If you are sitting down to write non-functional requirements examples and templates for an active project, start here. The tables below give you deployment-specific NFR examples across five common deployment types: COTS, cloud, SaaS, on-premise, and hybrid. Each example carries a suggested priority rating. Treat these as a structured starting point, not a sign-off-ready document. You still need to validate every requirement against your organisation’s ICT principles, your project’s constraints, and your stakeholders’ actual tolerance for risk and cost. If you want to work through the underlying concepts first, the Non-Functional Requirements Checklist is a good companion to this page.
The categories covered across all five deployment types are consistent: performance, scalability, security, availability, monitoring, auditability, maintainability, usability, and portability. Not every category will carry the same weight on every project. Part of your job is deciding which categories are mandatory constraints and which are desirable qualities. The priority labels used below are Mandatory, Desirable, and Optional. Adjust them. Your organisation’s risk appetite and your delivery context should always take precedence over any suggested defaults.
A Note on What These Examples Will Not Do For You
I worked on a large procurement project for a government agency, which I will call Organisation B. The project team had lifted a set of NFRs almost verbatim from a previous COTS procurement and attached them to the tender documents without review. By the time I joined, the vendor had already been selected. When we got into detailed design, we found that two of the mandatory performance requirements were physically incompatible with the vendor’s hosted architecture. The vendor had signed off on requirements they could not actually meet, and nobody had caught it because the requirements were not written for this deployment type.
We had to go back to the steering committee and explain that the NFRs needed to be renegotiated, which delayed the project by six weeks and created significant tension with the procurement team, who felt the BA workstream had failed to catch this earlier. The honest answer was that the NFRs had been treated as a formality rather than a genuine design constraint. That experience shaped how I approach NFR documentation on every project since. The examples below are organised by deployment type precisely to avoid that kind of mismatch. Always review them against the specific vendor architecture and your organisation’s technical environment before they go anywhere near a contract or a sign-off document. For terminology support as you work through these, the Non-Functional Requirements Glossary covers the key NFR concepts in detail.
COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) NFR Examples
COTS solutions are pre-built systems designed for general use, often with limited customisation. NFRs for COTS must be achievable within vendor constraints and should be verified against vendor documentation before being marked as mandatory.
| Category | Requirement | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Response time for critical functions must not exceed 2 seconds under normal load. | Mandatory |
| Performance | System must integrate with existing hardware without performance degradation. | Mandatory |
| Performance | User interfaces must load within 3 seconds for 90% of interactions. | Desirable |
| Scalability | The system must support additional modules without requiring full reinstallation. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | COTS software must support a 200% increase in active users over 3 years. | Desirable |
| Security | Must include role-based access control (RBAC) to secure user permissions. | Mandatory |
| Security | Encryption must protect sensitive data stored in the system. | Mandatory |
| Security | Vendor must provide a detailed vulnerability management policy. | Mandatory |
| Security | System must comply with industry-specific security standards (e.g., PCI DSS for payment processing). | Mandatory |
| Availability | COTS software must maintain 99.9% uptime as per vendor SLA. | Mandatory |
| Availability | Maintenance windows must not exceed 2 hours per quarter. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Vendor must provide built-in monitoring tools for system health. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Logs must integrate with third-party monitoring systems. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Vendor-supplied audit logs must meet compliance regulations (e.g., GDPR). | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Audit logs must retain data for at least 12 months. | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | Vendor must provide regular software updates and patches. | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | Support contracts must include SLAs for resolving critical bugs within 48 hours. | Mandatory |
| Usability | Interfaces must follow accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG 2.1). | Mandatory |
| Usability | Error messages must be easily understandable by non-technical users. | Mandatory |
| Portability | COTS software must support migration to new hardware platforms. | Mandatory |
| Portability | Vendor must provide tools for migrating to upgraded versions. | Mandatory |
Cloud Deployment NFR Examples
Cloud deployments leverage infrastructure, platforms, or software provided over the internet by a third party. They offer high scalability and flexibility but require careful attention to security, latency, and cost controls.
