---
title: "Building your own authorization solution vs. buying an off-the-shelf one"
description: "Build vs. buy for authorization. There is no standard answer to the perennial build vs. buy question, but the argument for rolling your own authorization is getting harder to make. In this article, we help you speedrun the build vs. buy decision by breaking down your choices, so you can evaluate what’s best for your situation."
author: "Emre Baran"
date: "2025-10-28T15:00:00.000Z"
canonical: "https://www.cerbos.dev/blog/build-vs-buy-authorization"
image: "https://stylish-appliance-1c1cc1c30d.media.strapiapp.com/Building_your_own_authorization_solution_vs_buying_an_off_the_shelf_one_best_approach_for_your_case_0e8894c3df.png"
tags: ["guide"]
source: "https://www.cerbos.dev/blog/build-vs-buy-authorization"
---
# Building your own authorization solution vs. buying an off-the-shelf one
There is no standard answer to the perennial build vs. buy question, but the argument for rolling your own authorization is getting harder to make. The increasing complexity and security implications of authorization, combined with strong, off-the-shelf solutions makes purchasing the best choice for most companies today.
This is the same path authentication, payment and cloud storage solutions have already been down. Years ago, companies had to decide whether to buy authentication or roll their own. But with the solutions available today, most companies default “[to buy for parity, build for competitive advantage](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnterpriseArchitect/comments/11h1shs/comment/jartity/)”. And very few set themselves apart through their authentication system.
Many founders and CTOs we talk to don’t see it that way for AuthZ. Authorization logic is so deeply entangled with how a system works, deciding who can access controls, change data, or even change access roles, that third-party vendors can’t meet their specific needs. They’re right to be cautious. Inadequate authorization will result in breaches, compliance violations, and scalability issues or may simply cause enough lag that your software becomes unusable.
In this article, we’re going to help you speed-run the build vs. buy decision by breaking down your choices, so you can evaluate what’s best for your situation.
### Table of contents
1. Quick framework for the build vs. buy decision
2. Deep dive into key factors to consider when making the decision
- Business factors (time, team size, expertise)
- Technical factors (flexibility, scalability, compliance)
4. Examples of when it makes sense to build, and when it makes sense to buy an authorization solution
5. Tying it all together - a step-by-step guide to making the right decision
## A framework to clarify your needs and constraints
The simplest way to think about this decision is to frame it by defining your needs and any constraints. To help you do that, I created a rubric consisting of eight yes/no questions.
| Question | Yes - Build it | No - Buy it |
|----------|--------------|-------------|
| Is authorization a competitive advantage or part of your core purpose? | | |
| Are you operating in a regulated industry with strict authorization requirements (e.g. Finance, healthcare, insurance)? | | |
| Do you have exacting requirements that off-the-shelf products can’t give you? (Keep in mind nothing, including in-house built software, is perfect. Look for off-the-shelf software that meets 80% of your needs.) | | |
| Does your team have the expertise to build it? | | |
| Does your team have the bandwidth to spare a developer so they can focus on maintaining their expertise and the software? | | |
| Does your team have the bandwidth to spare two, so you don’t lose expertise if one leaves suddenly? | | |
| Do you have a long enough timeline that building is not going to set you back? | | |
| Do you only have one monolith service that uses authorization? | | |
> See how [Cerbos Hub](https://www.cerbos.dev/product-cerbos-hub) helps teams skip the risks of building in-house, and implement a future-proof authorization solution in days, not months.
Other than the above points, there are some other considerations to keep in mind.
**Weigh the cost in resources it would take to build vs. the cost in dollars to buy**. It’s easier to calculate the cost of buying than it is to calculate the resources it will take to build.
You know both the upfront cost and the long-term costs of every piece of software you buy before you make your purchase. The only thing you don’t know is how much developer time it will take to implement and integrate it.
With building, the costs are more difficult to calculate and are subject to change. Developer time will be your biggest expense and is subject to scope creep, underestimation, technical challenges. Then, there are hidden costs like the increased timeline to develop (which may push back your GTM strategy), testing, additional infrastructure management and other services your developers will require.
