Cloud or Self-Host? Decide deliberately. Medusa Cloud offers convenience and a flat fee. Self-hosting gives you full control and flexibility - with a bit of DevOps. Here's a quick comparison.
Medusa Cloud
- Configuration: Pre-configured
- Scaling: Automated
- Backups: Included
- Support: Vendor support
- Costs: Fixed monthly fee
- Compliance: Limited regions/model
- Scalability: Built-in autoscaling
Self-Host
- Configuration: You configure everything
- Scaling: Manual or your automations
- Backups: Platform-dependent (use our checklist)
- Support: Community / optional consulting
- Costs: Flexible, requires monitoring/ops
- Compliance: Full freedom (on-prem, VPC, region)
- Scalability: Full control over configuration - controlling metrics, thresholds, instance types, and limits instead of relying on default or vendor-managed behavior
| Aspect | Medusa Cloud | Self-Host |
|---|---|---|
| Configuration | Pre-configured | You configure everything |
| Scaling | Automated | Manual or your automations |
| Backups | Included | Platform-dependent (use our checklist) |
| Support | Vendor support | Community / optional consulting |
| Costs | Fixed monthly fee | Flexible, requires monitoring/ops |
| Compliance | Limited regions/model | Full freedom (on-prem, VPC, region) |
| Scalability | Built-in autoscaling | Full control over configuration - controlling metrics, thresholds, instance types, and limits instead of relying on default or vendor-managed behavior |
When to Choose What?
Start with Medusa Cloud if:
You're in the "Launch & Validate" phase:
- You need to launch in the next 1-2 weeks
- You're still figuring out product-market fit
- You don't have DevOps expertise on the team
- You're under 1,000 orders/month
- You want to focus 100% on product, not infrastructure
- You have budget for $50-100/month hosting
Real example: "SaaS startup needed to validate their marketplace idea. Used Medusa Cloud to launch in 10 days. Ran on Cloud for 6 months until hitting $50K MRR, then migrated to self-hosted to optimize costs."
Action: Sign up for Medusa Cloud →
Self-host if:
You're in the "Scale & Optimize" phase:
- You're past product-market fit (>1,000 orders/month)
- You have DevOps expertise in-house or budget to hire
- Your Cloud costs are >$150/month and growing
- You need specific compliance (data residency, custom security)
- You want to optimize infrastructure costs
- You need custom architecture (multi-region, special integrations)
Real example: "B2B retailer hit $100K/month on Cloud, costs reached $400/month. Self-hosted on AWS reduced costs to $150/month while gaining better performance and GDPR compliance for EU customers."
Action: Browse Deployment Guides → or Get Help →
Enterprise / Regulated?
You need self-hosting if:
- Data must stay in specific country
- You need SOC2, ISO 27001, HIPAA compliance
- You integrate with on-premise systems (SAP, Oracle)
- You need VPN connections to internal infrastructure
- Contracts require full data ownership and control
Real example: "German B2B platform selling medical equipment needed GDPR compliance with data in Frankfurt + VPN to on-premise ERP. Self-hosted on AWS eu-central-1 was the only option."
Action: Book Architecture Session →