| Category | Requirement | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Response time for cloud-based applications must not exceed 2 seconds under normal load conditions. | Mandatory |
| Performance | Data retrieval for queries must complete within 3 seconds for 95% of cases. | Mandatory |
| Performance | Batch processes must complete within the defined business SLA (e.g., overnight for financial reports). | Mandatory |
| Scalability | Cloud infrastructure must auto-scale resources based on demand spikes. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | Disaster recovery systems must scale to replicate the entire workload in under 10 minutes. | Mandatory |
| Security | Cloud data must be encrypted in transit (e.g., TLS 1.3) and at rest (e.g., AES-256). | Mandatory |
| Security | The system must comply with regional data privacy laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA). | Mandatory |
| Security | Cloud services must provide multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all administrative accounts. | Mandatory |
| Availability | Cloud infrastructure must meet an uptime SLA of 99.99%. | Mandatory |
| Availability | System failover between primary and secondary regions must complete within 30 seconds. | Mandatory |
| Availability | Redundant network paths must ensure uninterrupted connectivity. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Cloud services must provide real-time performance monitoring dashboards. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Monitoring systems must trigger alerts for resource utilisation exceeding 80%. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Audit logs must record all administrative activities, including access changes and configuration updates. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Logs must be immutable and tamper-proof for compliance purposes. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Retention policies for audit logs must comply with industry regulations (e.g., HIPAA). | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | Cloud systems must support zero-downtime patching. | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | Vendor documentation must cover all APIs, SDKs, and integration points. | Mandatory |
| Usability | Role-based access configuration must be customisable via the UI. | Mandatory |
| Portability | Applications must be deployable on multiple cloud providers to avoid vendor lock-in. | Mandatory |
| Portability | Containerisation must be used to ensure consistency across deployments. | Mandatory |
SaaS (Software as a Service) NFR Examples
SaaS platforms handle most of the IT infrastructure and application management on the customer’s behalf. Your NFRs for SaaS need to be enforceable through the contract and vendor SLA, because you have limited ability to control the underlying infrastructure directly.
| Category | Requirement | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | SaaS applications must provide response times of under 2 seconds for 95% of all user interactions. | Mandatory |
| Performance | The system must support up to 10,000 concurrent users without degrading performance. | Mandatory |
| Performance | SaaS platform must scale to meet demand spikes, ensuring no downtime or performance degradation. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | The system must support scaling up by 500% during peak periods without manual intervention. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | The system must be able to scale independently based on customer-specific configurations. | Mandatory |
| Security | SaaS platform must encrypt all sensitive data in transit and at rest using industry-standard protocols. | Mandatory |
| Security | The system must support multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users accessing administrative functions. | Mandatory |
| Security | User roles and permissions must be configurable and granular to restrict access. | Mandatory |
| Security | SaaS platform must comply with GDPR, CCPA, and other relevant data privacy laws. | Mandatory |
| Availability | SaaS applications must provide at least 99.9% uptime as per SLA agreements. | Mandatory |
| Availability | Cloud infrastructure should automatically failover to a backup region within 5 minutes. | Mandatory |
| Availability | The system must offer geographically redundant data centres to ensure regional availability. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | The SaaS provider must include built-in monitoring tools to track user activity and system health. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Detailed logging of user activity must be available for compliance and troubleshooting. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Audit logs must be maintained for a minimum of 12 months, with export capabilities. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | All administrative actions, including changes to user roles and permissions, must be logged. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Audit logs must be immutable and stored securely, preventing tampering. | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | The platform must support automated updates with no downtime. | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | The SaaS provider must offer dedicated support channels for troubleshooting issues. | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | SaaS platform should provide tools for easy integration with existing business systems (e.g., CRM, ERP). | Mandatory |
| Usability | The user interface should be intuitive and designed for non-technical users. | Mandatory |
| Usability | SaaS platform should include accessibility features for users with disabilities (e.g., screen readers). | Mandatory |
| Portability | Data backups must be easily restorable to ensure business continuity. | Mandatory |
On-Premise NFR Examples
On-premise solutions are hosted on the organisation’s own infrastructure, offering greater control over data and security but requiring more internal resource to manage and maintain.