**Understanding the risk level** is also important. A [failure in your authorization](https://www.cerbos.dev/blog/authorization-remains-1-issue-owasp-2023-top-10-list) can range from unfortunate to catastrophic, depending on the data you are protecting. If you’re storing sensitive user data, the consequences of failure are high. In this case, it makes more sense to rely on a real-world proven solution. However, if the consequences are lower than the risk you incur by building your own, unproven authorization is also lower.
## Deep dive into key factors to consider when making the decision
Once you understand your business’s capabilities, constraints, and your authorization layer needs, your answer to the build vs. buy problem will become clearer. To make this simpler, I’ve broken down the above categories into three subcategories.
### Business factors
Half of the decision-making process is determining whether your business is well-positioned to build. You need to know if you have the time, the team and the expertise to build an authorization layer.
The first point I'd like to cover is **time to market**. Building takes time, often more than originally planned. Whereas, our clients will have Cerbos up and [running in a couple of days to a few weeks](https://www.cerbos.dev/customers/human-managed#:~:text=Je%20Sum%20was%20able%20to%20get%20Cerbos%20into%20production%20in%20about%20two%20weeks%20worth%20of%20time.%C2%A0), rolling your own can take months. Trying to compress that timeline puts pressure on developers, which can lead to corners being cut and even errors in the logic. If you have a short timeline, buying will help you meet that deadline. If you have a long timeline, with plenty of time for development, building is an option.
**Year team** is also a big consideration. Building and maintaining your own authorization requires a dedicated team that can tackle the project. Big tech companies, like Airbnb, have large developer teams that have the bandwidth to tackle complex projects like authorization. Most startups are running small, agile teams focused on delivering the software’s core purpose and can’t spare developers to bring their knowledge and skills up to date to develop authorization and maintain it as the company grows.
Finally - **expertise** is one more critical business-related factor. Authorization is complex, critical and touches almost everything each user does in your software. To meet your security needs, without adding latency to the user experience, your team needs in-depth domain knowledge which needs to be kept up to date. For example, in the past few years, authorization has moved from role-based (RBAC) to include attribute-based access control (ABAC). Up-to-date understanding of authorization is critical to keep your software secure with high availability, and minimal latency.
### Technical factors
The other half of the decision-making process is determining the technical requirements you will need to meet your goals. Most businesses will require an authorization layer that is flexible enough to meet current and future requirements, can grow alongside the business without undue hassle, and complies with the laws of the countries in which they operate.
Let’s start off by talking about the technical factor of **flexibility**. While finding a perfect-fit solution is a major concern for most companies - custom-built, one-off solutions rarely make room for the most important aspect of a performant authorization layer, which is flexibility. Technology changes, the law changes or the competitive landscape changes and businesses that are not flexible enough to change with them rarely last. Extensibility and flexibility have to be considered first to ensure that the access management system can adapt and evolve with internal and external pressures without requiring a rebuild. By considering this early on in the decision process, you avoid technical debt that can weigh down your business.
**Maintenance / scaling** is yet another consideration. As your software applications scale, authorization becomes more complex. New users, logic and roles require more nuanced decisions, putting more pressure on your system and opening more areas of attack. For Je Sum Yip, the Chief Engineer of [Human Managed](https://www.cerbos.dev/customers/human-managed), maintaining and scaling their authorization turned into a pain as they grew. Every time they had to change permissions, they had to go into the source code of the API, to make that change, then recompile, push it out into development, test it and then finally put it into production. That amount of technical debt slows down development and takes time away from developing the core product.
Another one to mention is **compliance**. The more sensitive data you store, the more regulatory compliance your business is subject to. This is especially true if your company operates in the fintech, banking, insurance, medtech, or government industries. If you’re operating in a highly regulated field, [full visibility](https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/audit-logs) into how permissions and authorization is being enforced across the application is not just a nice to have, but a necessity. In this case, you may choose to build your own (or go with an open-source option) that the team can take ownership of. However, if you can find a trusted third-party solution to provide a secure authorization layer it gives you a strategic tool to meet compliance requirements.
