Today, SaaS-based applications are in demand since they are cost-effective, easy to use, remotely accessible, and scalable. Although SaaS hosting comes with all these benefits, developers still have many concerns. In addition, there are a large of hosting providers out there with impeccable features and offerings. Don’t worry; we will help you choose the best SaaS hosting platform for your business needs.
What is SaaS?
Software as a service (SaaS) is a software development and distribution model in which a third-party service provider hosts the software or application on their own servers while making the app available remotely for customers. The customers can access the application via a web browser after paying a subscription fee (if applicable). Examples of SaaS applications can be Google Docs, Gmail, Netflix, and more. The SaaS industry has become hugely profitable owing to its flexible payments, scalability, reduced costs, speed, ease of use from any device or location, etc.; instead of requiring you to develop the application from scratch or spend a fortune on hardware, installation, maintenance, provision, and so on.
What is SaaS Web Hosting?
In order to make a SaaS application work, it needs to be run or hosted on a server somewhere. While you have the option to host it on your server, it will be costly due to all the infrastructure, software, and hardware requirements. This will be an overhead, especially for startups, small businesses, and growing businesses. This is why there are many hosting providers who can store your SaaS application’s data on their servers, offer computation, and provide all the essential help you need. This is known as SaaS hosting. Instead of downloading or installing the application on your device, you will be able to access the app and your data easily from your browser. There are three types of SaaS hosting you can opt for:
Cloud hosting: The hosting provider will store your data on multiple servers. It is affordable, powerful, and flexible and includes managed, hybrid, public, and private clouds.Shared hosting: In this type of hosting, you will share your server with other users. While this is cheaper, you may have to compromise on security and bandwidth.Dedicated hosting: You will get to use the complete server(s) without sharing it with others. This offers exceptional speed, performance, bandwidth, security, managed service, premium support, etc., but is expensive.
What are the challenges of SaaS hosting for developers?
Although SaaS hosting offers plenty of benefits for businesses, developers might face some challenges with it, such as:
Data processing: As your business grows, your data also increases, and the developers are left with a tremendous data volume to process and manage, which is a big challenge. If sensitive data is mismanaged, it may lead to big trouble for businesses and maybe for their customers.Uptime: Customers’ demand for using a high-performing application is increasing. They want no buffering and high uptime while using the application. But maintaining a high uptime or 100% uptime to serve users all the time is a challenge. Also, it’s not always a matter of availability, but you may have to schedule upgrades, backups, and fix issues, which can render the application unavailable for a minute or hour.Security: Cyberattacks are using advanced ways to hack into applications. So, security is a major concern for developers. They need to always monitor, patch, and keep the application at its best security posture. Sometimes they may also deal with hardware and software failures, server bugs, etc. And if an attack still happens, they are left with the difficult task of restoring the application and data.Accessibility: Since SaaS-based applications are distributed remotely, developers find it hard to meet the accessibility demands of users located in different parts of the world, using devices of different screen sizes and OSs. They will need to optimize the application to access it effortlessly so that any user with any device or OS can access it.Communication: If proper communication flow is not maintained internally or with the service provider, it may create a lot of trouble for developers. A small change, if left unaddressed, can cause big outages, errors, and threats. And then, the developers will have a hard time tracing the issue, analyzing it, and finding the remedy to store the application.
So, if you want to avoid such challenges for your developers, using the right SaaS hosting platform is necessary. It will help ease the hosting of SaaS apps while encouraging your developers to perform to the best of their abilities and increase productivity. Here are some of our recommendations for finding the best SaaS hosting platform that is developer-friendly for your applications.
Railway
Deploy your SaaS applications with Railway made for all programming languages and projects. It is a cloud service that helps reduce the complexity of shipping software and allows you to bring your own code while it does everything for you. Start your journey with a template or a repository. Railway offers various tooling options that help your application extend with plugins and various management tools. From bots to blogs, you can deploy your SaaS application with ease and keep your secrets and environment variables secure in a place for your team. Railway grows with your infrastructure, and you can add a database, another service or microservice, and a cron job. Railway CLI connects with your secrets and infrastructure from various terminals across the world. You can also ship your application quickly by removing basic developer hurdles with Railway and upgrading your app over time with joinable environments. Railway keeps your SaaS applications on track and sites seen without any cost. It will help scales applications to fulfill user demands based on the load automatically. Get real-time usage metrics to debug issues faster. Your SaaS applications will stay on the top with high uptime guarantees. Railway also offers a user-friendly dashboard where you can control the interface as you want, from going to any page to creating an object. Get it started for free, or choose a paid plan to access more benefits.
