Global public IT cloud services revenue 2016-2021, by segment

In 2021, the global spending on public IT cloud services amounted to approximately 409 billion U.S. dollars in total. Software as a service (SaaS) spending is the largest segment with revenues of around 249 billion U.S. dollars. This growth is driven by organizations across the world replacing their legacy business applications with SaaS applications that are more data-driven and a more appropriate fit for modern cloud architectures.

What are SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS?

SaaS, Paas, and IaaS are different types of cloud service models. Depending on how much an organization wants to manage its information technology (IT) infrastructure by itself, it can choose one or more of the three service types. SaaS is the most used option for organizations and includes applications, whereas PaaS delivers a framework for developers to build applications. Finally, IaaS is entirely self-service for accessing and monitoring computers.

Advantages of cloud service models

All these different service models are delivered over the internet and managed to varying degrees by third-party vendors. In choosing one or more of these cloud service models and relying less on running business applications on premises, organizations can spend less money on hardware and software. They can also manage applications with greater flexibility and speed while reducing vendor lock-in.