With Atlassian Cloud, Atlassian runs and secures the hosting environment, the systems and the applications. With Data Center, your team runs and secures all of that. In both models you still own access decisions, data governance, third-party app choices and your own compliance obligations. Moving to Cloud transfers infrastructure work. It does not transfer accountability for how your organization uses the product.
The responsibility split at a glance
| Area | Data Center (self-managed) | Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting and infrastructure | Customer secures physical and virtual servers, networks and storage. Atlassian does not take responsibility for self-managed hardware. | Atlassian is responsible for the hosting environment and the systems and applications it provides. |
| Product and OS maintenance | Atlassian ships fixes. Admins must apply them promptly and patch and harden operating systems and dependencies. | Atlassian operates and maintains the hosted product. Customers manage their own configuration, policies and app choices. |
| Authentication and access | Admins integrate the identity provider, configure SSO and MFA, manage account lifecycle and enforce least privilege. | Customers manage users and permissions. Atlassian recommends centralized access administration, and points to Atlassian Guard for enforced MFA and SSO. |
| Data and encryption | Admins implement encryption and access controls according to policy. | Atlassian describes provider-side encryption for its listed products. Customers govern what they store and who can see it. |
| Marketplace apps | Admins choose, configure and secure integrations. | Customers decide which apps to install and trust. |
| Compliance | Customer operates and evidences its own controls. | Atlassian publishes compliance and architecture material. Customers remain responsible for compliant use. |
The rows come from Atlassian’s Data Center security checklist and its Cloud security practices and shared-responsibility guidance.
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What you own with Data Center
Atlassian’s side of the Data Center bargain is the software: secure product releases, application-level fixes, built-in security features, sensible defaults and setup guidance. Everything around that software is yours. Atlassian’s checklist is blunt on the point: “Atlassian doesn’t take responsibility for self-managed hardware infrastructure.”
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Patching and hardening
A fix Atlassian publishes protects you only once you deploy it. Admins must apply product fixes promptly. They must also keep the operating system and dependencies patched and hardened, which is work that no product release covers for you.
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Servers and networks
You secure the physical or virtual servers and the networks and storage they sit on. That covers segmentation, network exposure, and protection of the database and shared file storage that the application relies on.
Identity and access
You connect the identity provider, enforce SSO and MFA where your policy requires, manage the joiner-mover-leaver lifecycle and keep permissions to least privilege.
Encryption, backup and audit
You implement encryption according to your policy, back up data and audit the environment. In practice this means the recovery objectives, restore testing and log review are yours to define and prove.
What Atlassian owns in Cloud, and what stays with you
Atlassian’s Cloud security practices state: “Atlassian assumes responsibility for security, availability and performance of the applications we provide, the systems they run on, and the environments within which those systems are hosted.” That removes the patching, hardware, network and hosting-layer work listed above.
Controls Atlassian describes
Atlassian reports TLS 1.2 or higher with Perfect Forward Secrecy for data in transit. It reports AES-256 full-disk encryption at rest for the Cloud products listed on its security-practices page, and it describes logical separation between tenants. These are Atlassian’s own statements, scoped to the products on that page. They are not an independent audit of your tenant, so confirm the products and features you use are covered.
What remains yours
- User accounts. You decide who gets an account and when it is removed.
- Information and permissions. Atlassian warns that permissions you set can expose information publicly. Provider encryption does not stop a badly scoped permission scheme from making content visible.
- Marketplace apps. You choose which apps to install and trust. Each is a separate vendor with its own data flows.
- Compliance. You decide whether your use of the service meets your own regulatory and contractual obligations.
Atlassian recommends verifying your domains and centralizing access management. It identifies Atlassian Guard as the route to centralized administration, enforced MFA and SSO. Plan entitlements change, so check what your Cloud plan includes before assuming a given identity control is available.
How to weigh the trade-offs
“Which is more secure?” has no general answer. The useful question is which model matches the work your organization can do reliably and the controls it must be able to demonstrate.
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Data Center suits teams that can staff patching, hardening, network controls, backups and audits. Cloud suits organizations that prefer the provider to run the platform. An unpatched Data Center instance is a common failure mode, because the vulnerability fix exists but nobody has applied it.
Control boundary
Data Center lets you configure the environment directly. Cloud limits you to the controls the service exposes. Write down the controls you need, then compare them against actual Cloud capabilities rather than assuming parity in either direction.
Identity and permissions
Compare account lifecycle, SSO and MFA enforcement, centralized administration, domain management and public-sharing controls. Check the settings in each model and who is accountable for reviewing them.
Data and third-party apps
Assess content governance, app trust and data flows separately from platform security. Provider controls do not vet your apps. App availability and behavior can also differ between hosting models, which matters for migration.
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Attestations apply to specific products, scopes and regions. A provider certification is not your own compliance. Confirm data residency options, privacy commitments and contract terms with your security, privacy and legal teams.
Reliability and recovery
Atlassian publishes Cloud reliability and architecture resources. Your business-continuity needs are still yours to map against them. With Data Center, you design and test resilience yourself.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Security checklist before moving to Cloud
- Involve security, privacy and legal early. Atlassian advises cross-functional planning rather than leaving the decision to the platform team.
- Inventory Marketplace apps. Assess each one’s security, privacy and availability for Cloud before migration, not after.
- Map requirements to capabilities. List your security, privacy, compliance and reliability requirements and check each against what Cloud provides for your specific products.
- Check attestations and residency. Confirm the scope, product and region of the evidence you will rely on, using Atlassian’s compliance and data residency resources.
- Validate identity design. Decide how domains, SSO, MFA and account lifecycle will work, and whether you need Atlassian Guard or a higher plan to get them.
- Review permissions and public sharing. Clean up overly broad access before moving content, so you do not carry exposure into the new environment.
- Document residual duties. Record who owns user access reviews, app approvals, data classification, retention and compliance evidence after the move.
This comparison draws on Atlassian’s own guidance. It does not audit any control or assess your configuration. Re-check current Atlassian documentation for product-specific, regional and plan-specific details before relying on them.
The Bottom Line
Data Center gives you control and the full operating burden. Cloud hands the platform layer to Atlassian and leaves you with identity, permissions, apps and compliance. Choose based on which duties your team can carry and which controls you must be able to prove. Do not choose on a blanket claim that either model is safer.
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