Vercel
Develop, review, and deploy your applications easily with Vercel, which combines the developer experience with a focus on performance and enables the frontend team to work more smartly. Next.js is an open-source React framework that powers sites like Patreon and is loved by many developers. Start deploying your applications with the global edge network without any extra configuration. You can dynamically scale to millions of pages with Vercel easily and get a reliable and simple live-editing experience for the UI components. With a flexible data fetching option, you can also connect the pages to any headless CMS, data source, or API. Vercel’s cloud primitives work well on the local hosts, from caching to serverless functions. With Vercel, you can experience better collaboration on the same project and integrate seamlessly with GitLab, GitHub, and Bitbucket. Import your repository in a single click and then push to deploy. Vercel’s built-in CI/CD system engages for each code change. You will also receive a preview URL to visit the application. Vercel takes care of everything, from asset compression to SSL encryption and cache invalidation. With its dynamic code execution, your end-users will experience incredible speed, and it also guarantees 99.99% uptime and availability. The hosting will cost you $20/month/member. You can take a 14-days free trial. It is free for non-commercial or hobby sites.
Platform.sh
Platform.sh is a cloud PaaS that helps develop, deploy, host, and secure web applications and websites. Get the control and flexibility you need to create better digital experiences. Platform.sh eliminates the need to manage, build, and maintain core infrastructure for developers. You can create an instant clone of your app for each Git Branch to test, update, and deploy unique features for production. Get the benefit of automated deployments, consistent development, and stable environments. Develop your app on a single, secured, and global cloud infrastructure to solve customers’ needs across geographies and industries. With Platform.sh, you can build amazing web apps and websites in any language and framework. The platform enables IT leaders to deliver a secure, fully maintained, and powerful cloud infrastructure across the enterprise. You can resolve the predicted issues before it occurs to save your business. Platform.sh also gives access to the developers to use the tools to ensure better application quality. Deploy your application on multiple regions and providers, such as GCP, AWS, OVH, Orange, and Azure. In addition, make a quick innovation of the reality and allow your team to build better customer experiences. Start small but grow with your business statistics and let your team focus on core business instead of infrastructure and security management. Its pricing starts at $10/month, including a free trial.
Netlify
Build the future of web apps with Netlify that unites the whole ecosystem of modern services and tools into a single, simple workflow to build high-performance apps and sites. Give your applications and sites an edge by creating amazing experiences for the users without spending time thinking about DevOps and servers. You will get the fastest web frontends with programmable edge and serverless functions. It has data centers in every corner of the world, including Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, and Dallas. Netlify offers a fully customizable and powerful build environment and allows you to connect your repository and quickly detect changes. Deploy your site or app quickly with instant atomic deploys and cache invalidation. Get the tools you love to build your applications in confidence. Netlify is one of the comprehensive platforms for your web projects. Accelerate every step from preview to production within seconds of setup. You can also integrate with many third-party services to create serverless APIs easily. Additionally, use any site generator, framework, or technology to build your app. Get started with the Netlify hosting platform for free or avail of more features at $19/member/month.
Firebase
Build and run your applications with Firebase, which is loved by many development teams, from small to global enterprises, and is backed by Google. Speed up your application development process with entirely managed backend infrastructure and confidently release it. You can monitor stability and performance to provide a better user experience and boost user engagement with A/B testing, messaging campaigns, and rich analytics. Install open-source and prepacked bundles of code to perform common development tasks automatically. Also, integrate your business tools with Firebase hosting platform to work more conveniently. Development teams like Halfbrick, Duolingo, Venmo, and NPR use Firebase to ship applications. With Firebase, you can grow user engagement, add new functionality, personalize onboarding flow, solve complex challenges, and maximize the web app experience. You can also build and ship applications on iOS, C++, Unity, the web, and Android. Integrating Firebase into your site or application. It offers a pay-as-you-go pricing option, and you can calculate the pricing according to your usage.
Render
Render is a unified cloud that offers the fastest way to host your SaaS applications. It can help you build and run your websites and applications. You will get free TLS certificates, DDoS protection, auto deploys from Git, private networks, and a global CDN. Deploy your websites and applications instantly with three simple steps:
Select the service type, such as web servers, status sites, docker containers, cron jobs, etc.Deploy within seconds by defining branch, build command, and start command. Allow Render to update your website and application automatically with Git Push.
