Portalista can run in two ways: fully hosted in the cloud, or installed on-premise in your own data center. Both deliver the same captive portal and management features. The difference is where the servers live and who maintains them.
On-cloud deployment
In the cloud model, your sites connect over the internet to a hosted control plane that includes the cloud wireless controller, Portalista, and the log server. Each location just needs a router and access points; everything else is managed centrally.
- Fast to start: no servers to buy or rack, so new sites go live quickly.
- Low maintenance: updates, backups, and uptime are handled for you.
- Easy multi-site: perfect for chains that add and remove locations often.
On-premise deployment
In the on-premise model, the controller, Portalista, and the log server sit inside your own network, behind your router or firewall. This suits organizations with strict data residency rules or those that must keep guest data entirely in-house.
- Full data control: user data and logs never leave your premises.
- Works offline: authentication keeps working even if the internet link drops.
- Fits compliance policies: useful where regulations require local hosting.
Which one should you choose?
As a rule of thumb, pick cloud when you value speed, simplicity, and easy expansion across many sites. Pick on-premise when data residency, offline resilience, or internal policy demands it. Either way, keeping proper access logs is not optional for public Wi-Fi, which we cover in our guide to Wi-Fi log retention in Indonesia.
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