6. EFFORT COMPARISON - Cloud Self-Hosted vs SaaS

Decision Summary Table

Factor	Cloud Self-Hosted	Managed SaaS	Winner
Initial effort	160-230 hours	70-110 hours	SaaS (55-60% less)
Ongoing effort	20-30 hrs/month	10-15 hrs/month	SaaS (50% less)
Cost (<50 users)	~$46k/year	~$30-45k/year	SaaS
Cost (100+ users)	~$48k/year	~$110k/year	Self-hosted
Control	Full	Limited	Self-hosted
Compliance	Full control	Shared	Self-hosted
Expertise needed	High	Medium	SaaS
Time to deploy	4-6 weeks	1-2 weeks	SaaS
Vendor risk	None	Medium-High	Self-hosted
Customization	Unlimited	Limited	Self-hosted

DECISION FRAMEWORK

START HERE: What's your team size & technical capability?

├─ TEAM < 30 people
│  ├─ No dedicated ops/security person?
│  │  └─→ USE MANAGED SaaS ✓
│  │      • Lowest total effort
│  │      • Fastest deployment
│  │      • Usually cost-effective at this scale
│  │
│  └─ Have DevOps/IT expertise?
│     ├─ Budget < $50/month?
│     │  └─→ Cloud Self-Hosted (Hetzner/Hostinger)
│     │      • Saves money long-term
│     │      • Use expertise effectively
│     │
│     └─ Budget comfortable?
│        └─→ SaaS recommended anyway
│            • Free up team for product work
│            • OpEx vs CapEx
│
├─ TEAM 30-100 people
│  ├─ DevOps team exists (2+ people)?
│  │  ├─ Compliance requirements?
│  │  │  ├─ Data sovereignty critical?
│  │  │  │  └─→ Cloud Self-Hosted (required)
│  │  │  │
│  │  │  └─ Standard compliance (SOC 2)?
│  │  │     └─→ Either works
│  │  │         Calculate: $75/user/month vs $4k/month fixed
│  │  │         Break-even: ~50 users
│  │  │
│  │  └─ No special compliance?
│  │     └─→ Cloud Self-Hosted likely cheaper
│  │         • Better economics at scale
│  │         • Team can handle it
│  │
│  └─ No DevOps team?
│     └─→ SaaS + hire DevOps later
│         • Or outsource initial self-hosted setup
│
└─ TEAM 100+ people
   └─ Almost always: Cloud Self-Hosted
      • Economics strongly favor self-hosted
      • At $75/user/month, 100 users = $90k/year
      • Self-hosted: ~$48k/year all-in
      • Savings fund ops team
      • More control needed at this scale anyway

SPECIAL CASES:
├─ Highly regulated (finance, healthcare, defense)
│  └─→ Cloud Self-Hosted or hybrid
│      • Compliance usually requires it
│      • May need on-prem components
│
├─ Startup with uncertain scale
│  └─→ Start SaaS, plan migration
│      • Fast initial deployment
│      • Migrate to self-hosted if you hit scale
│      • Keep workflows cloud-portable
│
└─ Enterprise with existing platform team
   └─→ Cloud Self-Hosted
       • Leverage existing Kubernetes/platform
       • Better integration with internal tools
       • Cost savings at scale

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              INITIAL DEPLOYMENT EFFORT                       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                              │
│  CLOUD SELF-HOSTED (AWS/DO/Hostinger VPS)                  │
│  ════════════════════════════════════════════════════       │
│  Phase 1: Cloud Infrastructure     25-35 hours ████████     │
│  Phase 2: OS Hardening             15-20 hours █████        │
│  Phase 3: Container & App Setup    20-30 hours ██████       │
│  Phase 4: Platform Hardening       15-25 hours █████        │
│  Phase 5: Auth & Access            10-15 hours ███          │
│  Phase 6: Monitoring & Logging     20-30 hours ██████       │
│  Phase 7: Backup & DR              12-16 hours ████         │
│  Phase 8: Security Testing         10-15 hours ███          │
│  Phase 9: Documentation            12-16 hours ████         │
│  ────────────────────────────────────────────────           │
│  TOTAL:                        160-230 hours                │
│  ════════════════════════════════════════════════════       │
│  Timeline: 4-6 weeks (single admin)                         │
│  Timeline: 2-3 weeks (experienced team)                     │
│                                                              │
│  MANAGED SaaS (Tines Cloud / n8n Cloud)                     │
│  ════════════════════════════════════════════════════       │
│  Vendor Evaluation              8-12 hours ██               │
│  Account Configuration         15-25 hours █████            │
│  Workflow Security             20-30 hours ██████           │
│  Monitoring & Audit            15-25 hours █████            │
│  Documentation                 15-20 hours ████             │
│  ────────────────────────────────────────────────           │
│  TOTAL:                         70-110 hours                │
│  ════════════════════════════════════════════════════       │
│  Timeline: 1-2 weeks                                        │
│                                                              │
│  EFFORT SAVED WITH SaaS:    90-120 hours (55-60% less)     │
│  ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════    │
│  At $150/hour:              $13,500-18,000 saved            │
│                                                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

