SaaS is big business.

It’s exploding in popularity right now with businesses across the board. One projection suggests that the worldwide SaaS market will hit 113.1 billion dollars by 2021, almost doubling the size of the sector since 2017.

Cloud- and subscription-based services offer a number of advantages for business. But they’re not the only option. Custom development may be the right choice for you.

Advantages of SaaS

There’s a reason SaaS solutions have caught on so fast. For many businesses they’re an easy turnkey solution. You usually have a shorter launch cycle, and because they’re doing the development and so many people are using it there are often quite a few resources available to help. They’re often a fairly cost-effective solution for people that want to scale fast because moving up in resources is as easy as upping the plan. You don’t have to buy new hardware or implement a new back end yourself, and you don’t have to worry about keeping it up to date yourself.

SaaS is usually easier to implement and easier to grow quickly with. But it runs into trouble when it comes to some of the particulars. The “one size fits all” nature of SaaS is great for pumping out scale, but when it comes to businesses that want a little more control it can work against it.

Advantages of custom software development

Custom software development is in some ways a harder road to take. You’re bearing the costs and responsibilities of a dev team, either in-house or hired outside. It can seem more daunting than grabbing a prebuilt SaaS solution off the shelf. But custom built software actually comes with distinct advantages that can make it preferable to SaaS for a lot of businesses.

Choosing between SaaS products often comes down to “which features are MOST important to us” instead of “what features does our software need”. Because of SaaS’s need to translate across a broad swath of businesses, some of the more specific needs of your company might not be on the list. You’d have to work with a company that gives you a path to production for that.

Custom software can give a growing company a competitive edge due to APIs, reports and mobile applications that can be tailored to the situation at hand. You can make the software fit your business instead of the other way around.

If you’re trying to figure out whether to go SaaS or custom, don’t just automatically go for the easier choice. Think about the long-term consequences of your decision. Do you want to tie your business to a cloud service that doesn’t fulfill all your needs? Or do you want to build something that can grow with your business?

It can be a tough decision. But if you need a hand, we’re here to help. Contact us today to find out how we can help you build a platform that will fit your needs.

No tags for this post.