Adobe Commerce Cloud vs On-Premise: which hosting choice for your platform in 2026?

Cloud vs On-Premise: the matchup

Adobe Commerce now comes in three models: Cloud (managed PaaS), On-Premise (self-hosted) and, more recently, Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (ACCS, a SaaS offering with a very different responsibility model). This comparison covers the first two. Each has its advantages and drawbacks. Here's how to choose.

Adobe Commerce Cloud

Advantages

• Infrastructure managed by Adobe (99.99% SLA)
• Auto-scaling (useful for Black Friday)
• PCI DSS compliance included
• Infrastructure patches applied by Adobe — application patches, custom code and extensions remain your responsibility
• Fastly CDN and New Relic included

Drawbacks

• Higher cost
• Less flexibility (no direct server access)
• Deployments via Git (no FTP/SFTP)

Adobe Commerce On-Premise

Advantages

• Full infrastructure control
• Potentially lower cost (depending on volume)
• Maximum flexibility (choose your tech stack)

Drawbacks

• Full infrastructure responsibility on you
• PCI DSS must be managed yourself
• Manual scaling

My verdict in 2026

For 80% of projects, Adobe Commerce Cloud is the best choice. The additional cost is offset by peace of mind and performance. On-Premise remains relevant for very high volumes (>50M€ revenue) or extreme customization needs.

Hesitating between Cloud and On-Premise? I help you make the right choice.