| Category | Requirement | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | On-premise systems must support real-time processing for at least 10,000 transactions per minute. | Mandatory |
| Performance | Response times for critical functions must not exceed 3 seconds during peak usage. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | On-premise software must scale to accommodate up to 50,000 concurrent users without performance degradation. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | The platform must support vertical scaling (e.g., upgrading server resources) without major downtime. | Mandatory |
| Security | All sensitive data must be encrypted using AES-256 encryption at rest and TLS for data in transit. | Mandatory |
| Security | On-premise systems must implement strict access controls using RBAC. | Mandatory |
| Security | User authentication must support multi-factor authentication (MFA) for administrative roles. | Mandatory |
| Availability | On-premise infrastructure must achieve 99.9% uptime for critical systems. | Mandatory |
| Availability | System must include failover mechanisms to ensure high availability of critical services. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Real-time monitoring of server health (e.g., CPU, memory, disk) must be in place for proactive issue detection. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | System logs must be stored securely and be accessible for auditing purposes. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | On-premise systems must provide audit logs for all critical administrative actions (e.g., data access). | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Logs should be stored for at least 12 months for compliance and audit purposes. | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | The system must support automated patch management with zero downtime for critical patches. | Mandatory |
| Usability | The system’s user interface must be intuitive and provide training for non-technical users. | Mandatory |
| Portability | Data export features should support standard formats (e.g., CSV, XML, JSON) to facilitate portability. | Mandatory |
| Portability | Integration with external applications via APIs must be supported. | Mandatory |
Hybrid Deployment NFR Examples
Hybrid systems combine on-premise infrastructure with cloud or SaaS components. They allow organisations to use the strengths of both environments, but they introduce additional complexity around synchronisation, latency, and cross-environment security that must be explicitly covered in the NFRs.
| Category | Requirement | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Network latency between on-premise and cloud components must not exceed 100ms. | Mandatory |
| Performance | Data synchronisation between on-premise and cloud systems must occur within 5 seconds for critical data. | Mandatory |
| Performance | Hybrid architecture must sustain 10,000 concurrent users across on-premise and cloud resources. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | Hybrid systems must support dynamic resource allocation between on-premise and cloud environments. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | Workloads must rebalance automatically between environments during resource contention. | Mandatory |
| Scalability | User management must support global accounts spanning both environments. | Mandatory |
| Security | Data encryption keys must synchronise securely between on-premise and cloud systems. | Mandatory |
| Security | Hybrid systems must enforce identity management policies across both environments. | Mandatory |
| Security | Data in transit between environments must use end-to-end encryption protocols (e.g., TLS 1.3). | Mandatory |
| Availability | Hybrid systems must switch to failover nodes within 60 seconds of detecting downtime. | Mandatory |
| Availability | Data replication must ensure no more than 5 minutes of data loss in case of a failure. | Mandatory |
| Availability | Redundancy must be implemented for both on-premise and cloud systems to avoid single points of failure. | Mandatory |
| Availability | Hybrid system components must meet a combined uptime SLA of 99.95%. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Hybrid systems must provide unified dashboards for monitoring cloud and on-premise components. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Alerts must trigger for discrepancies in synchronisation between environments. | Mandatory |
| Monitoring | Monitoring solutions must integrate with both on-premise tools and cloud APIs. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Audit logs must track all cross-environment data transfers. | Mandatory |
| Auditability | Hybrid system audit trails must meet compliance standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA). | Mandatory |
| Maintainability | Hybrid systems must include automated rollback mechanisms for failed deployments. | Mandatory |
| Usability | Hybrid interfaces must clearly distinguish between on-premise and cloud data sources. | Mandatory |
| Usability | Error messages must identify whether the issue originates from the on-premise or cloud environment. | Mandatory |
| Portability | Hybrid systems must allow the migration of workloads fully to on-premise or cloud if required. | Mandatory |
| Portability | Hybrid systems must provide APIs for moving configurations between environments. | Mandatory |
| Portability | Backup and recovery solutions must support hybrid scenarios. | Mandatory |
How to Adapt These Templates to Your Project
These tables give you a structured foundation, but the real work happens when you review them against your specific context. Here is how I approach that review on an active project:
- Start with the deployment type. Pick the table that matches your project’s architecture and ignore the rest for now. Mixing requirements from multiple deployment types without a clear rationale is a common source of conflict later.
