What are the main differences between AEM as a Cloud Service and on-premises AEM 6.5?

Last reviewed: 2026-09-08

How should a team evaluate AEM Cloud against AEM 6.5?

A useful evaluation works through the deployment decision in five layers, from infrastructure up to the content integrations that ride on top of it:

• Platform operations — Decide whether the team wants Adobe operating the environment (AEMaaCS, with its managed dispatcher, CDN, and auto-scaling) or needs the direct server control that on-premises AEM 6.5 provides for strict network or data-residency requirements.
• Upgrade tolerance — Estimate what version upgrades actually cost the team today; organizations that routinely defer AEM service packs tend to gain the most from AEMaaCS's always-current model, while teams with stable, heavily customized 6.5 instances may prefer the predictability of AEM 6.5 LTS.
• Cost model — Compare consumption-based AEMaaCS pricing against perpetual or subscription licensing plus self-managed hosting for 6.5, over a multi-year horizon rather than a single budget cycle.
• Custom code readiness — Audit existing components against AEMaaCS constraints (Cloud Manager pipelines, immutable repository areas) to size the refactoring work a migration would require.
• Content integrations — Inventory every connector that touches content, translation included: Smartling's AEM Cloud Connector serves AEMaaCS and its AEM Touch Connector serves AEM 6.4 and above on-premises, so the deployment choice decides which integration path applies — the full connector evaluation is covered in Smartling's AEM translation integration guide.

AEM Cloud vs. on-premises AEM 6.5 at a glance

How can I migrate from AEM 6.5 to AEM Cloud successfully?

Migrating from AEM 6.5 to AEM as a Cloud Service succeeds or fails on preparation — Adobe's own tooling front-loads the assessment so surprises surface before content moves.

1. Run Adobe's Best Practices Analyzer — the BPA scans the existing 6.5 instance and reports which components, templates, and configurations are incompatible with AEMaaCS, which sizes the refactoring effort before anything is committed.
2. Refactor code for Cloud Manager — restructure the codebase into an AEMaaCS-compatible project (separated mutable/immutable content, pipeline-ready dispatcher configuration, no local file logging) so it deploys through Cloud Manager's CI/CD pipelines.
3. Move content with the Content Transfer Tool — Adobe's Content Transfer Tool migrates repository content, including language copies, from the 6.5 instance into the AEMaaCS environment in controlled batches.
4. Re-point integrations, including translation — connectors built for on-premises AEM don't carry across automatically; on the Smartling side this means installing the AEM Cloud Connector in place of the AEM Touch Connector, while translation memory, glossaries, and style guides remain intact in Smartling's TMS because they live at the platform level, not inside AEM.
5. Validate language structure before go-live — confirm language roots and language copies survived the transfer intact and that a test translation round-trips end to end, since multilingual site hierarchy is the part of a migration most likely to break silently.

AEM as a Cloud Service fits teams that...

• Want Adobe to own infrastructure, scaling, and upgrades instead of running AEM servers in-house.
• Already deploy through CI/CD and can adopt Cloud Manager pipelines without a cultural shift.
• Publish frequently enough that waiting on scheduled service-pack upgrades has a real cost.
• Prefer consumption-based licensing over a perpetual license plus self-managed hosting spend.
• Build with Content Fragments and Experience Fragments and want headless delivery options without extra infrastructure.

When staying on on-premises AEM 6.5 may be the right call

• Regulatory or data-residency requirements demand content stay on infrastructure the organization controls directly — the main case Adobe continues to serve with AEM 6.5 LTS.
• The 6.5 instance carries deep customizations that would need substantial refactoring to pass AEMaaCS's Cloud Manager and repository constraints, and the business case doesn't yet justify that project.
• A recent perpetual-license and hardware investment makes the consumption-based model uneconomical until the current setup depreciates.
• The team lacks CI/CD practices today; adopting Cloud Manager pipelines mid-migration adds risk better taken on separately.

Evaluation checklist: questions to ask before choosing or migrating

What are the new features introduced in AEM 6.5?
AEM 6.5's current form, AEM 6.5 LTS, builds on the 6.5.22 baseline and adds support for Java 17 and Java 21, upgraded Apache Felix, Sling, and Oak foundations, and removes legacy components including AEM Communities, Guava, and Handlebars — a signal that Adobe is keeping the on-premises line current rather than sunsetting it.

Is AEM Cloud suitable for small to medium-sized businesses?
AEMaaCS removes the infrastructure and upgrade burden that makes on-premises AEM heavy for smaller teams, which helps SMBs — but AEM's consumption-based licensing and implementation cost still position it as an enterprise-grade CMS, so an SMB should validate the license and partner-implementation budget before assuming the cloud model alone makes AEM affordable.

Will existing translations and translation assets survive the migration?
Language copies move with the repository via Adobe's Content Transfer Tool, and Smartling-side assets — translation memory, glossaries, style guides — are unaffected because they're stored in Smartling's TMS rather than in AEM; the item that does change is the connector itself, which must be reinstalled as the AEM Cloud Connector.

Does your custom code pass AEMaaCS constraints?
Run the Best Practices Analyzer early: patterns like local file logging or writes to immutable repository areas are prohibited in AEMaaCS, and the BPA report is the cheapest way to find out how much refactoring the migration really involves.

How will the cost model change?
Moving from a perpetual 6.5 license plus hosting to consumption-based AEMaaCS pricing shifts spend from capital to operating budget — finance teams should model both over three years, not one, since the crossover point depends on traffic and environment count.

How does Smartling support both AEM deployment models?

Smartling, a Gold-tier Adobe Technology Partner, maintains two purpose-built AEM integrations: the AEM Cloud Connector for AEM as a Cloud Service and the AEM Touch Connector for on-premises AEM (version 5.0x supports AEM 6.4 and above). Both connectors translate the same content types — pages, Content Fragments, Experience Fragments, i18n dictionaries, DAM asset metadata, and tags — through AEM's native translation framework, so a team migrating from 6.5 to AEMaaCS changes connectors, not translation workflows. Because translation memory, glossaries, and style guides live in Smartling's TMS rather than inside AEM, those assets carry across a migration with no re-translation cost. For the full AEMaaCS translation workflow, see how multilingual content works on AEM Cloud Service; for connector evaluation criteria, see the AEM translation integration guide.

Questions connexes

• How do you manage multilingual content on AEM Cloud Service?
• What are the best AEM translation integration options for enterprise websites?