SaaS vs PaaS
SaaS and PaaS are two layers of the cloud stack. The line between them is who builds the application — your team, or the vendor.
The key difference: SaaS gives you a finished application. PaaS gives you a platform to build your own application on.
| Dimension | SaaS | PaaS |
|---|---|---|
| You consume | A finished app (Salesforce, Slack, Notion) | A platform (Vercel, Heroku, Supabase) |
| You manage | Configuration, users, data | Your application code on top |
| Vendor manages | Everything below the app | Runtime, scaling, OS, infra |
| Buyer | Business team — sales, marketing, ops | Engineering team |
| Lock-in shape | Data + workflows | Runtime + APIs |
When to use SaaS
Choose SaaS when the problem is generic enough that someone has already built it well.
When to use PaaS
Choose PaaS when you're building something custom and want to skip infrastructure work.
FAQs
Where does IaaS fit?
IaaS (AWS EC2, GCP Compute) is one layer lower — raw infrastructure. PaaS sits on top of IaaS; SaaS sits on top of PaaS.
Is Supabase SaaS or PaaS?
PaaS — it gives you a managed Postgres, auth and storage platform that your application is built on, rather than a finished end-user app.
Can a product be both?
Yes. Many modern platforms (Shopify, Notion) expose APIs and an app surface, blurring the line — buyers still classify them by primary use.