The honest trade-off
Off-the-shelf software is cheap to acquire, proven and familiar — and it forces your business into its assumptions. Custom software fits your processes exactly, costs more up front and takes longer. The decision is about where the friction is worst, not which is 'better'.
When to buy, when to build
Buy when a good packaged product exists, your process is standard, and the risk of that product's roadmap is acceptable. Build when your process is genuinely different and gives you an advantage, when you need deep integration across existing systems, or when you want to own the code you depend on.
The pragmatic middle is a hybrid: standard tools where the market has already solved the problem, custom the parts that actually differentiate you. That is usually the best value of all.
