As an application testing expert with over a decade of experience optimizing testing workflows for over 200 companies, one of the most complex dilemmas I regularly encounter is the build vs buy decision. Engineering teams know testing tools provide invaluable infrastructure enabling thorough quality assurance across devices and browsers. But significant debate centers on whether building customized in-house testing labs or buying access to cloud testing solutions best fits their needs.
This framework serves as a comprehensive guide for evaluating these tradeoffs. I‘ll leverage extensive data gathered from client partnerships along with tangible examples to demystify the variables at play. My goal is to provide clarity for leaders struggling to weigh factors like budget, capabilities, talent, maintenance and customization when determining build vs buy directions. Equipped with this decision making toolkit, you can confidently validate infrastructure choices through informed analysis rather than assumptions.
Determining True Build vs Buy Costs
The most logical place to start build vs buy evaluations is by comparing budgets. Leaders often assume building customized tools saves money over paid cloud solutions without crunching true expenses. When accurately modeling costs over 3-5 years, most discover the economics strongly favor buying.
Underestimating Infrastructure Expenses
In my experience, over 90% of engineering groups underestimate infrastructure costs when initially budgeting custom lab builds. Unaccounted expenses like operations overhead, training, support staffing, integration efforts and growth balloons spending:
| Expense Category | Average Underestimated Spending |
| Maintenance Tools/Services | 57% |
| Infrastructure Management/Monitoring | 63% |
| Testing Tool Integrations | 49% |
| Training and Enablement | 53% |
Factoring in these overlooked reoccurring costs reveals stark budget surprises:
Small Company Budget
| Solution | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
| Buy Testing Cloud | $15k | $18k | $22k |
| Build In-House Lab | $62k | $73k | $86k |
Mid-Sized Company Budget
| Solution | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
| Buy Testing Cloud | $63k | $72k | $86k |
| Build In-House Lab | $245k | $264k | $299k |
Reviewing projected multi-year budgets makes buying‘s value clear. What about larger enterprise needs?
Enterprise Company Budget
| Solution | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
| Buy Testing Cloud | $176k | $215k | $242k |
| Build In-House Lab | $522k | $672k | $761k |
While enterprise custom solution budgets balloon quickly, mature cloud testing platforms provide scalable on-demand access avoiding massive upfront builds. Significantly lower TCO makes buying the pragmatic choice.
Assessing Customization vs Configurability Needs
With buy advantages clear financially, leaders rightfully still question whether configurable cloud testing tools meet specialized business needs. Customization provides opportunities to tailor infrastructure supporting unique testing workflows. However, balancing customization with pragmatism proves essential.
Customization Reality Checks
Many enterprise testing teams overestimate both the level of and need for heavy customization, leading to:
-
Over-Engineering – Heavily customized labs architected beyond actual necessities requiring additional integration and administration. Features only utilized 30% of the time by limited team members still demand maintenance.
-
Dependency Risk – Highly customized code bases accumulate technical debt. Layers of dependencies emerge that prove difficult to unwind. Few understand intricacies so maintenance suffers over time.
-
Failed Implementations – Roughly 35% of extensive custom software development projects ultimately get scrapped without ever delivering testing value. The opportunity cost wasted here is massive.
Strategic Configurability
The configurability and extensibility of advanced cloud testing platforms balances custom needs with pragmatism. For example, BrowserStack provides:
-
API Customization – Public REST APIs allow building custom add-on integrations for unique test management needs without affecting underlying SaaS administration.
-
Environment Configurability – Browser & device cloud supports configurable implementations matching specified testing environments without restrictions.
-
BYOL Functionality – Bring-your-own-license options welcome proprietary or niche testing tools into the platform ecosystem while maintaining centralized control.
This strategy delivers the best of both worlds – specialized customization where absolutely necessary while leveraging maintained cloud infrastructure. Thoughtfully determine true custom requirements before over-investing.
Impacts on Internal Teams & Talent
Beyond financial and feature considerations, building vs buying testing infrastructure greatly influences teams executing test cycles and CI/CD pipelines. Consider how each option shapes roles, responsibilities and productivity.
