PBX

Cloud PBX vs on-site PBX

A cloud system sits off the office. An on-site system sits on the premises. The phones connect in both; what changes is where the PBX is and what needs the internet.

10 November 2026

Cloud PBX and on-site PBX serve the same end: the company phone system, with extensions, groups and the office calls. The difference is where that system sits. Mixing the names in the request leads to a quote for the wrong place for the box.

Palo Security supplies Grandstream, Yeastar, Avaya, Mitel and 3CX PBX systems, and Fanvil phones. Capacity, the number of phones and whether the system sits in the office or off-site are set in the quote.

On-site PBX

The system sits in the office: an appliance or a server on site. The phones connect to it on the site network. Internal calls can continue on the premises even if the operator internet drops. To talk outside, the system needs the line — often a SIP trunk, in another article.

Cloud PBX

The system is not in the office. It sits elsewhere, in the service cloud. On site stay the phones and the network. With no internet in the office, the extensions do not reach the system. It suits several sites, or a request that does not want the box in the technical room.

The phones are the same

The desk extension is a phone on the network. Palo Security supplies Fanvil for the office. They connect to a Grandstream, Yeastar or other line in the request. Cloud or on-site does not change the phone name; it changes where the PBX sits.

They are not the same box

On-site: the system is on the premises. It needs space, power and someone to look after the unit on site.
Cloud: the system is off-site. It needs stable internet at the desks. There is no PBX box in the technical room.
Several offices in the same group close more easily in the cloud. A single site, with its own network, can stay on-site.