Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a significant component of cloud computing as it eliminates significant complexity traditionally associated with building, deploying, and managing applications. By providing a ready-made environment that includes infrastructure, operating systems, runtime environments, databases, middleware, and developer tools, PaaS allows developers to focus on writing code rather than maintaining servers or handling updates. Instead of spending weeks configuring environments, developers can push code and let the platform handle provisioning, patching, scaling, and availability. Overall, PaaS plays an important role in helping businesses stay ahead of the curve by modernising their IT operations, improving productivity and staying competitive in an increasingly cloud-driven economy.
The growing importance of PaaS is evident in the way the global market continues to expand. At a CAGR of nearly 22% from 2025 to 2030, the global market is expected to reach close to $288 billion in 20301. Research indicates that organisations leverage PaaS to improve operational efficiency, control infrastructure costs, and accelerate development using pre-built tools and templates.
The growing importance of PaaS in global markets reflects a fundamental shift in how software is built, deployed, and scaled. With increase in digitised operations, PaaS provides a strategic layer between raw infrastructure and end-user applications. It enables companies to innovate faster without carrying the operational weight of managing servers, operating systems, and middleware. In addition, companies are facing heightened pressure to release products faster and respond quickly to changing customer expectations. PaaS supports this need by standardising development environments across teams and geographies. With developers being able to focus on writing code rather than configuring infrastructure, software delivery cycles have shortened from months to weeks or even days.
Another major driver of PaaS adoption is the rise of AI and data-intensive applications. Flexera’s 2025 State of the Cloud report revealed that 79% of organisations globally are using or experimenting with AI/ML PaaS services2.
In the next section, we explore how companies are actually using PaaS and the benefits they realise or hope to realise from the model.
PaaS is commonly used to accelerate product development and time-to-market. Platforms such as Heroku are often used to launch new applications quickly. As one of the most well-known PaaS platforms, Heroku enables companies to build and deploy web applications without managing servers, operating systems, or runtime environments. The platform helps deploy applications with a simple workflow, eliminating the need to hire specialist DevOps engineers in the early stages. This approach is widely used by SaaS startups globally and in India, where speed and efficient use of engineering talent are critical competitive advantages.
Typically, for larger organisations, PaaS is critical to help modernise legacy systems and scale globally. Netflix is one of the most cited examples, a company that has publicly documented how it uses managed cloud platforms and platform-level services to support massive global scale without operating its own data centres. By relying on cloud-managed platforms rather than self-hosted infrastructure, Netflix enables small engineering teams to deploy updates continuously and handle traffic spikes reliably. While the scale of Netflix’s operations is higher, the same principle can apply to mid-sized firms adopting PaaS to simplify operations.
Enterprises also use PaaS to standardise development across teams and regions. Platforms such as Microsoft Azure App Service allow organisations to run web applications and APIs with built-in security, compliance, and Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) integration.
Another example is Google App Engine, a fully managed PaaS within Google Cloud. Companies use it to run web applications and APIs with automatic scaling and built-in security. It is popular for data-driven and analytics-heavy applications because it integrates seamlessly with Google services like BigQuery and AI APIs. Companies typically choose App Engine when they want Google-grade scalability without managing infrastructure.
A leading PaaS platform is Elastic Beanstalk by AWS. It is widely used by teams that want PaaS simplicity while staying inside the AWS ecosystem. Companies upload application code and AWS automatically handles infrastructure, scaling and monitoring. It is commonly used for migrating traditional applications to the cloud without redesigning everything.
Most companies across the globe use these leading platforms that define how PaaS is used globally today, from startups launching MVPs to enterprises running mission-critical applications at scale.
Overall, companies use PaaS to reduce operational burden, improve developer productivity, and supports rapid scaling. Whether it is a startup launching its first product, an enterprise modernising legacy system, or an Indian SaaS firm expanding globally, PaaS provides a practical balance between speed, control, and cost, key reasons why it is being adopted globally.