The traditional model of acquisition, known as on-premises software, consists of downloading or installing the software on a server or computer. This traditional model was the most common form of software delivery to business and individuals from 2005.
Software developers are now one of the fastest growing areas in the cloud-computing space. According to Juniper Research, In 2018, SaaS will represent 59% of the enterprise cloud-computing market. However, SaaS is not suitable for everyone.
There are many differences between SaaS and on-premises solutions:
On-premises, installed on users computers. On the other hand, SaaS is accessed via the internet and typically hosted by a third-party vendor.
A second big difference is “pay as you go” or on-demand usage service model versus the traditional upfront capital expenditure (on-premises). For accounting purposes, counting this on-demand usage as a “utility” versus a large capital expenditure can be very beneficial, for accounting purposes. Sometimes this is one of the more enticing aspects of using cloud services at the low cost.
SaaS providers don’t have the time or bandwidth to work on customizing the service for each of their clients. Also, SaaS offerings are generally platform neutral and clients have the ability to scale resources both up and down as needed.
An attractive characteristic of SaaS offerings is resource pooling. as clients share resources, allowing the SaaS vendor to distribute the cost savings to all of its clients.
The big difference between on-premise and SaaS is how they are implemented, or in the case of SaaS, how it isn’t implemented. SaaS is accessed via the internet, instead of having it installed and maintained through the company hard drives. On-premise implementation is not only different but is a long process.
Examples of SaaS and On-Premises Software are below:
SaaS:
• Web Trends On Demand
• Office 365
• Adobe Creative Cloud

On-Premises:
• Web Trends On-Premises
• Adobe Creative Suite
• SharePoint 2013