Quindar | Build vs. Buy

You didn't launch your satellite to become a software company.

And yet, if you're building internal tools, maintaining open-source codebases, or duct-taping ops workflows together, that's exactly what you're becoming.

In a world of rapid launches, hybrid fleets, and increasing pressure to deliver fast, some common myths are quietly holding your team back. Let's bust the big ones.

1. "Open Source is Free."

Open source might look cheap upfront. But the costs show up in:

Time spent maintaining middleware.
Hiring engineers who now own the platform and software stack.
Lost sleep over bugs and responding to outages – remember ops is a 24/7 job.

"Free" isn't free when you're the one on the hook for uptime. Open source can be great, but only if you're ready to run a full-on software shop.

Spoiler: you probably didn't sign up for that.

2. "We Don't Need to Integrate with Other Satellite Manufacturers."

Until you do.

You might start with one vendor, one bus, one clean setup. But things change:

You need more SWAP and have to upgrade your bus.
Your first satellite didn't work as well as you expected but it's still in orbit.
Supply chain issues cause you to diversify.
Your next-gen mission moves to a new bus manufacturer but you still have the legacy system to fly and support.

Now you're juggling multiple satellite platforms, all with different flight software, telemetry schemas, and ground expectations. And it's on you to make them look and feel unified to the ops team – across vendors, APIs, and generations.

And here's the part no one says out loud:
"I've done this before."

But most haven't. They haven't integrated with multiple antenna providers at the same time, each with their own APIs, capabilities, and contract terms. They haven't unified ops across buses running entirely different flight stacks, and make it seamless to the user.

That's not a tooling challenge, that's an architecture problem. And Quindar was built to solve it – a mission-agnostic platform that lets you operate across satellite generations, vendors, and constellations without rebuilding from scratch.

3. "We Need to Own the Whole Stack."

There's a difference between control and overhead.

Building your own stack might feel strategic, but in reality, it often slows you down and burns cycles, resources, and capital that could be spent on the mission. A strong partner expands your capabilities, gives you access to a broader network, and lets you stay focused on the things that actually differentiate your business.

4. "We'll Figure Out Complaince Later."

Delaying security and compliance is a fast way to kill your future contacts and credibility.

Government and enterprise customers care about controls or frameworks like NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, FedRAMP, classified capabilities, and audit-ready software packages. Quindar bakes those in from day one, so you're not backtracking when opportunity knocks.

Being compliant isn't about checkboxes. It's about being ready to grow.

5. "We Can Do It Cheaper In-House."

Short-term savings often come with long-term costs.

Between IT, software developers, and operators, managing the system is a 24/7 job.
Ops engineers doing double-duty as software maintainers and not focusing on the future.
Slow mission onboarding.
Break/fix fire drills at scale.
Growing technical debt that stalls future progress.

What looks cheaper today can become a bottleneck tomorrow. Partnering with a platform like Quindar means lower total cost of ownership, and fewer distractions from what actually matters.