## Examples - when it makes sense to build, and when it makes sense to buy an authorization solution
### When to build authorization in-house?
We’re big proponents of leveraging an existing authorization layer that fits your requirements and needs. But when you have simple, straightforward requirements - building is the quickest solution (check out our [ebook on building](https://solutions.cerbos.dev/building-a-scalable-authorization-system) a scalable authorization solution). If you have 3-4 well-defined roles that won’t change or need updating, simply hardcoding your authorization logic will suffice. In the same vein, a small startup trying to build its MVP may decide to code its authorization logic just to get it out the door and into the hands of users to enable rapid iteration.
However, when talking to startups, our sales teams came across a few other reasons that founders or development teams will cite as reasons they’ve chosen to build their own authorization layer.
In a conversation with one of those companies, the development team told us they built their own authorization, because getting a sign-off from their security team for every new version of a third-party vendor’s solution was too cumbersome. It made purchasing a solution more difficult and made them less flexible than rolling their own.
Those kinds of internal hoops are not very common. Typically, companies will bring up one of the following three reasons to justify rolling their own.
- The first is that they believe their **needs are too custom** for off-the-shelf software. Airbnb, for example, created their Himeji authorization system when they moved from Ruby on Rails monolith to microservices. With a strong team already in place, they were able to build an authorization system that met their specific needs.
- The second reason is some companies want to stay **in full control of their stack**. We touched on this above in the technical factors to consider, but it’s worth going into more detail here. For highly regulated companies, adding services to their stack which their team doesn’t have full access to, creates an unknown liability. In fact, for any company concerned about security, adding a black box to your authorization isn’t a good idea. That’s why we made Cerbos [open source](https://github.com/cerbos/cerbos), giving your team full visibility into the code.
- Finally, some companies still see value in having the **domain expertise in their organizations**. Typically, these are large companies with access to both a deep team and deep pockets and a long-term commitment to the authorization layer they build.
Often, when companies are focused on these issues, they aren’t looking at the downsides of building their own authorization, many of which are shared with encryption. Just like with authorization, encryption is a critical part of your security software. That’s why most companies rely on encryption standards that have been inspected by experts and proven themselves solid. All rolling your own does is open the possibility of introducing mistakes into your encryption, which is very easy to do. Many of the same complications hold true for authentication.
The possibility of mistakes becomes even more apparent when you start adding new roles or permissions. This increases complexity exponentially, especially if you’re working with enterprise clients that need multi-tenant considerations. As those new requirements balloon, your team’s development time does as well, costing you hours and diverting attention from core features.
### When to use a ready-made authorization solution?
I have a bias here, but, I honestly believe that most companies would benefit from selecting an authorization system ‘off the shelf’. Not only do you get a proven solution, but you’re also able to leverage the expertise of a company whose sole focus is authorization.
For startups, like [Loop](https://www.cerbos.dev/customers/withloop), that means you can get to market much faster. With Cerbos, Loop was able to cut six months of development time by relying on our expertise. This allowed them to get to their customers earlier and start making money.
It also means that you’re not stuck maintaining or scaling a system that was designed and built for yesterday’s requirements. Human Managed, who I mentioned before, had rolled their own authorization in the beginning, and after they grew, the maintenance and scaling was taking up hours of developer time. By switching, they went from updating authorization logic being a very involved process, to a five-minute job. Human Managed also leveraged the support from experts, as well as getting involved in an active community they could turn to if they needed guidance.
Finally, for highly regulated industries an off-the-shelf solution can be helpful in ensuring compliance, as it’s built by experts who understand the various compliance regulations and have built the solution to ensure it meets those needs. For example, Loop’s CTO and Co-Founder Mohsin Kalam, found it easier to demonstrate compliance with Cerbos in his stack which resulted in them getting their banking license in record time.
