Connecting the vehicle with cloud or edge systems enables new features for the customer. Additionally, existing vehicle functions or software components (SWCs) can also be offloaded to this network ecosystem. For example, it is envisaged that due to cost-intensive vehicle hardware, individual functions will not continue to run in the vehicle but will be executed in the cloud or edge. This means that the functions and their SWCs no longer remain statically deployed and executed on onboard hardware like an electronic control unit (ECU) but can be redeployed during the vehicle’s life cycle. To make this possible, application models that take into account the individual requirements of automotive functions are needed. This paper proposes five different application models in addition to the standard in-vehicle application. The various features of the application models are predestined for the multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach. We propose OptiCAM, a MCDM model that helps software developers or electrical/electronic (E/E) architects finding the best application model for SWCs based on technical and economical criteria. State-of-the-art vehicle functions are finally used to test OptiCAM and analyze the results.