What are the pros and cons of the different ecommerce website delivery methods? Let's look at SaaS, PaaS, modular, and self-hosted open source.
If you're weighing the options on different ecommerce platform hosting and delivery methods, you've come to the right place.
Choosing your ecommerce platform is a substantial commitment, one that you will hesitate to change for several years at least. There are many things to consider when comparing the platforms in terms of price, features, functionality, and support, but one of the less obvious considerations is how the platform is delivered and hosted.
This difference in delivery will directly impact your options for development and the total cost of ownership.
In this post, we’ll define the four categories that most ecommerce platforms fall within: Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), modular, and self-hosted open source.
SaaS: Software as a Service
A Software as a Service (SaaS) ecommerce platform comes with all of the basic necessities of a web store—hosting, secure payment gateways, catalog management, and content management.
SaaS ecommerce platforms offer the easiest entry points for small merchants. You can spin up a basic storefront in a single afternoon. They also allow for integrations or functionality extensions through apps, and the ability to customize the theme. The big advantage for merchants is the lower development costs and lower cost of ownership. You often don’t have the ability to write custom code—which means you don’t have to pay to write or maintain that work.
A SaaS ecommerce platform does not provide the development team any access to the servers, infrastructure, codebase, or database. They can be modified using specialized languages, integrated through APIs, or externally hosted applications. As an example, when you add an app into a Shopify store, the data that the app needs (say for its settings) is not stored in the Shopify database, it is instead stored externally by the app developer.
Businesses that are not looking for typical commerce features will find a SaaS platform limited, or unadaptable to some customization. Once you need to customize the UX functionality, administrative layout, or create a unique integration, you’ll find yourself hitting the SaaS ceiling.
However, the SaaS platforms have been quickly gaining market share, as many commerce business needs are similar, and light customization is preferred.
Leading SaaS Platforms
- Shopify
- BigCommerce