Cloud-hosted Saas versus open-source: Choosing your platform

The text explores the decision-making process organizations face when upgrading to a modern experimentation and analytics platform, highlighting the options to build an in-house platform, fork and self-host an open-source solution, or purchase a cloud solution. It emphasizes considerations such as total cost of ownership, opportunity cost, and the ability to trial existing solutions. The challenges of self-hosting, including technical complexities and potential scaling issues, are discussed, suggesting that while open-source solutions may appear cost-effective, they can incur hidden costs and require significant resources. The text advocates for opting for cloud-hosted providers as they are typically more cost-effective and accelerate time to value, especially for companies lacking extensive engineering resources. Additionally, insights into the development of a strong experimentation culture, infrastructure, and the importance of A/B testing are shared, alongside reflections on industry experiences and the evolution of web experience platforms.