### Why Cerbos? How it helps teams avoid the build vs. buy dilemma
Choosing between building your own authorization system or purchasing an off-the-shelf solution is a tough decision. [Cerbos](https://www.cerbos.dev/), the authorization solution for enterprise software and AI, gives you the best of both worlds, offering the flexibility of a purpose-built system with the reliability and efficiency of a proven solution.
With Cerbos, security patches, audits, and compliance updates are handled for you; your team retains **full control** over policies, deployment, and management while avoiding vendor lock-in due to its open-core model; and you gain **audit logs** and policy testing capabilities, making it easier to meet regulatory requirements such as **SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI.**
Whether you’re launching a new product, scaling a platform, or navigating strict compliance requirements, Cerbos simplifies authorization, so your developers can focus on _building core features, not reinventing authorization_.
#### Flexibility without complexity
Authorization should adapt to your business, not the other way around. Cerbos supports advanced access models like **RBAC, ABAC**, and **PBAC** out of the box, allowing you to define permissions with precision while avoiding rigid, hard-coded logic. Whether you’re a startup launching your first solution or an enterprise managing complex multi-tenant access, Cerbos scales with you.
Cerbos is also designed to **[fit into any tech stack](https://www.cerbos.dev/features-benefits-and-use-cases/ecosystem)**. It runs alongside your application as a stateless policy decision point (PDP), making authorization decisions in milliseconds while keeping your system performant.
#### Scalability
Building your own authorization might work in the short term, but scaling it as your user base grows, or as requirements change - introduces challenges. Every new role, permission, or policy update can become a bottleneck.
With Cerbos, your access control system is **future-proof**. It’s built to handle high-volume workloads, ensuring that authorization is never a bottleneck. As your application evolves, policies can be updated dynamically—without refactoring code or redeploying services.
#### Security and compliance
Authorization is a security-critical function. Mistakes can lead to _data breaches, compliance failures, and trust erosion_, all of which can be costly to recover from. Cerbos mitigates the risks of rolling your own by providing a **battle-tested** authorization engine used by hundreds of companies small and large.
[](https://cta-service-cms2.hubspot.com/web-interactives/public/v1/track/redirect?encryptedPayload=AVxigLIVXOZJwrIisSy3nGN65kvdD2m2cUWUhCi629UMLN0on%2F54ma1lrloJVfhp8lix3ei5y1crt7vkoJFKdtJz%2Fj3g2N0GY9yJpFde%2BbD15yVN8Pp2J0uNbGic35J51dE9AhdrbPl1qsRjvqoqgOycR%2B3gXaDsYA%2F7rQJVRPju%2B9mBYcc8e%2F%2FzcIIR7Mkn&webInteractiveContentId=181809013399&portalId=20289770)
## Tying it all together - A step-by-step guide to making the right decision
Above, we covered high-level considerations you should take into account when deciding. Now, I want to give you concrete steps you can take as you decide.
### Step 1: Define requirements
The first thing you need is to fully understand what you require from your authorization layer. That can be broken down into two categories of questions you need to answer, before you start defining your best-fit solution.
Category 1: Application-level requirements
- How many attributes will you need to consider? These can include roles, departments, cost centers, risk scores, subscriptions - anything relevant to the user or the resource.
- How dynamic are these policies going to be?
- What level of audit logging is required to meet the compliance team's needs?
Category 2: Technical-level requirements
- How many languages/frameworks/services do you need to support?
- How many different deployment models do you have to support? You might have some part of your system in Kubernetes, some other part of your system in AWS Lambda, and some other part of your system in bare metal or on-prem.
- Which upstream identity provider (IdP) does it need to connect with?
- Where is the user to role assignment going to be stored or managed (if not in the IdP)?
Whether you choose to roll your own or purchase, your authorization layer will need to support these requirements.
### Step 2: Evaluate resources
Before making your decision, you need to know what resources you have in place, and if they’re sufficient to successfully implement your solution. That starts with an evaluation of your internal expertise and available engineering bandwidth.
If you’re choosing to build your authorization in-house, you need to know if your team is capable of not just building it, but if they can secure it, minimize future technical debt during the build and adapt it to changing application architectures.
