almost nobody does this anymore
MODEL 2: Cloud Self-Hosted ← THIS IS WHAT WE'RE COMPARING
┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AWS / Azure / GCP / DigitalOcean │
│ ├─ Physical infrastructure (VENDOR) │
│ ├─ Hypervisor/networking (VENDOR) │
│ ├─ VM/Container (YOU manage) │
│ ├─ OS & patches (YOU manage) │
│ ├─ Platform install (YOU manage) │
│ └─ All configuration (YOU manage) │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
✓ Most common for self-hosted in 2025
MODEL 3: Fully Managed SaaS ← VS THIS
┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Tines Cloud / n8n Cloud │
│ ├─ Everything managed (VENDOR) │
│ ├─ You just use it (YOU) │
│ └─ Config via UI only (YOU) │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
✓ Simplest option