You need an LLM capability in production. Buying access to an external model can get you moving quickly, but deploying a capability you control may better fit the work you need it to do. The decision is not simply which model is best: it is which approach fits the project now and its likely production requirements. section 1.2 section 1.2.2
Weigh the trade-offs rather than treating either route as the default:
- Buy when time to market, ease of use, and a relatively low initial cost matter most. External offerings can help a team test an idea without first taking on the harder work of building. section 1.2 section 1.2.2
- Build when privacy, control, flexibility, cost over time, or regulatory requirements make ownership important. Building is the more difficult path, so those benefits need to justify the effort. section 1.2.2
- Treat sensitive third-party data processing as a trust decision, not an automatic prohibition. It calls for high levels of trust and contracts. section 1.2.2
Buy first, then reassess
A team might use a GPT-4 or Databricks subscription to prototype quickly, raise funding, or gain stakeholder buy-in. Before production, it can reconsider whether a third-party solution meets its privacy, control, and flexibility needs. Buying and building can be choices for different phases of the same project. section 1.2.2
