Replit cut back on outside analytics tools in favor of internal ones

When Amjad Masad, the chief executive of the coding startup Replit, was asked which seven-figure software contract his company had dropped in favor of something its own workers built, he said he did not know which one the question referred to.

"I actually don't know that exact one, because it's happening all the time," he said. He said he did not want to talk about vendors by name because, "I feel bad for a lot of SaaS companies."

SaaS means software rented by subscription, and Replit had been renting a lot of it. The example Masad gave was analytics, the dashboards and trackers businesses use to understand what users do. He said the company had used "three or four different analytics products" and had "basically canceled or downsized most" of them in favor of tools built inside Replit.

The problem with the outside products, Masad said, was that they either inserted themselves into web traffic and stored the data themselves, which raised privacy and security concerns, or they connected to only one source of data. By contrast, he said, "The Replit agent can just write a Python program, connect all these sources, and present the interface for you," pulling together the company's data warehouse, where business records are kept, and its main production database.

The swap points to a larger shift in whether companies buy software or build it. If asked a year ago, Masad said, he would have called the choice mixed. Now, he said, a company can unleash an agent to make the first version of a program and then keep maintaining it, taking user feedback and revising the software in what he called an entire autonomous loop.

"So all the reasons for why to buy versus build are going away," he said. He added, "Maintenance is no longer an issue. Security is no longer a big issue." He said, "I think we're close to a point where agents are better at writing secure software and at scanning software for security issues."

Many customers run into a follow-on problem, he said. They build an app that coworkers start using, and then find themselves saying, "I have a job, and now I'm a full-time software developer." His answer is another loop, one that collects requests and lets a manager approve or reject them with something like a swipe left or right, while the agent does the upkeep with only light supervision.

Inside Replit, Masad said, replacements emerge because staff are given room to try things. "It's more the latter. It's like, a thousand flowers bloom." He said every week brings a new invention, some that might become products and some that become internal tools that replace a contract.