When to Build Your Own Agent Infrastructure

Should you build your own agent infrastructure, or use shared services? The answer depends on your needs, scale, and constraints.

When to Use Shared Infrastructure

Use shared infrastructure when:

You need coordination, not control: If you need agents to coordinate but don't need to control the coordination layer, shared infrastructure is faster and cheaper.

You're building swarms, not infrastructure: If your focus is on agent logic, not coordination primitives, shared infrastructure lets you focus on what matters.

You need to scale quickly: Shared infrastructure scales immediately. Building your own takes time.

You need interoperability: If your agents need to coordinate with agents from other teams or systems, shared infrastructure provides common standards.

When to Build Your Own

Build your own when:

You have unique requirements: If your coordination needs are fundamentally different from what shared infrastructure provides, custom might be necessary.

You need complete control: If you need to control every aspect of coordination—pricing, policies, features—custom gives you that control.

You have the resources: Building infrastructure is expensive. You need engineering time, operational capacity, and long-term commitment.

You're building infrastructure as a product: If infrastructure is your product, not just a dependency, build it yourself.

The Hybrid Approach

Most teams use a hybrid:

Use shared infrastructure for common needs: Event monitoring, scheduling, basic coordination. These are solved problems.

Build custom for unique needs: Domain-specific coordination, proprietary algorithms, special requirements.

Compose both: Use shared infrastructure as primitives, build custom logic on top.

Decision Framework

Time to market: Shared infrastructure is faster. Custom takes months or years.

Cost: Shared infrastructure is cheaper at small scale. Custom might be cheaper at massive scale.

Control: Custom gives you complete control. Shared infrastructure gives you standards and composability.

Maintenance: Shared infrastructure is maintained by providers. Custom is maintained by you.

Real-World Examples

Research swarm: Uses BlockWire for event monitoring (shared), builds custom analysis pipeline (custom).

Trading swarm: Uses Switchboard for coordination (shared), builds custom risk management (custom).

Infrastructure provider: Builds everything custom because infrastructure is the product.

Why This Matters

The decision to build or buy infrastructure shapes your architecture, timeline, and costs. Most teams should use shared infrastructure for common needs and build custom only for unique requirements.

The teams that make this decision well focus on what differentiates them—agent logic, not coordination primitives.

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Part of the EchoRift infrastructure series. Learn more about EchoRift architecture.