undertoad

Hi, I'm trying to decide between SaaS and a distributed model for a business web app I'm building. Does anybody have recommendations or experiences they can share on this topic?

With SaaS I can use whatever framework I like. However this would basically require me to become a 24/7 systems administrator, something I'm not interested in or really even qualified for. Some of that responsibility could be owned by a hosting company, but if the app goes down in the middle of the night I'll be the one contacted by angry customers.

With a distributed app hosting and support responsibilities are owned primarily by the customer's sysadmins. However this means I'll have to build using technologies they're willing to support, such as .NET, which means I won't enjoy development and ongoing maintenance of the app.

I'm also concerned about whether SMBs prefer owning an app and data or would rather outsource this responsibility in the current market.

Anybody else been down this road? Thanks.