--- title: The one piece of infrastructure worth self-hosting description: An argument for self-hosting an internal developer platform built on open source components (Kubernetes, Backstage, Argo CD, Flux, Cilium, Prometheus,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-one-piece-of-infrastructure-worth-self-hosting-up8tz65aq twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The one piece of infrastructure worth self-hosting | daily.dev og:description: An argument for self-hosting an internal developer platform built on open source components (Kubernetes, Backstage, Argo CD, Flux, Cilium, Prometheus,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-one-piece-of-infrastructure-worth-self-hosting-up8tz65aq og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/UP8Tz65aQ.png og:image:alt: The one piece of infrastructure worth self-hosting og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The one piece of infrastructure worth self-hosting **[selfhosted](https://daily.dev/sources/selfhosted)** · [@savisaluwadana](https://daily.dev/savisaluwadana) · 2 min read · 2 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An argument for self-hosting an internal developer platform built on open source components (Kubernetes, Backstage, Argo CD, Flux, Cilium, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry) rather than relying on managed SaaS, citing avoidance of vendor lock-in, community velocity, and full extensibility. It highlights OpenChoreo, a CNCF Sandbox project that composes these tools into a production-ready IDP, and asks readers why they chose self-hosting for their own stack. ## Content Managed SaaS tools have made life genuinely better for most engineering teams. Managed databases, queues, observability backends, CI platforms. The operational overhead they remove is real and the tradeoff is often worth it. But there is a strong case for self-hosting your internal developer platform, not because SaaS is bad, but because open source gives you something SaaS fundamentally cannot. **What open source gives you that managed services do not** No vendor lock-in. Your platform is built on tools the community owns collectively. Kubernetes, Backstage, Argo CD, Flux, Cilium, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry. None of these disappear because a company pivots, gets acquired, or changes its pricing. Community velocity. Bug fixes, new integrations, and improvements come from thousands of engineers across hundreds of organizations. The compounding effect of a healthy open source community is something no single vendor roadmap can match. Full extensibility. Open source lets you shape the platform around your organization, not the other way around. Custom workflows, integrations with internal tools, specific network policies. You build it once and it lives in your platform permanently. Your data, your infrastructure. Source code, deployment state, audit logs, observability data all stay exactly where you want them. **The tradeoff used to be significant** Self-hosting a production-grade IDP meant composing Backstage, a GitOps tool, a CI system, an observability stack, and access controls from scratch. Real engineering work and a long-term maintenance commitment. That gap is closing. **Worth exploring** OpenChoreo is an open source CNCF Sandbox project that runs entirely on your Kubernetes clusters. It composes the tools the community already trusts, Backstage, Argo CD, Flux, Cilium, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, into a production-ready IDP. Apache 2.0 licensed. Your infrastructure, your data, your control. Website: [https://openchoreo.dev/](https://openchoreo.dev/) Architecture: [https://openchoreo.dev/docs/overview/architecture](https://openchoreo.dev/docs/overview/architecture) GitHub: [https://github.com/openchoreo/openchoreo](https://github.com/openchoreo/openchoreo) What made you choose self-hosted for your current stack? Curious where the community draws the line. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Building a cloud native internal developer platform with Kubernetes, GitOps, and supply chain security](https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-cloud-native-internal-developer-platform-with-kubernetes-gitops-and-supply-chain-securi-gtwycp0j7) · CNCF · 8 upvotes · 1 comments - [Building a state-of-the-art development platform with Backstage](https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-state-of-the-art-development-platform-with-backstage-1ljnqwwx3) · InfoWorld · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Build an Internal Developer Platform: A Complete Guide to Backstage, ArgoCD, and Crossplane](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-build-an-internal-developer-platform-a-complete-guide-to-backstage-argocd-and-crossplane-tpjbns5y8) · freeCodeCamp · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [OpenChoreo 1.0 Brings AI Agents and GitOps to Kubernetes Developer Platforms](https://daily.dev/posts/openchoreo-1-0-brings-ai-agents-and-gitops-to-kubernetes-developer-platforms-kcyxpgvor) · InfoQ · 7 upvotes · 0 comments - [Why your DIY Kubernetes stack won’t survive the era of agentic AI](https://daily.dev/posts/why-your-diy-kubernetes-stack-won-t-survive-the-era-of-agentic-ai-mueojos06) · The New Stack · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#kubernetes](https://daily.dev/tags/kubernetes), [#self-hosting](https://daily.dev/tags/self-hosting), [#gitops](https://daily.dev/tags/gitops), [#internal-developer-platform](https://daily.dev/tags/internal-developer-platform) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-one-piece-of-infrastructure-worth-self-hosting-up8tz65aq) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-one-piece-of-infrastructure-worth-self-hosting-up8tz65aq","headline":"The one piece of infrastructure worth self-hosting","text":"An argument for self-hosting an internal developer platform built on open source components (Kubernetes, Backstage, Argo CD, Flux, Cilium, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry) rather than relying on managed SaaS, citing avoidance of vendor lock-in, community velocity, and full extensibility. 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