Own Your Tech
An earlier perspective on ownership, portability and the tools a business depends on.
The earlier argument
How many tools could shut down your business with a pricing change?
How much of your customer data lives on someone else's server?
How many API keys stand between you and a total outage?
Every SaaS subscription is a bet that the company behind it won't change the price, kill the feature, or lock you out. Most people don't think about this until the email arrives: “We're updating our pricing.” By then you're trapped. Your data is in their format. Your workflows are built on their API. Your team knows their UI, not the alternative.
I've been on both sides. I've built SaaS products and I've been locked into them. The math is simple: if you can't export it, migrate it, or replace it in a weekend — you don't own it. It owns you.
This was the page's argument for examining what to self-host and what to rent. Ownership and portability involve costs, maintenance and dependencies of their own.
The Earlier Cost Comparison
Figures claimed in the earlier edition, preserved for context.
Historical comparison
Earlier SaaS Cost Claims
Not a current invoice
AI API (GPT/Claude)
Local LLM
$200/mo
Claimed $0
Analytics Platform
Plausible (self-hosted)
$50/mo
Claimed $0
Email Marketing
Listmonk + SMTP
$99/mo
Claimed $5/mo
CMS / Website Builder
Next.js + MDX
$79/mo
Claimed $0
Cloud Hosting (per app)
VPS / own hardware
$120/mo
Claimed $20/mo
Project Management
Plane (self-hosted)
$30/mo
Claimed $0
File Storage
MinIO / local NAS
$25/mo
Claimed $0
Monitoring & Logs
Grafana + Loki
$45/mo
Claimed $0
Earlier listed stack
$648/mo
Earlier alternative estimate
$25/mo
The earlier comparison implied $7,476/year, or $37,380 over five years. These are arithmetic projections from those assumptions.
No invoice, currency, reporting period or full-cost method is supplied here. The comparison does not establish measured savings and omits the cost of hardware, electricity, maintenance, security, backups and migration work.
The Weekend Test
The earlier page proposed this portability test. The outcomes below were assumptions, not measured migration times:
“If this disappeared tomorrow, could I replace it by Monday?”
Your AI provider raises prices 5x
Earlier claim: run Llama/Mistral locally in an afternoon. Hardware, workload and output quality need testing.
Your analytics platform gets acquired and sunsets
Earlier claim: Plausible deploys in 10 minutes. Installation time does not establish a complete migration.
Your email platform suspends your account
Can you export your list? Do you own your sending domain?
Your CMS company pivots and kills your plan
Markdown and Git can help portability; media, URLs, integrations and backups still need a migration plan.
Your cloud provider has a 48-hour outage
Is your data in one region? One provider? One account?
Your payment processor freezes your funds
Do you have a backup processor already connected?
Your project management tool shuts down
Check whether a CSV export preserves the records, attachments and workflow you need.
Your domain registrar locks your domain
Do you control the DNS? Is the registrar transfer-friendly?
The icons reflect the earlier framework's assumptions. Test recovery against your own workload before treating a dependency as replaceable.
The Stack Described in the Earlier Edition
Preserved descriptions and savings claims. This display is not connected to live infrastructure or monitoring.
Earlier stack assertions
Llama 3, Mistral, CodeLlama on Mac Studio
Earlier claim: ~$200/mo vs API
Next.js on Cloud Run, self-managed
Earlier claim: ~$79/mo vs Webflow
Ghost (self-hosted) + MDX
Earlier claim: ~$50/mo vs managed Ghost
SendGrid SMTP, own domain, exportable list
Earlier claim: ~$80/mo vs Mailchimp
Plausible CE, self-hosted
Earlier claim: ~$50/mo vs GA360
PostgreSQL on managed instance, daily backups
Earlier claim: Full data ownership
GitHub + GitHub Actions
Earlier claim: Portable, git-based
GCS buckets, own encryption keys
Earlier claim: ~$25/mo vs Dropbox Business
Earlier operational assertion
The page previously asserted all systems were operational with no critical vendor dependencies. No live status, availability history or dependency measurement is provided here.
This isn't about being anti-SaaS. It's about choosing which dependencies are worth it — and owning the ones that aren't.
Part of the Same Thesis
Tech sovereignty is one layer. These are the others.
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