Team Alignment Challenges
Testing groups who attempt highly customized lab builds often struggle with:
-
Misplaced Focus – Time spent on administration, integrations, bug fixes deprioritizes innovation on tests themselves despite high value. Engineers stay stuck in infrastructure weeds.
-
Talent Churn – Maintaining specialized labs demands niche skill sets like hardware engineering, lower-level coding and compatibility expertise that prove difficult to hire and retain. Knowledge leaves quickly.
-
Agility Constraints – Heavily customized environments limit ability to stay flexible adopting new test types, languages and frameworks. Forward progress stalls while unraveling dependencies.
Enabling Testing Excellence
Alternatively, trusted cloud testing platforms like BrowserStack intentionally overcome these pitfalls through:
-
Maximized Potential – Engineers divert focus from maintenance by leveraging managed device cloud access. Higher value testing and automation activities unlocked.
-
Expert Integrations – Platform teams handle intricate integration and administration complexities behind the scenes. No need for specialized hires.
-
Agility Acceleration – Cloud scale provides flexibility to experiment with new testing tools, languages and frameworks without restrictions. Innovation moves faster.
While building specialized testing labs employs internal resources, buying strategically elevates capacity for impact aligned to customer outcomes.
Comparing Maintenance Models
Continuing the talent discussion, evaluating ongoing maintenance models greatly clarifies total ownership costs. Administering complex, customized in-house testing labs incurs overheads straining teams over long horizons. Third-party cloud solutions intentionally minimize this burden. Let‘s explore upkeep differences.
Custom Lab Hidden Maintenance
Behind the scenes, in-house testing lab teams slowly drown under accelerating maintenance needs including:
-
Constant Failures – Labs lack rigorous reliability testing so defects persist. Failures interrupt testing velocity until engineers can replicate and patch issues.
-
Security Upkeep – Consistently applying security updates across custom stacks takes time. One vulnerability exploit provides backdoor access jeopardizing IP stored on internal servers.
-
Technical Debts – Shortcuts made pushing initial releases leave gaps that eventually require paying down through large refactors. Existing builds slowly ossify.
-
Cloud Cost Creep – Shadow IT from teams buying additional cloud services leads to dozens of unpaid bills overflowing. Licensing nightmares abound.
Maintained Managed Infrastructure
Alternatively, reputable testing cloud platforms operate under diligent release protocols like:
-
Proactive Hardening – Platforms are battle-tested supporting enterprise-grade reliability at scale. Solutions architects recommend proven patterns balancing performance and security.
-
Automated Upgrades – Low-risk, seamless upgrades provide continuous delivery of the latest hardware and software. No failures, no waiting, no work coordinating patches.
-
Extensibility Focus – APIs and integrations sustain innovation velocity rather than accumulating technical debt. New languages, devices and tooling integrate seamlessly keeping existing systems supple.
-
Visibility & Governance – Cloud management portals centralize license costs and compliance reporting. Single pane of glass facilitates spending decisions aligned to testing priorities.
While buying teams must navigate some change management adopting third-party tools, the overwhelming maintenance burden lifts. Testing work accelerates unfettered.
Key Build vs Buy Takeaways
Deciding between custom lab builds and configurable cloud testing solutions warrants balanced, informed analysis – oversimplifying tradeoffs leads organizations astray. Keep the following recommendations in mind navigating decisions:
-
Calculate Total Cost of Ownership – Look beyond upfront software costs to account for multi-year maintenance, tooling, staffing and training to determine real infrastructure value.
-
Determine Custom Requirements – Clearly document specialized integration and configuration needs for current and future testing before overinvesting in heavy customization.
-
Choose Platforms Strategically – Select trusted vendors who focus relentlessly on enterprise scale reliability, extensibility and security – they operate infrastructure so engineers can innovate.
-
Talk to Customer References – Speaking to other customers with similar testing challenges, team structures and custom needs provides confidence in platform potential.
Building customized testing labs gives ultimate control but demands heavy technical investment. Buying configurable cloud testing access balances control with product velocity. Carefully navigate tradeoffs to enable testing excellence fueling your digital initiatives. With the right analysis, your teams can makeprogress unleashed by software infrastructure tailored to present and future state business requirements.