“

"Cloud self-hosted is easier than on-prem but NOT easy"

Cloud Provider Handles:
  ✓ Physical stuff
  ✓ Hypervisor
  ✓ Basic network
  ≈ Saves you 60-80 hours initially

You Still Handle:
  ✗ Everything above the VM
  ✗ OS, containers, app, security
  ✗ All the hard security work
  ≈ Still 160+ hours initially

SaaS Handles:
  ✓ Everything except application logic
  ✓ Your job: access, credentials, workflows
  ≈ Saves you 90-120 hours vs cloud self-hosted

REAL-WORLD DEPLOYMENT EXAMPLES

Example 1: Startup (15 people) - Choose SaaS

Company: Tech startup, Series A
Team: 15 people, 1 IT person (part-time on ops)
Use case: Customer onboarding automation
 
Decision: n8n Cloud Enterprise
Reason:
  ✓ Limited IT resources
  ✓ Need to deploy quickly (2 weeks vs 2 months)
  ✓ Cost: $16,875/year (subscription) + $15k/year (maintenance)
  ✓ Total: ~$32k/year
  ✓ vs Self-hosted: $46k/year + opportunity cost of IT time
  
Outcome: Deployed in 1 week, team focused on building workflows
         not managing infrastructure

Example 2: Mid-Market SaaS Company (120 people) - Choose Cloud Self-Hosted

Company: B2B SaaS, 120 employees
Team: 5-person DevOps team
Use case: Internal automation, CI/CD, IT workflows
Compliance: SOC 2 Type II required
 
Decision: Self-hosted on AWS
Reason:
  ✓ Have ops expertise in-house
  ✓ Cost: ~$48k/year vs $130k+/year for SaaS
  ✓ Savings: ~$82k/year
  ✓ Better compliance story (full control)
  ✓ Can integrate with internal services easily
  ✓ Custom security requirements (internal secrets manager)
  
Deployment:
  - 3 weeks (experienced team)
  - AWS ECS (containers)
  - RDS PostgreSQL
  - CloudFlare for WAF
  - Integrated with HashiCorp Vault
  
Outcome: $82k annual savings funds 0.5 FTE for maintenance

Example 3: Enterprise Security Team (250 people) - Hybrid

Company: Financial services, 250 employees
Team: 8-person security operations team
Use case: SOAR (security orchestration & automation)
 
Decision: Tines Cloud + Self-hosted workers
Reason:
  ✓ Tines best-in-class for SOAR
  ✓ Sensitive data processing on-prem
  ✓ Hybrid: SaaS orchestration + self-hosted execution
  ✓ Compliance: Data never leaves environment
  
Architecture:
  Tines Cloud (orchestration)
       ↕ API Gateway ↕
  Self-hosted workers (AWS)
       ↕
  Internal systems (on-prem)
  
Cost:
  - Tines Cloud: $180k/year (50 licenses)
  - Self-hosted workers: $25k/year
  - Total: $205k/year
  - Benefit: Best of both worlds

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PROVIDER-SPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS

Cloud Providers Compared

Provider	Best For	n8n Cost/Month	Pros	Cons
AWS	Enterprise, complex needs	$60-100	Full service suite, mature, excellent docs	Complex pricing, overkill for simple needs
DigitalOcean	Startups, simple needs	$48-60	Simple pricing, great docs, managed DB	Fewer services, fewer regions
Hetzner	Cost-conscious, EU	$25-40	Cheapest, good performance	Limited services, EU-centric
Vultr	Performance focus	$40-60	High performance, good value	Smaller ecosystem
Hostinger VPS	Budget constraint	$20-40	Very cheap	Limited support, basic features
Azure	Microsoft shops	$70-120	AD integration, hybrid cloud	Complex, expensive
GCP	Data/ML workflows	$65-110	Best for data pipelines	Less mature for general compute