In a technology landscape where digital transformation is the driving force and public cloud spending is expected to reach a dizzying $723.4 billion by 2025, IT leaders are facing a fundamental dilemma. Choosing the right cloud strategy – multi-cloud or hybrid cloud – is being presented as a key decision that will define the future of the enterprise.
However, after years of observation and market analysis, the time has come to state emphatically: this debate is now largely out of date. The real challenge lies not in choosing one of these models, but in mastering the complex reality in which most companies already unconsciously operate.
Initially, the distinction seemed clear. A hybrid cloud is a bridge between a traditional on-premise infrastructure and a single public cloud, offering a balance between control and scalability.
It is a safe haven for regulated industries such as finance or healthcare, where data sovereignty and compliance are non-negotiable. In contrast, a multi-cloud strategy, using services from two or more public providers, appeared as a manifesto for flexibility – a promise to avoid vendor lock-in and the ability to choose best-in-class services for specific tasks.
However, market data paints a picture that blurs these boundaries. The Flexera report indicates that as many as 89% of enterprises are pursuing a multi-cloud strategy, while Gartner predicts that 90% of organisations will adopt a hybrid approach by 2027. These figures are not contradictory; they describe the same complex reality.
As analysts at Forrester aptly pointed out, today’s complex IT environments were often created ‘by osmosis’, rather than by conscious, top-down design. Companies that started with a hybrid model have, over time, added services from more providers, naturally evolving into a hybrid multi-cloud. Therefore, the question should no longer be “what to choose?”, but “how to manage this effectively?”.
In this new paradigm, the hybrid strategy ceases to be just one option and becomes the foundation. For any mature enterprise that has significant investment in on-premise systems or is subject to stringent regulation, the hybrid cloud is, as Forrester put it, “a statement of common sense”. It is a pragmatic recognition that not all workloads can or should be moved to the public cloud.
The need to maintain control of sensitive data, upgrade legacy systems at a controlled pace or support applications that require low latency (edge computing) makes a robust, integrated hybrid architecture a strategic necessity.
On the other hand, a multi-cloud strategy, while appealing in theory, is proving to be a siren song for many organisations in practice. The promise of optimising costs and avoiding vendor lock-in often crashes into hard operational realities. Managing multiple vendors, each with their own APIs, consoles and security policies, generates enormous complexity.
This complexity leads directly to the number one problem facing companies in the cloud: uncontrolled costs. It is estimated that as much as 27% of cloud spending is wasted and budgets are exceeded by an average of 17%. Implementing a multi-cloud strategy without simultaneously implementing a mature FinOps culture and tools is a recipe for financial disaster.
Moreover, the idea of avoiding vendor dependency altogether is an illusion. By avoiding dependency at the infrastructure level (IaaS), companies often fall into the trap at higher levels – becoming dependent on unique platform services (PaaS), high data transfer costs (egress fees) or the specialised expertise of their teams. The real goal, then, is not to eliminate dependency, but to consciously manage the risks associated with it.
So what is the recommendation for IT leaders? Instead of chasing the mirage of ‘pure’ multi-cloud, adopt a pragmatic, hybrid multi-cloud strategy, based on solid foundations. This means starting with a well-integrated hybrid architecture that combines key on-premise resources with a single, strategic public cloud partner. Only on this stable basis can you consciously and selectively attach services from other providers, but only if they bring specific, measurable business value – for example, access to specialised AI models or global redundancy.
The key to success in this complex architecture is a unified management layer. Technologies such as Kubernetes have become the standard in container orchestration, ensuring application portability. However, Kubernetes alone does not solve all problems; it only takes complexity to the next level. This is why advanced cloud management platforms (CMPs) such as Google GKE Enterprise, Red Hat OpenShift or VMware Aria, which offer a centralised dashboard for managing resources, security and costs across a heterogeneous environment, are becoming essential.
The multi-cloud versus hybrid cloud debate is over, and its place has been taken by the imperative of effective governance. The winning strategy is not to dogmatically pursue one model, but to build a flexible, consciously managed architecture that can evolve with the needs of the business. For most businesses, the most sensible path is a hybrid approach as a starting point and foundation, followed by a careful, data-driven expansion into multi-cloud.
Indeed, success in the cloud era depends less on how many clouds you choose and much more on how well you can manage them as a cohesive whole.
