Build or Buy? Why In-House Solutions Often Fail

Product teams often start with YAML or Drools, but they then encounter scaling issues, rising costs, and poor business adoption. Nected is a faster alternative: a flexible, production-ready decision engine that you can use from day one.

Launch in Days Not Months, 10x Cheaper Dev in 12 Months, No Infra Maintenance or Monitoring, Business Teams Control Logic, Versioning Audit Trails More, Enterprise Security Minus Cost
  • Real-Time Assessment using API Connector
  • Customize Scoring Rules in No-code/low-code
  • Automated Decision-making via CRON
  • Built Complex Scoring Models in Minutes
  • Integration with Third Party Systems
  • Iterate Conditions Instantly

Why Most Internal Rule Engines Can’t Keep Up

Building in-house might seem cost-efficient—until it isn’t. Internal tools often look flexible at first, but fail to keep pace with real-world business needs.

Build Never Stops Icon
'Build' never stops
What starts as a simple rule engine turns into a full-blown system: pipelines, infra, data handling, deployments, test orchestration. You're not building a tool—you’re building a product you'll have to maintain forever.
Engineering vs Business Velocity Icon
Engineering ≠ Business Velocity
Only a fraction of the work is logic. The rest is scaffolding. Business teams still depend on dev bandwidth for every update, so agility suffers, and backlog grows.
Cost Over Time Icon
It’s Not Cheaper in the Long Run
Open source isn’t free once you add infrastructure, developer hours, and scaling challenges. By year two, the “savings” vanish, replaced by ongoing overhead and firefighting.
No Interface for Business Icon
No Interface for Business Teams
Homegrown tools lack access controls, audit logs, or a usable UI. So, business users wait on Jira tickets, and engineers become bottlenecks for every small rule change.

Not Just Inefficient—In-House Rule Engines Are Costly Too

Before you commit engineering hours and budget to building a decision engine—or wiring Drools into production—pause and run the numbers.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5

ROI Comparison

Total Cost of Ownership

Hard Coded
(In-House)
$137,500
cumulative
$75K–$200K initial
Open Source
(In-House)
$85,000
cumulative
$50K–$120K initial
$6,500
cumulative
$4K–$9K (Startup)
Time to First Value 6–12+ months 4–6 months <1 week
Developer Headcount 2–4 FTEs 1–2 FTEs 0–0.5 FTEs
Iteration Speed 2–3 weeks/change 1–2 weeks/change Live updates in minutes
Business User Access No (dev-only) No (custom UI) Yes (visual)
Audit, Versioning, SLA Manual / None Custom impl. Built-in controls
Total 5‑Year Cost $350K–$440K+ $260K–$350K+ ~$100K–$150K
INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS
One Tool for All Industries

Financial Services

Provide personalized financial services by automating credit scoring, risk assessment, and dynamic pricing tailored to individual customers.

Insurance

Improve efficiency and accuracy. Nected's low-code platform empowers insurance companies to automate workflows and enhance claims processing.

E-Commerce

Deliver personalized shopping experiences with automated workflows that power dynamic discounts, targeted promotions, and customer segmentation.

Aviation

Enhance the customer travel experience with optimized pricing, seamless payment routing, and advanced risk management workflows.

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Improve patient care and engagement with workflows that streamline compliance, clinical decision-making, and onboarding processes.

Automotive

Deliver smarter customer experiences with automated lead scoring, dynamic pricing for car sales, and advanced fraud detection workflows.

Transportation & Logistics

Enhance customer deliveries with workflows that automate payment routing, risk management, and lead allocation for seamless logistics.

Financial Services

Streamline financial operations with automated risk assessment, credit scoring, and contract-based dynamic pricing. Adapt pricing structures based on transaction volumes, client tiers without manual oversight.

Insurance

Optimize healthcare workflows with automated underwriting, claims processing, and regulatory compliance. Implement real-time decisioning for insurance approvals, patient onboarding, and medical billing automation.

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Drive healthcare innovation with workflows designed for compliance, clinical rule engines, and patient onboarding, improving operational accuracy and efficiency.

E-Commerce

Enhance your business operations with automated workflows that optimize pricing strategies, promotional campaigns, and inventory management for seamless scalability.

Aviation

Streamline aviation operations by automating transaction routing, mitigating risks, and implementing dynamic pricing strategies to optimize efficiency.

Automotive

Deliver smarter customer experiences with automated lead scoring, dynamic pricing for car sales, and advanced fraud detection workflows.

Transportation & Logistics

Enhance operational efficiency with automated shipment pricing, dynamic lead allocation, and real-time payment routing. Ensure seamless coordination between vendors and optimize pricing for bulk shipping contracts.

They Built Internally. Then Moved to Nected.

Real teams tried building internal solutions. Here’s what happened next.

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Greg R.

