Various options for SharePoint 2013 Deployment and Comparision

SharePoint 2013 has given lot of flexibility and options in terms of hosting. You can have SharePoint 2013 sites with the following deployment options:

1. SharePoint 2013 sites in Office 365
2. SharePoint 2013 in Windows Azure
3. SharePoint 2013 on Premises Deployment

Though these options gives lot of flexibility they make life difficult to determine which option we should adopt. I am putting few parameters and the rational behind them which can help you to understand these different deployments better and take a decision:

	SharePoint in Office 365	SharePoint in Windows Azure	SharePoint On Premises Deployment
Definition	This replicates Software as a Service Model. Microsoft has hosted the servers and the software and we as users can just utilize this after buying the subscription.	This replicates Infrastructure as a Service Model. Windows Azure platform provides the infrastructure (servers) and app services  needed to host a SharePoint 2013 farm.	This is the traditional model where you own all the servers and software. You need to do the capacity planning, patching and backing up the data.
Licensing	This is based on Subscription model. This requires no additional licenses.	User buy the Windows Azure subscription which includes the server operating system. After that they also need to pay for SQL Server, SharePoint 2013 Server License & SharePoint 2013 Client Access License. There are other costs as well such as storage, network etc. So we need to pay full attention before you finalize this option.	Here the user needs to pay for all the licenses such as Server Operating Systems, SQL Server, SharePoint 2013 Server License & SharePoint 2013 Client Access License.
Customization	This model is little restrictive on what you customization you can do. Users can only use SharePoint designer based customization or use the Apps for Office and SharePoint.	Customizations are not limited.	Customizations are not limited.
Advantages	This is with rich feature set and which are always up to date as Microsoft deploys the patches immediately. You can have a secured external site You can host a basic public facing internet site.	Setting up Farm is quite quick and there is no commitment which required.  Scale up/down is quite flexible. We can focus on application and leave all the troubles related to data centre and infrastructure.	You have full control on the entire platform and solution. You can create highly complex solution. Single sign on is easy.  Legacy solutions with 3rd party components that depend on hardware and software that are not supported on Windows Azure IaaS.
Limitations	Tricky to set up single sign on.  Organizations do not prefer to store confidential data external data centres.  If the apps needs integration with some internal apps it may not be possible.	Legacy solutions with 3rd party components that depend on hardware and software that are not supported on Windows Azure IaaS.  Setting up single sign on is tricky. If the internal user name can not be stored in the Windows Azure Active Directory	Require lot of resources for Farm design and maintenance. You need to make sure servers are patched up, data is backed up etc.  We need to set up own disaster recovery.