As an indie founder, the temptation to just plug in external APIs for everything (analytics, email, content processing) is huge when you start out. But as soon as you scale, those external service fees start eating your margins alive—not to mention the data privacy issues.
Lately, my focus has been on shifting as much infrastructure as possible to local, dedicated environments. Running open-source models locally and hosting independent, custom analytic setups has completely eliminated my external fees and given me 100% control over the codebase.
Where do you draw the line between buying convenience and building your own stack? What are you self-hosting right now to keep your digital infrastructure lean and private?