Building my own tools to depend on no one

In my life as a developer, on the personal side (I don’t talk about work, ahem, NDAs and all that…), I’ve always leaned on third-party tools to save myself effort: hosting, the database, authentication, mailing. All those pieces we end up delegating out of laziness or convenience and that, added up, charge you an arm and a leg.

For a while now I’ve been setting up these services myself or hunting for cheap alternatives that let me keep building without much trouble.

What I’ve already solved

• Hosting: I started by getting it off my plate with Vercel. Over time I picked up a basic subscription that’s more than enough for my projects.
• Database: I use Turso, which is basically distributed SQLite, and in practice it’s free for me. A great 2-for-1 alongside hosting.
• Mailing: with Nodemailer and Gmail I can send and receive email without spending a dime.

The tough one: authentication

The trickiest part is, as almost always, authentication. I started by delegating it to Auth0 and I still have a fair few projects using it. But I’m building my own auth system so I don’t depend on it.

// Own auth: full control, one less thing to pay for
const session = await auth.verify(token);
if (!session) throw new Unauthorized();

It’s complex and demands more care and attention than the rest, but I’ve already got it well on track.

The goal is to depend less and less on external providers, or to have the few I keep solve several pains at once.

It’s not about saving a few bucks (though that too), it’s about really understanding how each layer of what I build works. And, while I’m at it, not getting caught with my pants down the day a provider decides to raise prices or shut off the tap.