Deploying Business Intranet Platform: Buying Vs Developing Your Own Intranet System

The web is flooded with tons of contradicting and confounding information regarding whether you should build your own intranet system or simply ‘buy’ from a vendor. Buying an intranet platform translates to deploying a system that is already built. You don’t need to make any coding apart from few interface customizations that can be done by the non-technical staff.

Buying an intranet platform is simply soliciting the services of a SaaS intranet platform provider. Most providers deploy these collaborative tools through a subscription-based method.

Developing your own intranet from scratch is the same as building your own house. You organize pretty much of everything from laying out the framework, hiring the required personnel, purchasing the necessary equipment to carrying out regular maintenance and upgrades of the system.

We are going to undertake a comprehensive intranet platforms comparison analysis so that you can decisively choose an intranet platform that corresponds to your organization’s needs.

Intranet Platforms Comparison: Cloud-Based Vs On-Premise

Buying an intranet system from a SaaS vendor implies leveraging cloud-based solutions to deploy and implement the system. Cloud-based intranet services mean that you don’t need any additional hardware systems to facilitate the deployment process. Therefore, it’s cheap and flexible as you only subscribe to a package that suits your business needs.

Building your own internal communication intranet service incorporates purchasing of expensive hardware systems including servers and computers. It can be even more expensive if you’re relying on outsourcing coding experts to help build your intranet platform modules.

Intranet Platforms Comparison: Customizations & Control

Engineering your own intranet system from scratch gives you ultimate control of everything. You decide the features you’d like to include, the number of users it can accommodate and security protocols guarding system and user files. These systems proffer you the autonomy to upgrade and maintain your system anytime you want – but of course, at a cost. You can customize features in every possible way you’d like.

On the other hand, buying an already-built intranet platform means that you don’t have a choice on many things. Customizations are limited, and you may not get the features that you want. Maintenance and upgrades are solely carried out by your provider at their convenient time. You’ll have to ask for additional features and system integrations, which may come at a cost.

Intranet Platforms Comparison: Costs and Time

Intranet cost is an important factor for every organization. When you build your own system, you’re likely to spend more during the development and installation period, and less (maintenance costs) when the platform is ready for use. Typically, it takes time and resources to build your own intranet system.

Buying an intranet service is the cheapest solution – you only incur monthly/quarterly/yearly subscription costs. All other costs regarding maintenance and security upgrades lie on the shoulders of your provider. This option is great for those who want to take advantage of the intranet services straightaway. It takes less than a week for a fully functional cloud-based intranet system to be deployed – it can even take a day for experienced providers.

Building your own intranet can cost you time and resources, but it can turn out to be cheaper in the long run. This option is ideal for large corporations who enjoy the economies of scale. If you want a system that you can use on-the-go, LS Intranet provides you with the best affordable and easy-to-use intranet solution. Reach out to our team so that they can give you a head start on how you can go about using our SaaS solutions.