You are running a DC with thousands of machines, while $700 is not insignificant, it shouldn't be a decision making factor at that size. You could run package manager locally and save on that managed cost if you really wanted to.
As developers we constantly discount the value of our time. Your time in developing/maintaining these scripts is not free.
From an org perspective, to maintain a home grown solution is not free either, inevitably someone would take over this part of your role, they would need skills they otherwise probably won't need to have (making hiring harder/costlier) and they will need more training and also will have to spend time maintaining it.
This is true even if you are the founder of the organization. I thought being a founder where I am going to go so early on built solutions like yours. It turns out that doesn't make any difference The role always changes . As an employee we become older acquire more skills/knowledge/experience and role changes or simply leave the org. As a founder we grow the company and have to hire more people to do what once we did.
I get what you're saying and this isn't my first rodeo. =)
FYI, running it locally would involve buying hardware and maintaining that hardware, at each datacenter (there are multiple). We don't have any server hardware at the data centers.
As developers we constantly discount the value of our time. Your time in developing/maintaining these scripts is not free.
From an org perspective, to maintain a home grown solution is not free either, inevitably someone would take over this part of your role, they would need skills they otherwise probably won't need to have (making hiring harder/costlier) and they will need more training and also will have to spend time maintaining it.
This is true even if you are the founder of the organization. I thought being a founder where I am going to go so early on built solutions like yours. It turns out that doesn't make any difference The role always changes . As an employee we become older acquire more skills/knowledge/experience and role changes or simply leave the org. As a founder we grow the company and have to hire more people to do what once we did.