Self-Hosted and Novu Cloud
Understand the difference between Self-Hosted and Novu Cloud
Better together
Self-Hosted is where the community comes together with our development teams to improve notifications for everyone. Novu Cloud is our commercial offering, and where we extend the capabilities of the Self-Hosted and make them accessible and consumable by all teams and businesses. Most simply, the Self-Hosted is how you test and experiment with notifications infrastructure, and Novu Cloud is how you press the easy button for all things notifications.
Key differences
Our goal is always provide a functional, powerful, and complete notifications infrastructure platform, whether you opt to self host or use our cloud offering. However, certain features we build into Novu Cloud are not available in the Self-Hosted. When this happens, it's for several reasons:
- We rely on a paid third-party service provider
- The feature is complex and requires significant investment (read: money!) time to build and maintain
- The feature is primarily targeted at the largest and most sophisticated of use cases, and supporting these in self-hosted environments is challenging
Current matrix
Below you will find a table that outlines the best available Novu Cloud Tier, compared to the available Self-Hosted capabilities.
| CAPABILITY | SELF-HOSTED | NOVU CLOUD |
|---|---|---|
| Activity feed retention | Infratructure dependent | ✅ |
| Block-based email editor | ✅ | ✅ |
| Channels supported: Email, In-app, SMS, Chat, Push | ✅ | ✅ |
| Code-based Framework workflows | ✅ | ✅ |
| Custom environments | ❌ | ✅ |
| Digest | ✅ | ✅ |
| GUI-based workflows | ✅ | ✅ |
| Max workflows | Infratructure dependent | Custom |
| Provider integrations | Infratructure dependent | Unlimited |
| Subscribers | Infratructure dependent | Unlimited |
| INBOX | ||
| Bell component | ✅ | ✅ |
| Inbox component | ✅ | ✅ |
| Inbox content component | ✅ | ✅ |
| Notifications component | ✅ | ✅ |
| Remove Novu branding | ❌ | ✅ |
| Snooze | ❌ | ✅ |
| User preferences component | ✅ | ✅ |
| ACCOUNT ADMINISTRATION AND SECURITY | ||
| Built-In authentication | ❌ | ✅ |
| Custom SAML SSO, OIDC enterprise providers | ❌ | ✅ |
| Max team members | 1 | Custom |
| Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) | ❌ | Q3 2025 |
| Standard SAML authentication (Google, Github) | ❌ | ✅ |
| COMPLIANCE | ||
| Custom security reviews | ❌ | ✅ |
| Data Processing Agreements | ❌ | Custom |
| GDPR | Installation dependent | ✅ |
| HIPAA BAA | ❌ | ✅ |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | ❌ | ✅ |
Ready to Scale? Upgrade to Novu Cloud
If you're currently self-hosting Novu, Novu offers an Enterprise Edition offering for self-hosted users and a managed cloud based deployment. Contact Us to learn more.
Why Upgrade to Novu Cloud?
-
Zero Infrastructure Management
- No server maintenance, scaling headaches, and deployment complexities
- Focus on what matters most - building your product
- Let our team handle the heavy lifting
-
Enterprise-Grade Features at Your Fingertips
- Access advanced security features including SAML SSO and MFA
- Benefit from enterprise compliance (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA)
-
Always Up-to-Date
- Automatic updates and improvements
- Access to the latest features and security patches
- No more manual upgrades or maintenance windows
-
Support
- Expert assistance for seamless migration
- Priority support for your team
- Custom security reviews and compliance guidance