Why relying on a third-party tool is easier than building your own infrastructure for videos

Every so often, a recurring question pops up during our discussions with prospective clients:

 

Why should we use a third-party provider for our video infrastructure? Isn’t it cheaper and easier to build it ourselves for our product?

 

This is a simple and fundamentally rational question that should be explored by anyone who is building an app or a website that relies on video functionality. Over time, we have collected some important aspects and arguments on this topic to help you understand the complexity and the amount of effort that goes into building and maintaining video infrastructure. This article aims to give you deeper insight and a broader perspective on why working with third-party video infrastructure providers can be a more reasonable choice.

 

Our first-hand experience at building infrastructure underscores the time and effort required for its development and upkeep. Check out this blog that talks about all that our video infrastructure entails.

 

We will explore four main aspects: cost, effort, time, and freedom.

Cost

Developing your own video infrastructure is a significant undertaking. The costs aren't just financial; they cover planning, development, testing, deployment, and ongoing maintenance. Consider the engineering hours you must invest throughout each of these phases. When you build your own infrastructure, you're not just creating a small part of your product—you're also forcing yourself to bear the continuous costs of updating and maintaining that system. Third-party providers like api.video, on the other hand, benefit from economies of scale - enabling us to offer free encoding for unlimited video minutes - which can be more cost-effective than any in-house solution.

Effort

The effort required to manage an in-house video infrastructure is substantial. From hiring and managing a dedicated team of infrastructure engineers to handling the legal aspects of running and maintaining a platform, the resource investment is enormous. You also need to consider the technological updates required, such as improving hardware (like when we introduced ASICs-based encoding), which can divert focus from your core product developments. Third-party services manage these burdens for you, enabling your team to focus on innovation and growth rather than infrastructure maintenance.

Time

Time is a critical factor when you develop your own product. Building an infrastructure from scratch is not only slow but also ties up resources that you could better utilize in areas like user experience and feature development. Third-party providers offer video infrastructure which is ready to integrate and use, significantly reducing the time you need to enter the market. Check out our Catalog to see how easy it is to utilize our infrastructure regardless of the platform that you’re building your product on.

Freedom

Using third-party tools offers flexibility that a home-grown solution simply cannot match. You have the freedom to choose from a wide range of providers, each offering different features and pricing models. This choice enables you to select a service that best fits your specific needs without being locked into a single proprietary solution. If your chosen solution no longer meets your needs, you can switch providers without the sunk costs associated with abandoning your custom-built infrastructure.

Closing thoughts

While building your own video infrastructure may seem appealing, the practicalities usually prove otherwise. The costs, effort, time, and commitment required to maintain a homemade solution can quickly outweigh the initial desire for a quick and cost-effective development.

 

api.video offers scalable, ready-to-use services that not only support industries like online learning and e-commerce, but also integrate seamlessly, enabling you to focus on what truly matters—growing your business and enhancing your product.

 

Check out our pricing and sign-up for a free sandbox account now to see first-hand how it works!