Choosing a cloud workspace is probably the most consequential infrastructure decision you can make.
Many teams default to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 because they seem like the obvious choice: familiar, feature-rich, deeply integrated cloud collaboration platforms that are easy to adopt and already embedded in many modern workflows.
But that’s precisely why they’re worth scrutinizing before you commit. Here are four key things you need to consider when evaluating a cloud workspace, plus a checklist of questions to help guide you.
1. Integrations can free you up now — but lock you in later
Integrations are a major selling point for most cloud workspaces. Many companies (especially fast-moving start-ups) want a platform with lots of integrations that slots seamlessly into existing workflows with minimal disruption.
However, over the long term using integrations can mean embedding your workflows inside a single ecosystem. And once you’ve tied yourself into a cloud workspace ecosystem, switching providers becomes a data admin’s worst six months at the office — we’re talking siloed data, identity and access disruption, denied permissions, inaccessible files, and a dip in productivity your CEO will definitely notice.
This certainly applies to go-to platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, which are strategically designed to hook businesses on a wider ecosystem of co-dependent tools — Meet, Teams, Drive, and SharePoint — that become progressively harder to detach from.
The question you need to ask before picking a cloud workspace isn’t “how easy is this to adopt?” It’s “how hard will this be to get out of?”
2. ‘Security’ means different things to different providers
Most enterprise workspace providers market their platforms as boasting ‘enterprise-grade security’, with certifications, perimeter protections, and encryption of data in transit and at rest.
What many providers are less keen to advertise is that they retain server-side access to your data. This enables their most useful features: indexing, analytics, cloud-side processing and AI assistance provided by tools like Google’s Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, both of which rely on visibility into your business emails, documents, calendars, and collaboration data to function.
For many businesses shopping for a cloud workspace, that’s an entirely acceptable tradeoff: Strict cloud data security sacrificed for the sake of convenience and functionality. But if your business handles sensitive information, such as confidential client data, business continuity documents, or financial records, you might want to think twice about it.
If you’re an SMB, you might want to think more than twice. According to Proton’s SMB Cybersecurity Report 2026, nearly one in four SMBs fell victim to a data breach in 2025. Hackers view SMBs as vulnerable targets. The wrong cloud workspace could expose you even more.
The right cloud workspace will offer end-to-end encryption and zero-knowledge cloud storage. This means your provider can’t access your data, even if compelled.
3. Data sovereignty is important (but not all providers respect it)
Where data is collected, processed, and stored determines which laws and jurisdictions apply to it, and therefore its potential exposure.
Many cloud providers operate across jurisdictions, including countries where governments may compel access under local legal frameworks, either now or in the future. Your provider’s terms of service may not protect you from that.
To stop jurisdictional authorities from exposing your data, privacy-first providers like Proton promote data sovereignty: the concept that the laws that govern data should be the laws of where it was generated and collected — no matter where it’s stored.
For companies operating in regulated industries and handling sensitive customer information and/or managing intellectual property, data sovereignty should be a significant strategic consideration.
Overlooking data sovereignty can be costly. In 2023, Meta was (nueva ventana)fined €1.2 billion(nueva ventana) (the largest GDPR fine ever issued) not for a hack or a breach, but for storing European user data in the US. The data was secure. The jurisdiction wasn’t.
If you’re concerned about your data security and sovereignty, seek out providers that host data in privacy-first jurisdictions, such as Iceland or Switzerland.
4. Remember: your governance burden grows with your business
A common cybersecurity mistake made by scaling SMBs when choosing a cloud workspace is underestimating how quickly data governance and access control becomes complicated by growth.
A workspace that enables you to manage permissions for a workforce of 10 might not be suited to doing the same for a workforce of 60, particularly when that expanded workforce includes contractors, external collaborators, and people spanning multiple departments with different access requirements.
As you scale, your data governance will evolve from a simple setup task to a full-time job, involving a host of challenges, including permission sprawl, higher risk offboarding, unreliable manual tracking, and decreasing visibility into who has access to what.
Some cloud ecosystems compound this challenge by distributing permissions and workflows across multiple integrated systems, which makes centralized oversight difficult.
Others, however, provide a single admin layer where admins can monitor, manage, and adjust access as the organization grows and evolves.
Pick the right type now, and you’ll avoid the headaches of the future that come with retrofitting access controls into a workspace you’ve already scaled into.
9 questions to ask yourself before you commit to a cloud workspace
Before committing to a provider, ask:
- Who controls the encryption keys?
- Can your provider’s employees access your data?
- What metadata remains visible to the provider?
- Is your data processed by the platform’s AI systems?
- Where is data stored and processed, and which jurisdictions apply?
- Can admins enforce multi-factor authentication and permissions centrally?
- How difficult would it be to migrate to a different workspace down the line?
- Can data be exported cleanly and completely?
- Will your governance tooling scale with your headcount?
A cloud workspace for the next five years, not the next 12 months
The right cloud workspace isn’t the easiest to adopt today. It’s the one you’ll still be using, and trusting, in five years. A platform that gives you long term security, control, and flexibility, and without locking you into an ecosystem forever.
Sounds like Proton Workspace to us. A secure cloud workspace, built on end-to-end encryption, zero-knowledge business cloud storage, and Swiss privacy law — with centralized admin controls designed to scale with your organization.