Then, you have to make sure that you can keep that technical expertise. That means you need at least two experts so that if one leaves the second maintains the expertise and is able to pass it on. Without this overlap, your team will end up with a knowledge gap as the average employee turnover is 3-5 years.
### Step 3: Run a proof of concept
Once you’ve defined your requirements and evaluated your resources, you should be able to narrow down your choices for solutions, including vendors and your ability to build in-house. The next step is to run a limited proof of concept with your top solutions to see what approach fits your needs better.
During the proof of concept, your team should be asking:
- Does it address the issue you have at hand?
- Can your business requirements be modeled in policy?
- Does it address any future requirements you may need? This should include asking:
- Is it flexible enough?
- How easily can it handle any future issues your team sees?
- Does it fit into your architecture?
- Is it fast enough? Every request goes through authorization. So, you want to make sure that as the load increases and you scale up, it will still be fast.
- Does it have a good developer experience? Was it breezy or was it a struggle? Because any struggle during the proof of concept phase is a symptom of future pain.
### Step 4: Think long-term
After you’ve determined that you can meet today’s requirements with your chosen software, you have to look to the future to determine whether your chosen solution will work for you down the road.
That means considering maintenance, scalability, and compliance.
With regard to **maintenance** - if you choose to buy an authorization layer, the vendor’s team will be responsible for keeping the software up to date. However, if you choose to build your own, your team has to be able to maintain your code going forward. That means you need to have a team with the expertise to keep operating libraries and other aspects of your build.
Unless your need for authorization is strictly constrained to those 3-4 roles, any authorization you choose will have to **scale** to meet your future use cases. That means you need to know how your software will grow, and what it will require in the future. Then, find solutions that will help you scale into the future, without holding you back.
Before you sign off on a solution, you need to know if your **compliance** team will be happy moving forward. If the solution you’re looking at doesn’t satisfy compliance, your development team will spend a significant amount of time adding features to satisfy their requirements. If you built your own, that means even more hours adding features added on to the timeline.
## Parting thoughts
When you’re looking for an authorization solution, it’s easy to see the roadblocks for buying off-the-shelf. There are always specific requirements and custom needs your software will have. But for most companies, it will be easier to take something pre-made and make it work, rather than to start from scratch.
Of course, there are situations where rolling your own makes sense, including internal roadblocks, or simple requirements that you can hard code without causing issues down the road. If that is the case for you, feel free to check out our [ebook on building](https://solutions.cerbos.dev/building-a-scalable-authorization-system) your own scalable authorization system. But, for most teams, finding reasons to go with a solution like [Cerbos](https://www.cerbos.dev/) will save time, reduce risk and ensure they can scale seamlessly.
Get in touch to find out how Cerbos can help you bypass the risks and struggle of building your own, with an off-the-shelf authorization layer - book a call with a [Cerbos engineer](https://www.cerbos.dev/workshop), or join our [Slack community](https://community.cerbos.dev/).
## FAQ
### When is it better to build custom authorization?
Building custom authorization makes sense when your requirements are highly specific, and off-the-shelf solutions can’t meet at least 80% of your needs. This is common in regulated industries (finance, healthcare, government) where compliance demands full control over the authorization layer.
If authorization is a competitive advantage, building in-house may be worth the investment. Large companies like Airbnb have done this to tailor access control to their unique architectures.
However, building requires deep expertise, ongoing maintenance, and scalability considerations. You need a dedicated team, redundancy in knowledge, and a long timeline to avoid technical debt.
For small startups with simple authorization needs (e.g., a few fixed roles), hardcoding permissions may work as a temporary solution. But as complexity grows, maintaining a custom-built system can become a bottleneck, making an off-the-shelf solution the better choice.
### When is it better to buy an authorization solution?
Buying an authorization solution is the best choice for most companies, especially those that need to move fast, scale efficiently, and ensure security and compliance. If authorization isn’t a core competitive advantage, it makes more sense to leverage an existing, proven solution rather than building from scratch.
