Behind the buzzword: What is cloud native?

Wondering what people are talking about when they tell you to think ‘cloud native?’ Here’s what the term means, explained without the fluff.

By Adam Ipsen

Mar 24, 2026 • 4 Minute Read

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There’s a lot of ways to use the cloud incorrectly. Only 8% qualify as “highly cloud mature,” which basically means “not using the cloud services and best practices that get your value back.”

The main cause? When most organizations adopt cloud technology, they try to do the same thing they did when they were running things on premises (A.k.a. “On-prem.”) This winds up costing the business more to get the same or less value.

Mattias Anderrson had a great analogy for this! It’s like hearing that planes are a faster mode of transportation, so you buy one for your company. However, you wind up more frustrated than before because you still try to drive on the streets to your destination, instead of flying like you should.

Does that sound like a good time? Obviously not!

Does it stop most organizations from doing that? Also no.

The solution is to use the cloud in the way it’s intended to be used. And when someone tells you to do that, they’ll more than likely utter these words:

“If you want to get the most of public cloud, you’ve got to think cloud native.”

What cloud native actually means

Cloud native means that those workloads you’re designing, constructing, and running in the cloud are designed specifically for the cloud, and makes the most of that medium. You’re not just building things like you would on-prem, just somewhere else.

It’s somewhat less common, but when some people say “cloud native,” they can be referring to building for one specific cloud platform (E.g. AWS). This would also have value, because that means you’re taking into account specific features that a provider has on offer.

Thinking cloud native is especially important when you’re initially building your cloud infrastructure. This is the point in which a lot of the business value is “baked in,” so to speak.

What are some signs of thinking cloud native?

Some common signs that you’re thinking cloud native is doing things like:

Using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to provision infrastructure in a repeatable, standardized way.
Implementing governance and policy enforcement through code.
Leveraging concepts like containers, continuous delivery, and microservices.
Running applications in stateless functions that automatically scale based on demand.

Well Architected Frameworks: A tool to design cloud native

Because public cloud platforms want you to use them a lot for the foreseeable future, they offer Well-Architected Frameworks you can follow. Pretty win-win, since they make money off you sticking with them, and you’re happy because you’re using it in the optimal way.

Here’s some links to the major vendor-specific frameworks:

If you're an IT leader or decision-maker who's looking at cloud adoption, i'd also recommend Lars Klint's "Cloud Adoption" learning path. Lars is master of explaining cloud concepts and strategies in a highly engaging way (and if you're lucky, the demonstration involves Lego.)

Cloud native vs Cloud agnostic: Key differences

“Cloud agnostic” is a term for when you’re designing a tool, platform, or application so it’s compatible should you run it with any cloud provider. This idea is so you avoid the perceived risk of vendor lock-in, should you get annoyed with them and want to shift to someone else.

This contrasts with “cloud native” when someone’s using the latter to refer to designing for a specific cloud platform. However, since some people just use “cloud native” to refer to designing something with the cloud in mind, it can also be possible to design something to be both cloud native and cloud agnostic.

Words are fun, right? That’s not confusing at all! Knowing which version people are talking about comes down to context.

Conclusion

Hopefully from this article, you’ve come away with an understanding of what cloud native means, as well as some Well-Architected Framework guides you can use to help you in the future. Until next time!