Build vs buy
The slogan hides the real options: build, buy, assemble, or decline the capability. Argumont scores those paths on time to value, lock-in, and operational owner...
question
Build, buy, or assemble a third path?
Build versus buy is often a false pair. You can buy a core and build the edge, or rent until a constraint is proven. The useful analysis names those hybrids instead of treating ownership as a personality test.
Common mistakes
Engineering estimates the build as if the first version is the last. Buyers estimate the vendor as if the contract will never change. Both are predictions, not facts.
Another mistake is ignoring switching cost until year two, when the data is already trapped.
How Argumont treats it
Your preferred path is one contestant. A challenger should attack the timeline and the lock-in. An alternative should include a hybrid if one is material.
Example criteria
Time to value
When a real user gets a working capability.
Control
Whether you need to change the internals on your schedule.
Total cost
Licenses, people, and the cost of being wrong.
Exit options
What you keep if you leave.
Related pages
Software selection
Buying software is easy to rush because the category feels familiar. Argumont compares tools on the jobs they must do in your workflows, including the option to...
Technology
Technology decisions are often won by familiarity. Argumont asks whether the preferred stack is actually stronger on correctness, time to value, operations, and...
Find a better option
A trivial variant of your plan is not an alternative. This flow is for forcing a serious search, then scoring what is found against the original.
Questions
These pages answer a search the way an operator would: what the question hides, what evidence is needed, and how to run it in Argumont.
Compare build and buy
Argumont challenges assumptions, researches evidence, compares competing approaches, and identifies the strongest decision.
Compare build and buy