- Challenge every priority label. The labels in these tables are suggestions. A requirement marked Desirable here might be Mandatory for your organisation if it touches a regulated data category or a safety-critical process.
- Add measurable thresholds. Generic statements like “the system must be available” are not requirements. Every NFR should have a number attached to it: a percentage, a time interval, a transaction volume, or a data retention period.
- Validate against the vendor’s documented capabilities. Before a requirement goes into a contract, confirm the vendor can actually meet it. Ask for evidence, not assurances.
- Align with your organisation’s ICT principles. Many organisations have published standards for encryption, accessibility, data sovereignty, or interoperability. Your NFRs should reference and conform to those standards, not contradict them.
- Run them past a technical lead. I always share a draft NFR set with at least one technically experienced stakeholder before finalising it. They will often spot gaps or contradictions that are invisible from a pure business analysis perspective.
If you are working within a requirements management process and need to trace these NFRs back to business goals, the Requirements Traceability Matrix article covers how to set that up in practice. For guidance on how NFRs sit alongside functional and business requirements in the broader requirements hierarchy, Business vs Functional vs Non-Functional Requirements is worth reading alongside this page.
The most expensive NFR mistakes I have seen in practice were not about missing requirements. They were about requirements that were included but never interrogated: copied from a previous project, accepted without verification, and signed off by stakeholders who assumed someone else had checked the detail. A well-structured template gets you most of the way there, but the discipline of asking “can this actually be tested, measured, and enforced?” is what turns a checklist into a defensible specification.
Frequently asked questions
What are non-functional requirements examples?
Non-functional requirements define how a system performs rather than what it does. Examples include response time thresholds (e.g., critical functions must respond in under 2 seconds), uptime SLAs (e.g., 99.9% availability), encryption standards (e.g., AES-256 at rest), and audit log retention periods (e.g., minimum 12 months). They apply across categories such as performance, security, scalability, availability, and usability.
What is a non-functional requirements template?
A non-functional requirements template is a structured document or table that lists NFR categories and example requirements with suggested priority levels. Templates are typically organised by deployment type (COTS, cloud, SaaS, on-premise, or hybrid) so requirements are appropriate to the technical environment. You use them as a starting checklist and adapt each requirement to your specific project context and organisational standards.
What are non-functional requirements for a cloud system?
Cloud NFRs typically cover auto-scaling, uptime SLAs of 99.99% or higher, encryption in transit and at rest, multi-factor authentication for administrative accounts, real-time monitoring dashboards, and portability requirements such as containerisation to avoid vendor lock-in. They also need to address data sovereignty and compliance with regional privacy laws such as GDPR or CCPA. Cloud NFRs should be enforceable through the vendor contract or SLA.
What is the difference between functional and non-functional requirements?
Functional requirements describe what a system must do, such as allowing a user to submit a form or generate a report. Non-functional requirements describe how the system must perform those functions, such as how quickly the form must submit or how securely the report data must be stored. Both types are essential to a complete requirements specification.
How do you prioritise non-functional requirements?
A common approach uses three priority levels: Mandatory (must be met for the system to be acceptable), Desirable (adds significant value but is negotiable), and Optional (would be beneficial but is not required for delivery). Priority should be set based on regulatory obligations, risk appetite, and business impact rather than technical preference. Always validate priorities with both business stakeholders and technical leads before finalising them.
Try Ash, Your Virtual BA
If you are working through NFRs on a live project and need to turn these examples into a structured, project-specific document, Ash can help you do that. Ash is purpose-built for BA work, so you can use it to generate NFR sets tailored to your deployment type, validate requirements against your project context, and produce documentation that is ready for stakeholder review. It understands the difference between a desirable quality and a contractual constraint, and it will not just hand you a generic list. Try Ash Virtual BA and see how quickly you can get from a blank page to a defensible NFR specification.
Further reading
- 10.30 Non-Functional Requirements Analysis
- Beyond Functionality: The Critical Role of Non-Functional Requirements | Exclusive Articles for IIBA Members
Written by Sam Cordes, founder of the Business Analyst’s Toolkit.