In today’s app landscape, adding social features like user profiles, activity feeds, and chat has become a powerful way to boost user engagement and retention.
Businesses across industries are realizing that an app is more than a standalone tool; it can evolve into a community hub where users connect and interact. In fact, apps with active in-app communities have been shown to see up to 40% higher user retention than those without. It’s no surprise, then, that many product owners and enterprise teams are searching for “how to add social features to my app” as they plan their product roadmaps. If you’re at this decision point, one critical question looms: Do you build these social features in-house or do you integrate a ready-made solution (buy)? This classic build vs. buy dilemma isn’t new, but it’s especially relevant for social features that can be complex to implement from scratch. The choice you make will impact your time-to-market, budget, scalability, and ultimately the success of your app’s user experience.
Why Social Features Matter
Before weighing build vs. buy, it’s worth understanding why social features are a strategic addition to your app. Social functionality – such as in-app communities, feeds, and chat – can significantly increase user engagement and loyalty. They give your users a reason to return frequently, interact with others, and form a connection around your product’s ecosystem. Rather than using your app in isolation, users become part of a community, which fosters a sense of belonging. This not only keeps users active longer (reducing churn), but also turns satisfied users into advocates who invite friends and help grow your user base organically. In short, integrating social elements can transform your app from a simple tool into a vibrant platform.
Build vs. Buy: Understanding Your Options
When adding social features, you have two main approaches:
- Build In-House: Develop the social features from scratch with your own development team.
- Buy (Integrate a Third-Party SDK/API): Use a pre-built software development kit or API from a vendor (like a social features SDK) to add the functionality into your app.
Each approach has its pros and cons, which we’ll explore below. The right choice depends on your product’s needs, your team’s resources, timeline, and long-term strategy. Let’s dive into what it means to build vs. buy in this context.
What It Takes to Build Social Features In-House
On the surface, building your own social stack might seem like the most flexible route. You own every interaction, shape the experience exactly to your brand, and control the backend. That control can be valuable, especially if your use case is highly specialized or deeply tied to your product logic.
But the scope of work is often much bigger than it looks at first. A basic social layer might include feeds, comments, reactions, and user profiles. Once you add moderation, real-time messaging, notifications, access controls, and scalable storage, it becomes a multi-team effort. Keeping that system secure, up to date, and performant across platforms is not a one-time investment. It is a commitment to years of iteration.
In many cases, building internally leads to:
- A slower time to market
- Strain on already limited engineering resources
- Difficulty scaling without re-architecting
- Ongoing moderation and compliance burden
- Opportunity cost as teams stay focused on infrastructure instead of core product value
Some companies accept those tradeoffs because they have the size, need, and team capacity to justify it. But for many, the real goal is not to build a social platform from scratch. The goal is to add community features that support their product without losing velocity.
The Case for Buying or Partnering
Modern SDKs and platforms now offer a different option. Instead of starting from zero, product teams can integrate prebuilt social components directly into their app. These systems come with infrastructure, scalability, and moderation tools already solved—saving months or even years of development time.
The advantage here is not just speed. It is also focus. Buying a solution lets your product and engineering teams stay focused on what makes your product unique. You can still shape the experience, but without carrying the full technical burden.
An integrated solution can also provide:
- Faster launch cycles and experimentation
- Mobile-optimized UX patterns that have already been tested at scale
- Built-in content moderation and access controls
- Data visibility and ownership
- Ongoing feature improvements without internal maintenance
There is a reason why some of the fastest-growing apps are taking a “social-plus” approach. They embed social interaction directly into their product experience using tools that let them move fast, adapt quickly, and retain ownership of user data and design.
What to Consider When Making the Decision
Before you commit to building from scratch or bringing in a partner, step back and clarify a few things:
- What is the role of community or social interaction in your product vision?
- How much engineering capacity can you dedicate to this effort long term?
- Do you need full control over every feature, or just enough flexibility to shape the experience?
- How quickly do you need to ship and start learning?
- Will your growth depend on scaling engagement across users, teams, or regions?
If your answers point to speed, scale, and strategic focus, buying may offer the right balance of ownership and efficiency. If you need deep customization, unique infrastructure, or are building a platform where social interaction is the core product, then investing in an in-house build might be worth the tradeoffs.
How social.plus Supports Faster, Smarter Integration
social.plus is built for teams asking this exact question. Our SDKs help you add social functionality directly into your app with full control over design and data. You get enterprise-level scalability, flexible APIs, and built-in trust and safety tools, without spending quarters reinventing the infrastructure.
More importantly, social.plus helps you move fast without sacrificing quality. Instead of managing infrastructure, you get to focus on the experience your users care about.
Build What Makes You Different. Buy What Holds You Back.
The smartest product teams are no longer building everything themselves. They are building what sets them apart and buying the rest. When it comes to social functionality, that often means working with tools that provide the foundation so you can focus on the layer that makes your community thrive.
Adding social features is a strategic decision. Make sure your approach supports your roadmap, your team, and your long-term growth.