Build vs. Buy

When to license SaaS vs. write custom code, custom-software-vs-vendor decisions, OSS evaluation, dev-shop selection criteria, and the in-house framework — for technical founders and CTOs at the pre-purchase decision point.

Build vs. BuyJun 6, 20266 min read

Session replay build vs buy: 3‑year TCO and privacy tradeoffs

Session replay build vs buy is a decision many CTOs delay until the third security incident; building rarely saves money under 5M monthly sessions and often destroys auditability. This analysis gives a 3‑year TCO, privacy costs, and a clear threshold for when to buy, self‑host, or build a custom replay pipeline.

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Build vs. BuyJun 2, 20267 min read

Vector database build vs buy: 3‑year TCO and recall tradeoffs

Vector database build vs buy decisions are no longer academic: the wrong choice costs you hundreds of thousands of dollars and a visible drop in recall. Choosing between Pinecone/Weaviate and an in‑house FAISS/pgvector stack is a TCO, latency, and ops-capability trade — get the break-even math right.

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Build vs. BuyMay 30, 20267 min read

Webhook delivery build vs buy: a 3-year TCO framework

webhook delivery build vs buy is a decision about operating guarantees, developer time, and recurring SaaS spend—not just a checkbox. Build-in-house when your vendor bill is consistently above ~$15k/mo or you need custom delivery guarantees; buy when you want 99.99% delivery without 0.5–1.0 FTE of ongoing ops.

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Build vs. BuyMay 27, 20268 min read

Workflow orchestration build vs buy: Temporal, Step Functions, Airflow

Workflow orchestration build vs buy is the single infrastructure decision that kills more roadmaps via hidden ops than any database or message queue. Choose the wrong path and you pay in engineer-years, latency tail risk, and migration work that costs hundreds of thousands.

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Build vs. BuyMay 23, 20267 min read

Consent management platform: build vs buy framework

Consent management platform decisions lock you into either a $50k–$250k/year vendor contract or a multi‑hundred‑thousand dollar engineering program; pick the wrong side and you pay in churn, compliance risk, or endless custom work. Use a three‑year TCO and product‑impact framework to decide which path matches your revenue, integrations, and data‑residency needs.

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Build vs. BuyMay 19, 20266 min read

Feature store build vs buy: a practical TCO framework

Feature store build vs buy is the first architecture decision that determines whether your ML stack is a product or a prototype. The wrong call costs you months of data-engineer time, $0.5M–$2.5M over three years, and a migration that destroys model reliability.

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Build vs. BuyMay 16, 20267 min read

Audit logging platform: build vs buy decision

Audit logging platform is one of those infrastructure decisions that looks trivial until it shows up on a regulator’s checklist or your legal team asks for a 24‑month eDiscovery export. Build when volume, unique immutability, or latency requirements exceed vendor economics; buy when you need speed, integrations, and predictable 12–36 month retention costs.

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Build vs. BuyMay 13, 20266 min read

Feature flag platform: build vs buy decision framework

Feature flag platform decisions are habitually framed as 'simple toggles' — they're not. A wrong choice costs you months of outages, $200k+ in engineering, and audit headaches when compliance or scale arrives.

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Build vs. BuyMay 12, 20267 min read

Search as a Service vs Build: a 3‑year TCO framework

Search as a Service is the fastest route to production search, but it becomes expensive and inflexible above certain scale and feature needs. This piece gives a 3‑year TCO framework — with concrete numbers for Algolia, Elastic/OpenSearch, Pinecone-style vector providers, and the engineering effort to run your own.

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Build vs. BuyMay 9, 20266 min read

Identity platform build vs buy: when to roll your own

Identity platform build vs buy is the question every CTO hits when auth becomes product-facing. The right choice depends on three numbers: expected MAUs, annual SaaS spend you’ll tolerate, and the 3‑year cost of owning security and compliance.

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Build vs. BuyMay 3, 20268 min read

SaaS billing platform: build vs buy for B2B products

SaaS billing platform is the purchase decision that founders mistake for a solved problem — but the wrong choice blows up margin, ops, and product differentiation. You should treat billing as an architectural decision with explicit thresholds, not a checkbox to outsource.

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