Build vs Buy: Enterprise Identity Management for SaaS Companies

A practical guide comparing the trade-offs of building an in-house enterprise identity stack (SAML, OIDC, SCIM, MFA, audit logs) versus buying a managed provider or self-hosting Keycloak: it estimates multi-month engineering timelines and six-figure three-year TCO for building, describes faster time-to-revenue with managed platforms, notes self-hosting shifts costs to DevOps, and recommends buying for most SaaS companies unless identity is core or regulatory constraints demand control.