Build vs Buy Analyzer & Tech Stack Advisor
Build-vs-buy decisions and a consolidated tech stack in one tool. For each component: build custom, buy off-the-shelf, or use open source — with specific vendors, pricing, and rationale tied to your domain classification.
Free, no signup required. Results in 2-5 minutes.
How It Works
Share Your Components and Constraints
What you're building, your team skills, platform credits, and scale expectations. If you've done Feature Prioritization, we'll pull your classified features automatically.
Get Build-vs-Buy Decisions
For each component: build custom, buy off-the-shelf, or use open source — with specific vendor names, pricing tiers, and rationale tied to your domain classification.
Consolidated Tech Stack
A unified stack recommendation that minimizes vendor count. Frontend, backend, database, hosting, and every service — with consolidation opportunities highlighted.
What NOT to build
An explicit list of things you should avoid building custom. Custom admin panels, custom email infrastructure, custom auth — and what to use instead.
Build What's Core, Buy Everything Else
Your matching algorithm is your competitive advantage — build it custom. Auth, payments, email? Companies like Stripe have thousands of engineers on payments alone. You have 1-3 developers. Buy the solved problems, invest engineering time in what makes you different.
Consolidation Saves More Than Money
For example, a platform like Firebase covers auth, database, file storage, hosting, and serverless functions — that's 5 fewer vendors, 5 fewer API keys, 5 fewer dashboards. Every extra service is another integration to maintain, another thing that breaks at 2am.
One Decision, Not Two
Build-vs-buy and tech stack are the same decision. 'Should I build auth?' and 'Which auth service should I use?' aren't separate questions. This tool answers both together, so your technical strategy is coherent from day one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Because they're the same decision. "Should I build auth?" and "Which auth service should I use?" aren't separate questions. Treating them as two exercises leads to conflicting recommendations. This tool answers both together — and starts from the core/supporting/generic split done in Feature Prioritization.
3-5, not 8-12. Every extra service is another integration to maintain, another API key, another dashboard. A platform like Firebase covers auth, database, storage, hosting, and functions — that's 5 fewer vendors. Consolidation saves more than money — see the Default Stack principle.
Not for your MVP. A monolith deployed on a single platform will outperform a microservice architecture you can't staff. Build a monolith, split it later when you have the traffic and team to justify it. The Firebase-on-React route is what PWA in 6 Weeks ships by default.
Yes — with rationale tied to your constraints. The best stack is the one your team already knows. If you need complex SQL, the tool says PostgreSQL. If your team knows Python, it won't force JavaScript. Recommendations are pragmatic, not trendy — the rule is "vector distance from the team's defaults," explained in the Default Stack principle.
Things founders consistently try to build custom when they shouldn't. Auth, payment processing, email infrastructure, admin panels, file upload pipelines. For each, you get specific off-the-shelf alternatives with pricing. Once the stack is set, Project Requirements turns it into a developer-ready spec.
Where To Next
Next discovery step:Project Requirements
Principles behind it:Default Stack, Consolidation
When you're ready to build:PWA in 6 WeeksMVP in 6 Weeks
Built & Maintained by Varstatt
Varstatt is a one-person product studio run by Jurij Tokarski, product engineer since 2011. These tools are free and open — no signup, no catch.