The old saying, “there are multiple ways to skin a cat,” rings true for observability pipelines. When a team is convinced of the need, they’ll likely want to consider and investigate all their options. They’ll wonder: could we build this ourselves to save money and maintain full control? Yes, they might be able to. There are enough open-source solutions on the market that a team might be able to cobble together something to implement an observability pipeline. The question is should they? Before building something, one should consider:

1. Can we afford to build it?
2. Can we afford to maintain it?
3. Do we have the expertise to build and maintain it, and/or how long will it take to learn?
4. Will (and when) we see a return on investment?
5. Is this project within the scope of our normal operations? (can we deliver at scale and on time for our stakeholders, and continue to do so in the future?)