Tech Lead, Sidecar Health (Healthcare · 500+ Employees)

"Our internal system was flexible—but painfully slow to update."
"We built a basic rule engine in-house to manage pricing rules. It gave us control, but every rule update required dev coordination and full QA cycles. Over time, changes slowed down ops. Once we moved those flows to Nected, we instantly saw results. Pricing logic became business-owned. Today, we're expanding it across routing, too—without touching infra."
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Kartik Raina

Engineering Manager, Tata 1mg (HealthTech · 1,000+ Employees)

"We spent months building flows that Nected gave us in days."
"At 1mg, we built custom logic to handle pricing and customer workflows. The architecture worked—until we needed speed. Rollouts were blocked on sprints, and business teams couldn't touch logic. Nected changed that. What used to take us three months of dev work, we shipped in three weeks—with zero regression. Ops and support overhead dropped too."
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Souradeep Paul

Director of Product, Brightchamps (EdTech · 500+ Employees)

"Every product change needed backend support. It didn't scale."
"Our in-house rule logic was hardcoded into our backend—every small logic tweak went through engineering. We knew it wasn't scalable. Once we moved our logic to Nected, we could iterate without dev involvement. It reduced our development time by 50% and gave us modularity we didn't have before. We're shipping faster—and without creating tech debt."
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Head of Strategy

Wealthright (FinTech · 200+ Employees)

"We couldn't iterate on incentives fast enough—until we left our scripts behind."
"We initially handled incentive logic with code and Excel-based systems. Updates were slow, testing was manual, and business teams couldn't experiment. With Nected, we moved that entire process into dynamic workflows. Now our ops team updates rules themselves. Development is 80% faster, and we've eliminated rollout delays entirely."

What Nected Does That In-house team can't

While in-house teams locks you into technical complexity and a huge time delay, Nected gives you both easy execution with faster iteration:

Low-Code/No-Code Platform
Nected enables users to define and manage rules without the need for extensive coding, making rule management accessible to a broader audience.
Schedular
Along with Triggering Nected rules and workflow via API, you can also schedule rules and workflow to run at periodic intervals.
Attach Action & Rule Result
Define actions to be called based on rule result. Integrate via DB & REST API connectors to update output back or trigger pre-defined actions for seamless workflow automation.
Seamless Integration
Nected offers seamless integration with various platforms and systems, enabling efficient implementation in diverse environments.
API Support
Access robust API support for extended functionality and integration with external applications.
Pre-built Templates
Start quickly with pre-built rule templates that can be customized as needed, saving time and effort in rule setup.
SLA & Millisecond Performance
Never let decisions break, with 99.9% uptime, millisecond response times, and committed SLAs for fixes, so your business logic stays fast and reliable.
Versatile Rule Types
Don’t limit your logic. Use SimpleRules, DecisionTables, Decision Tree, or RuleSets to build complex decisions with zero tech dependency.
Scalable, Elastic Integrations
Built on a cloud-native architecture, Nected auto-scales with your load, keeps latency in the milliseconds, and integrates securely with any system, no matter the scale.
Collaborative Environment
Foster teamwork with a platform that supports collaboration, allowing team members to work together on rule management.
Accessibility for Non-Developers
Make rule management accessible to non-developers, including business analysts and project managers, through a user-friendly interface.
Version Control
Maintain integrity and track changes with built-in version control, ensuring that rule modifications are manageable and transparent.
The result? You get enterprise-grade decision automation without enterprise-grade complexity.

Stop babysitting brittle logic. Start scaling with Nected

Used by teams across 500+ companies globally

See Nected vs In-House Build in 15 Minutes

Watch how fast you can deliver decision automation with Nected—what would normally take months of internal development and ongoing maintenance.

In this demo, you’ll see:

  • Rules and workflows built visually, without custom code
  • Instant testing and one-click deployment (no CI/CD setup required)
  • Seamless integrations without writing custom connectors
  • Business teams updating logic directly, without developer bottlenecks
  • Monitoring, versioning, and rollback built-in from day one

Perfect for: Engineering leaders evaluating build vs buy, product managers pushing for faster delivery, and executives seeking predictable costs and rapid ROI.

Trusted by Developers, Enterprises, and Business Analysts

Nected empowers organizations and professionals globally to streamline rule management and enhance their operational workflows.

