One of the most common questions for any developer-focused product is whether to build or buy. At first glance, building in-house seems to offer full control and customization, at the cost of significant time, resources, and ongoing maintenance—often diverting engineers from core product innovation.
A while ago I wrote, why Terraform tool is not enough for SaaS here. Today, I am extending the same series for Helm -- covering the purpose they serve and why they are NOT enough to build your cloud offering or control plane.
Helm charts are widely used for Kubernetes application deployment, offering a templated approach to package and manage applications. However, when it comes to building a full-fledged SaaS control plane, relying solely on Helm is not enough.
In our previous post on BYOC, we discussed different approaches to SaaS distribution and specifically discussed BYOC model in detail.
However, many of our BYOC customers have the need to distribute their software on-premises, who are looking to retain full control and get assistance on an as-needed basis. Introducing OnPrem CoPilot, a way for your support team to automate their OnPrem operations.
Like BYOC, you deploy your application in the customers' account. Unlike BYOC though, your customers will retain the full control and whenever they need help — whether it’s for initial installation, software upgrades, security patches, infrastructure updates, troubleshooting support, etc.— they can connect securely and get help for specific operation(s). Once done, they can continue to have full control and continue to operate independently.
"Omnistrate made it easy for us to launch AutoDBA as a SaaS product. Their platform took care of the complexities of scaling and managing different environments, so we could focus on building features our users love. With Omnistrate, we’ve been able to deliver a consistent, high-quality experience across all PostgreSQL setups." — Neil Thombre, VP of Engineering
Applications are only as good as the data that powers them, and companies are putting more and more restrictions on where their proprietary data is accessible from. In 2025 we see these issues accelerating even faster, as companies will find even more reasons to not allow their proprietary data outside of their realm of control.
This means that new applications must be designed with data access in mind, and all new applications must have the ability to be deployed next to their customer’s data, in both physical location (data center) as well as realm of security control (cloud account ownership).
"We chose Omnistrate because it empowered us to deliver on our promise to create a safety-first approach to building & managing AI Applications. The Omnistrate Control Plane as a Service streamlined our deployment process, eliminated infrastructure complexity, and allowed us to focus on innovation and customer experience. With Omnistrate’s robust capabilities, we launched ahead of schedule, under budget and our customers are able to securely deploy our solution anywhere they need it." Haroon Choudery, CEO Autoblocks AI
"In a cloud-native world, Kubernetes is the foundation that lets you move fast—without breaking things."
In today’s landscape of software development, cloud computing has become the standard for application deployment. And when it comes to cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes has emerged over the past decade as the de facto standard for orchestrating and managing containerized applications.
Originally developed by Google and now maintained by the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation), Kubernetes is an open-source, cloud-agnostic platform that addresses many of the complexities involved in deploying, scaling, and operating modern cloud-native applications.
Percona, known for providing world-class open-source database software, has always been at the forefront of innovation. When they needed a fully-managed user experience for databases, they trusted Omnistrate to bring their vision to life with Ivee, in record time.
Omnistrate, if you don’t know it already, is your developer platform to build your B2B SaaS!