This is the old rent vs. buy debate, but for hardware instead of real estate. Renting an apartment places a rough upper bound on your monthly expenses, since i

This is the old rent vs. buy debate, but for hardware instead of real estate. Renting an apartment places a rough upper bound on your monthly expenses, since in most places, the landlord is required to do maintenance and cannot raise your rent until the lease is up for renewal. Buying a house a rough lower bound, since your mortgage can increase unexpectedly, and you are responsible for all repairs and maintenance yourself. So, you can never know all costs with certainty ahead of time, but if you care about predictability, it's probably better to rent (ie, go with the cloud) than to buy, because it's easier to bound your costs over a given duration.