Beyond Build vs Buy: A Flexible Approach to IAM
Buying versus building an IAM solution is an age-old decision. Learn how Ory enables both, build with composable software or use SaaS.

Beyond Build vs Buy: A Flexible Approach to IAM
Traditional IAM Solutions
Prospective buyers come to Ory mostly in two camps:
- Those that built identity and access management (IAM) for customers, employees, or partners and that homegrown solution has become too difficult to update and maintain.
- Those that find commercial solution(s) to be too expensive and continue to have delays/disruption to the log-in experience that simply cannot happen, particularly with customers.
Either way, the chosen solution becomes too expensive.
Traditionally, if organizations wanted the control to customize their users’ log-in experience and workflow, they needed to build the solution themselves. Others gave up that control in order to scale with a commercial solution only to find that delays and disruptions plagued their users' experience and they got hit with double digit percentage price increases to boot.
Organizations are at a bit of a cross-road. Do I own the user experience (UX), but have to build it myself or do I suffer through ridiculous pricing and sub-optimal experiences with a vendor?
Flexible IAM Solutions
With Ory, you don’t have to choose between build vs buy.. you can have both! Allow me to explain: Only Ory gives prospects multiple deployment paths. We have a SaaS solution offering IAM for customers, employees, and partners, but also offer software you can use to build IAM projects in your own vision. Unlike other vendors offering software, Ory is modular.
- Only want to use the MFA bits? Okay.
- Only want to use the fine-grained permission and passkeys components? Okay.
- Want to mix both software and SaaS to deliver your solution? Okay.
Ory is modernizing IAM for your key stakeholders. Modular, customizable, and scalable. This is why some of the most progressive and modern organizations are adopting Ory. We have drafted a paper addressing the advantages and disadvantages of building vs buying. Get your copy of Beyond Build vs. Buy: A Flexible Approach to IAM
Continue your journey with Ory:
Further reading

Bad Robot: What makes Agentic AI good vs. bad?

Understand the risks of insecure MCP implementations and how OAuth keeps your AI agents compliant, trustworthy, and safe.

Secure authentication in Next.js: Best practices & implementation
Learn how to add secure auth to Next.js app in minutes, using our step-by-step guide with code examples for server & client components.