Startups benefit from faster time to market. For example, Loop saved six months of development time by using Cerbos. Scaling companies also avoid the maintenance burden, ensuring that authorization doesn’t become a bottleneck.
Highly regulated industries (finance, healthcare) gain from built-in compliance support, reducing risk and simplifying audits. Companies that need flexibility without complexity also benefit, as modern solutions like Cerbos support RBAC, ABAC, and PBAC while avoiding hardcoded logic.
Ultimately, if you lack the expertise, time, or bandwidth to build and maintain a secure, scalable authorization system, buying is the smarter, lower-risk choice.
### How do I decide which option (build or buy) is more cost effective?
To decide whether building or buying authorization is more cost-effective, compare the hidden costs of building with the predictable costs of buying.
Building in-house requires developer time, expertise, and ongoing maintenance, which can be unpredictable due to scope creep, technical debt, and evolving security needs. Hidden costs include delays in product development, compliance risks, and scalability challenges. If your team lacks deep authorization expertise, mistakes can lead to security breaches or performance issues.
Buying an off-the-shelf solution provides fixed upfront and ongoing costs, faster implementation, and built-in compliance. For most companies, this reduces risk and frees developers to focus on core product features.
If authorization is a core advantage and your team has the bandwidth, building may be cost-effective. Otherwise, buying is the safer and more predictable investment.
### What is the most future-proof way to build auth?
**The most future-proof way to biuld auth is to:**
- Externalize authorization instead of hard-coding it in services.
- Run a stateless policy decision point (PDP), such as Cerbos PDP, alongside your app for low-latency decisions.
- Support RBAC now with room to extend to ABAC/PBAC as needs evolve.
- Build in audit logs and policy testing to meet compliance and speed safe changes.
- Keep policies flexible so you don’t refactor core code when requirements change.
When it comes to authorization, for most companies, it will be easier to use a purpose-made solution, such as Cerbos, with all the above features built-in, rather than to build their own authorization solution.
_A quick note on terminology. The word auth often causes confusion because it’s used in two ways:_
- _Authentication (AuthN): proving a user’s identity / logging in._
- _Authorization (AuthZ): controlling what that user is allowed to access or change once inside._
_Here, we are talking about authorization._
### What’s the trade-off between building our own auth layer vs adopting an open source auth gateway?
When thinking about the trade-off between building our own auth layer vs adopting an open source auth gateway, here are the details.
Build in-house. Pros:
- Maximum control for exacting or unique requirements.
- Can be strategic if authorization is a true differentiator.
- Avoids internal vendor-approval bottlenecks.
Build in-house. Cons:
- Takes months and demands ongoing expertise and bandwidth (at least two specialists to avoid knowledge loss).
- Complexity grows quickly with more roles, permissions, and tenants.
- Higher risk of latency, errors, and compliance gaps.
Adopt an open-source/ready-made gateway or platform. Pros:
- Faster time to market (days to weeks).
- Proven reliability, plus audit logs, policy testing, patches, and compliance updates handled for you.
- Open-core options preserve visibility and control.
Adopt. Considerations:
- Validate fit against exact requirements through a proof of concept.
- Ensure it integrates cleanly with your stack and processes.
When it comes to authorization, for most companies, it will be easier to use a purpose-made solution, such as Cerbos, rather than to build their own authorization solution.
_A quick note on terminology. The word auth often causes confusion because it’s used in two ways:_
- _Authentication (AuthN): proving a user’s identity / logging in._
- _Authorization (AuthZ): controlling what that user is allowed to access or change once inside._
_Here, we are talking about authorization._
### What are the main pitfalls startups hit when rolling their own RBAC instead of adopting an auth platform?
**The main pitfalls startups hit when rolling their own RBAC instead of adopting an auth platform:**
- Role and permission sprawl drives exponential complexity, especially with multi-tenant needs.
- Hard-coded checks force code edits, recompiles, testing, and redeploys for every change.
- Slower delivery as engineers spend time maintaining access logic instead of core product.
- Latency and reliability risks if checks are inconsistent or inefficient.
- Stale models when the world moves beyond pure RBAC and teams lack ongoing AuthZ expertise.