10K+
Users across various sectors
4.6
Customer satisfaction score
1M+
Rules executed monthly

Like Building It Yourself—Only Faster, Cheaper, and Scalable

Full Control & Flexibility
Nected provides developer-level control through a low-code/no-code interface—allowing both technical and non-technical teams to define and manage rules easily.
Cost Savings with Open-Source Tools
Open-source tools seem affordable but increase long-term maintenance effort. Nected delivers predictable pricing and reduced overhead.
Rapid Deployment
Pre-built integrations and a clean UI allow Nected to go live in days, not months—avoiding delays common with in-house builds.
Business-Friendly Interface
In-house UIs can slow down business teams. Nected’s intuitive, no-code dashboard puts rule control directly in their hands.
Built-In Experimentation & Testing
A/B testing in custom builds is difficult to implement. Nected has native experimentation tools—enabling logic testing without added effort.
Comprehensive Governance & Compliance
Audit trails, version control, rollback, and certifications are built in—ensuring governance and compliance from day one.
Talk with our Experts

Check How Nected Performs compared to Others

Learn how TATA 1mg delivered 3 months of sprint in 3 weeks using Nected's Rule-Engine and Workflow.
Learn how Brightchamps reduced repetitive tech tasks by 80% with Nected.
Learn how Vidyakul optimized it's revenue and leads funnel in just 20 days with Nected.
Learn how Torch streamlined it's logistics and policies with Nected.
Learn how a global aviation giant supercharged their operations and marketing with Nected.
Learn how a client based B2B SaaS tool leveraged Nected to build seamless functions for many.
Learn how this Fintech company streamlined it's credit and lending policies with Nected.
Learn how Sidecar Health partnered with Nected to optimize health services, improve operational workflows, and deliver superior patient experiences through advanced automation.
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Start using the Future of Decision Automation today

Q

Why shouldn’t we just build our own decision engine in-house?

Many teams try, but in-house builds take 6–12 months to reach basic functionality, require a dedicated dev team, and pile on ongoing maintenance. Nected ships production-ready in days, with workflows, rule versioning, analytics, and integrations already built-in.

Can Nected handle complex, custom logic like an in-house system would?

Yes. Nected supports nested rules, decision trees, scoring models, and enterprise-scale workloads. Developers can extend it via APIs and SDKs, while business teams configure logic visually — so you get both flexibility and speed.

How does the long-term cost compare to building in-house?

In-house builds carry hidden costs — developer salaries, infra, upgrades, compliance, and support. Over 3–5 years, Nected typically costs 60–80% less, since you avoid re-inventing what’s already solved.

What about integrations? Our systems are unique.

Nected provides pre-built connectors for databases, APIs, CRMs, ERPs, and payment systems. Anything custom can connect via our REST API. In practice, integrations are usually faster and more reliable than in-house connectors.

How scalable is Nected? Can it match what we’d build ourselves?

Absolutely. Nected is cloud-native and handles millions of calls per minute with sub-200ms response times. Auto-scaling ensures performance under peak loads, without the ops burden your team would shoulder in-house.

What deployment options are available?

Unlike a one-off in-house build, Nected offers SaaS (fully managed), Private Cloud, and On-Premise deployments. You choose the model that fits your compliance and data residency requirements.

Is Nected as customizable as a system we’d build ourselves?

Nected combines configurability (extendable via APIs and scripts) with usability (drag-and-drop builder for non-technical teams). You get the control of an in-house build without the complexity tax of maintaining it.

How secure is Nected?

Security is built in from day one: SOC 2, ISO, GDPR readiness, RBAC, SSO, audit logs, versioning, and encryption. With in-house builds, you’d have to implement and maintain these controls yourself.

What about compliance and auditability?

Nected provides decision logs, rollback protection, audit trails, and governance out of the box. These are features most in-house teams underestimate and end up bolting on later at great cost.

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★★★★
“Limited Collaboration for Non-Technical Teams”
“Camunda’s complexity makes it difficult for non-technical team members to participate in rule management, limiting overall project efficiency.”
Leo M.

Business Analyst

★★★★
“Slow Iterations”
“Adapting to rapidly changing business requirements is challenging with Camunda. The need for technical intervention at every step slows down the process."
William R.

IT Consultant

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Scalability Issues”
“As our project scaled, we faced significant performance issues with Camunda. Optimizing for scalability required considerable effort and resources.”
Lucy C.

Investment Banker

★★★★
“Learning Curve”
“It requires a lot of effort to learn how to use it. I don't see good integration with cloud solution. It looks not enough resource/doc on how to run on distributed systems”
Adam J.

Project Manager

★★★★
“Limited Collaboration for Non-Technical Teams”
“Camunda’s complexity makes it difficult for non-technical team members to participate in rule management, limiting overall project efficiency.”
Leo M.

Business Analyst

★★★★
“Slow Iterations”
“Adapting to rapidly changing business requirements is challenging with Camunda. The need for technical intervention at every step slows down the process."
William R.

IT Consultant

★★★★
“Scalability Issues”
“As our project scaled, we faced significant performance issues with Camunda. Optimizing for scalability required considerable effort and resources.”
Lucy C.

Investment Banker

★★★★
“Learning Curve”
“It requires a lot of effort to learn how to use it. I don't see good integration with cloud solution. It looks not enough resource/doc on how to run on distributed systems”