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The product won't do things exactly the way you want. If you build it yourself, you get it the way that you wish it had been built.

Far more likely you will prove to have underestimated part of it or overestimated yourself, and will make something less capable and even farther from your personal ideal than the off-the-shelf version. And that's to say nothing of the bugs and maintenance burden. And even if you surmount those obstacles, you'll probably have to make huge sacrifices in functionality or reliability because, unlike the vendors of the off-the-shelf version, you have other things to do as well (or your boss has other things for you to do).

Just to be clear, I'm not necessarily arguing that it's optimal to create your own tools. I will, however, object to claims that creating tools is all about saving money. Having the right tool and having control over your tools is a big deal.

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