Vertical Integration is the only thing that matters
11 days ago
- #productivity
- #developer-tooling
- #vertical-integration
- Vertical integration in developer tooling refers to tight integration between different tools in a stack, enabling seamless workflows.
- Examples of vertically-integrated workflows include shared build artifacts between CI and local builds, interactive test failure debugging, and automated rollbacks for failed deployments.
- Open source projects often lack vertical integration due to small codebases, coordination challenges, and a preference for tools that 'do one thing well.'
- Industrial users value vertical integration for saving engineer time but face high migration costs and organizational inertia when adopting integrated stacks.
- Building a vertically-integrated development environment as a product is challenging due to the need for deep integrations, high migration costs, and resistance from large organizations.
- Startups focusing on vertical integration face risks, including competition from integrated vendors and dependency on third-party APIs.
- The value of vertical integration comes from the entire stack being tightly integrated, making it difficult to sell or replicate without the full context of an organization's infrastructure.