Control everything in a single place to save your switching time. It is supported by Elixir, Ruby, Go, Rust, Python, and Node. In addition, you will get support from unlimited collaborators. Start your journey with predictable, fair, and simple pricing options. Get benefits of web services with full TLS, HTTP/2, daily backups, custom domains, expandable storage, results, fragments, cache pages, notifications, and more.
AWS Amplify
Build full-stack and extensible mobile and web applications faster with AWS Amplify. It helps create frontend UI and full-stack apps visually with storage, data, authentication, etc. Connect mobile and web apps easily with existing and current AWS resources by entering a few lines of code. You can build, deploy, and host single-page apps, rendered apps, and static websites quickly. Using AWS Amplify, you can access 175+ AWS services that support DevOps practices, user growth, and new use cases. It also offers various features and built-in tools to help frontend developers build applications easily. Moreover, you can configure a mobile or web backend, connect the application in minutes, build a frontend UI, and manage the content outside the console. Scale effortlessly and ship faster with AWS Amplify without having cloud expertise. You will get various AWS Amplify tools, such as Amplify Libraries, Amplify CLI, Amplify Studio, and Amplify Hosting, to build your application and ship them faster. You can also use AWS Amplify to add user authentication, build an app AI, build a robust backend data model, and host a web app or static website.
Heroku
Build data-driven applications with Heroku – one of the best platforms to innovate new things and build a modern app in no time. It can handle everything so you can relax and focus on major things. Allow your developers to stay focused on their work as Heroku takes care of security, failovers, systems, 24/7 ops, and more. Heroku helps you build, manage, and deploy your app within minutes and scale your business. Use Heroku’s more than 200 third-party tools, over 7800 open-source build packs, and over 7200 ready-to-use Heroku buttons to get a rich ecosystem of pre-integrated services and extensions. You will also get a powerful platform for your application to run. Whether you build a simple prototype or a critical product, Heroku’s fully-managed platform provides a simple path to deliver apps quickly without any disruption. In addition, you will get innovative and robust features and benefits built by developers for developers. Some of those are Heroku Runtime, Heroku Postgres, Heroku Redis, Data Clips, Add-ons, Scale, Code rollback, GitHub integration, extensibility, smart containers, etc. Use Heroku for free for non-commercial apps. Get it for $25/month to build business-focused apps.
Cloudflare Workers
Deploy serverless code quickly with Cloudflare Workers and give your app exceptional performance, scale, and reliability. You can sign up and deploy the code in less than five minutes. Cloudflare Workers eliminates cold starts and support 0ms across the globe. You can deploy your code to offer a seamless experience to users using the application. With the platform, our code scales automatically and effortlessly. Each deployment is made to the network of data centers running V8 isolates. The actual latency you will find is 51ms. Choose from various templates according to your preferred programming language. You will also get tutorials, CLI, and templates to build your app, create a function, and write an API. Cloudflare offers 100,000 requests every day for free, allowing you to get whatever you want. Get started with $0.15/million requests every month and get a guarantee of the lowest latency in paid plans.
Tips for choosing the right SaaS hosting platform
When you choose a SaaS hosting platform, technology is not the only thing you must consider; it must be a truly beneficial deal for your business in terms of revenue and business value. Here are some tips to consider for choosing a good SaaS hosting provider.
Understand your needs: SaaS hosting providers can offer you so much, but you must take suitable services, resources, and features that meet your business needs, not more, not less. It’s because every business is unique, and so are its needs.Scalability: The SaaS hosting platform you choose must scale with your growing business. Since the “one size fits all” policy does not apply to all companies, check whether you can expect flexibility and scalability in the pricing plans and resources. You must be able to scale up or down based on your current needs.Performance: The SaaS hosting provider you choose must use the latest technologies and tools, hardware, and software to meet modern demands. You must also get excellent uptime, speed, and performance for your application to enhance the user experience.Compliance and security: Ensure the hosting provider offers advanced security features to secure your applications from cyberattacks. You must get features like DDoS prevention, firewalls, SSL certifications, network monitoring, etc.SLA: Although you might have found an excellent SaaS hosting platform with all the features and performance you need, don’t forget to seal the deal through a Service Level Agreement (SLA). It describes everything you would expect from them in writing with applicable penalties, uptime and performance metrics, reporting, etc.
Conclusion
While choosing a SaaS hosting platform, ensure you get a clear SLA, excellent security and performance, useful features, and scalability based on your business needs. Thus, choose the best SaaS hosting platform from the above list and ease the task of your developers to deploy and maintain your SaaS applications.
