- You want product, plan, order, access, and lifecycle state in one buyer-facing model.
- You are comfortable with a sandbox/static launch surface before production payment and runtime wiring.
- Your product is sold as a private instance, not as seats in a shared tenant.
Positioning
BayStore is a product-instance commerce surface, not a generic host.
This comparison avoids named competitor claims. It explains when BayStore's lifecycle and commercial-state model is useful, and when manual hosting or a broad marketplace may be a better fit.
Decision matrix
Compare operating models by buyer-visible outcome.
| Criterion | BayStore product-instance model | Manual self-hosting | Generic marketplace hosting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial record | Product, plan, order, and instance state are joined. | Often split across invoice, deploy notes, and infrastructure tickets. | Usually plan-first, less product-instance specific. |
| Isolation language | Each buyer receives a named single-tenant instance record. | Depends on the operator's deployment discipline. | Depends on marketplace and provider defaults. |
| Lifecycle state | Pending, provisioning, active, upgrading, suspended, failed, and deleted remain visible. | State often lives in ops tools, not buyer-facing pages. | May expose status, but not necessarily product-instance commercial context. |
| Payment boundary | Checkout remains sandbox_placeholder; this public site does not charge cards or configure production provider billing. | Custom billing work is fully yours. | Provider billing may be available but tied to platform rules. |
| Runtime actions | Operator actions are recorded by the API; production runtime mutation remains deferred. | Operator scripts can mutate production directly unless separately controlled. | Automation depends on marketplace integration. |
- You need a broad infrastructure platform for arbitrary applications.
- You need public proof from real customer deployments before supplied evidence exists.
- You need third-party compliance certification claims in the public site.
Proof boundary: These are illustrative model comparisons for buyer education. They are not customer stories, endorsements, uptime results, or production deployment claims.