- Compliance friction without built-in visibility, audit logs, and policy testing.
When it comes to authorization, for most companies, it will be easier to use a purpose-made solution, such as Cerbos, rather than to build their own authorization solution.
_A quick note on terminology. The word auth often causes confusion because it’s used in two ways:_
- _Authentication (AuthN): proving a user’s identity / logging in._
- _Authorization (AuthZ): controlling what that user is allowed to access or change once inside._
_Here, we are talking about authorization._
### What are the main pitfalls enterprises hit when rolling their own RBAC instead of adopting an auth platform?
**The main pitfalls enterprises hit when rolling their own RBAC instead of adopting an auth platform:**
- Role explosion at scale. Enterprises serve multiple business units, geographies, and customer segments, which leads to thousands of roles and permissions that quickly become unmanageable.
- Cross-system inconsistency. In-house RBAC often gets duplicated across monoliths, microservices, and legacy apps, creating drift and security gaps.
- Heavy operational overhead. Every update requires coordination across teams, testing in complex environments, and redeploying multiple systems.
- Bottlenecks for innovation. Engineering talent gets tied up maintaining access logic instead of driving product or platform improvements.
- Performance risks. High-volume workloads magnify latency issues from inefficient, hard-coded checks.
- Compliance complexity. Enterprises face stricter regulatory obligations; without centralized audit logs, policy testing, and visibility, proving compliance becomes a major burden.
For large organizations, rolling out and maintaining custom RBAC is rarely sustainable. It is usually more effective to adopt a purpose-built authorization solution such as Cerbos, that provides flexibility, scalability, and compliance support out of the box.
_A quick note on terminology. The word auth often causes confusion because it’s used in two ways:_
- _Authentication (AuthN): proving a user’s identity / logging in._
- _Authorization (AuthZ): controlling what that user is allowed to access or change once inside._
_Here, we are talking about authorization._
### Can I get a rough TCO comparison between outsourcing auth to a vendor and running an open source stack in-house?
When thinking about a rough TCO comparison between outsourcing auth to a vendor and running an open source stack in-house, here are the main factors:
**Outsourcing to a vendor**
- Predictable costs up front and over time.
- Unknowns are mostly integration effort.
- Vendor covers security patches, audits, and compliance updates.
- Time-to-value is faster (days to weeks).
**Running open source in-house**
- Developer time is the biggest cost driver.
- Exposure to scope creep, underestimation, and technical challenges.
- Hidden costs: longer timelines, testing, infrastructure, and supporting services.
- Requires ongoing expertise (ideally two specialists) to avoid knowledge gaps.
**How to decide**
1. Follow a structured process: define requirements → assess resources → run a POC → confirm long-term fit.
2. Use an ROI calculator to quantify your scenario.
When it comes to authorization, for most companies, it will be easier to use a purpose-made solution, such as Cerbos, rather than to build their own authorization solution.
_A quick note on terminology. The word auth often causes confusion because it’s used in two ways:_
- _Authentication (AuthN): proving a user’s identity / logging in._
- _Authorization (AuthZ): controlling what that user is allowed to access or change once inside._
_Here, we are talking about authorization._
### How much should I budget for the managed tier of a solid open source auth vendor?
**How much to budget for the managed tier of a solid open source auth vendor:**
- Exact prices vary by vendor and scale.
- Expect clear, predictable pricing from vendors versus variable people-cost when building.
- Budget beyond license fees for implementation time.
- Include the value of patching, audits, compliance updates, audit logs, and policy testing you won’t have to build or maintain.
- For precision, run numbers with an ROI calculator based on your users, services, and compliance needs.
When it comes to authorization, for most companies, it will be more efficient to use a purpose-made solution, such as Cerbos, rather than to build their own authorization solution.
_A quick note on terminology. The word auth often causes confusion because it’s used in two ways:_
- _Authentication (AuthN): proving a user’s identity / logging in._
- _Authorization (AuthZ): controlling what that user is allowed to access or change once inside._
_Here, we are talking about authorization._