01
Launch lean, on purpose
Prototypes and v1s go live on managed free tiers and boring single-node setups that carry real production traffic. No Kubernetes, no Kafka, no five-figure cloud bill before your first thousand users.
$ whoami
Startup speed.
Enterprise discipline.
FrugalDevs helps startups launch fast on lean, low-cost infrastructure — and scale it deliberately. Every system ships with a written upgrade path: what to replace, at what load, at what cost. Best practices from the first commit.
// THE APPROACH
Fast doesn't have to mean fragile.
Lean doesn't have to mean sloppy.
02
Scale on a written plan
Every component ships with its successor named: what to switch to when demand grows, at what threshold, and what the migration costs. Growth is a line item, not a rewrite.
03
Enterprise discipline, day one
CI/CD, tests, observability, security review from the first commit — big-company rigor at startup size, so nothing has to be rebuilt to grow up.
Scale when demand does — not before
Your prototype doesn't need Kubernetes. Your first thousand users don't need Kafka. We launch on managed, free-tier and single-node setups that carry real production traffic — and hand you the migration plan for the day they stop being enough.
# the upgrade path, written down
launch → postgres, one box, managed cron
10× → read replicas, managed queue
100× → partitions, kafka, k8s — when it pays
# day one, every time
ci/cd · tests · observability · security review
// BUILD VS BUY
A calculation, not a preference.
if (build) {
- b.01The capability is your moat — renting it means renting your advantage.
- b.02Three-year TCO of the vendor exceeds a senior build, run cost included.
- b.03Lock-in is high: proprietary formats, punitive exit terms, no data portability.
- b.04The vendor covers 60% of the workflow — and the other 40% is where your money is made.
}
else buy {
- y.01It's plumbing — undifferentiated capability the market sells at commodity price.
- y.02Time to value wins: the vendor ships in weeks, a build lands in quarters.
- y.03You'd own a system you can't staff — maintenance outlives the builder.
- y.04The vendor's scale (compliance, uptime, security) isn't worth rebuilding.
}
Every engagement opens with this analysis — three-year total cost of ownership, lock-in priced, integration cost on the sheet. About one in four reports concludes you shouldn't hire us to build anything. You get it in writing either way.
// WHAT WE BUILD
Services
svc/01
Custom Software Development
Product engineering with small senior teams. Boring, reliable stacks chosen for total cost of ownership — not novelty.
svc/02
AI Agents
Production agent systems that automate real workflows — scoped to ROI, with evals and guardrails from day one.
svc/03
Browser Agents
Agents that operate real web UIs: form-filling, portal automation, scraping-grade reliability with human fallbacks.
svc/04
Eval Frameworks
If you can't measure it, you're paying for vibes. Eval harnesses that make model and agent quality a number.
svc/05
Distributed System Design
Consensus, partitioning, failure domains. Systems that scale on paper before they scale on your cloud bill.
svc/06
Data-Intensive System Design
Storage engines, query paths, and throughput math done right — designed around your access patterns, not a vendor's.
svc/07
ETL & Data Stack
Pipelines that don't wake anyone at 3am. We consolidate the seven tools doing one job into one tool doing it well.
svc/08
Cloud & DevOps Support
Right-sized infrastructure, CI/CD, and observability. Usually the first place we cut 30% of spend.
// HOW WE WORK
Small teams. Fixed scopes.
Receipts for every dollar.
Every engagement starts with the spend analysis. You get it whether or not you hire us to build — the recommendation is the product, not the upsell.
# typical engagement
week 1-2 → spend analysis + system map
week 3 → build-vs-buy report, TCO models
week 4+ → build the shortlist, kill the rest
# exit criteria
spend ↓, reliability ↑, lock-in ↓
// CONTACT
Before you sign that next
vendor contract — talk to us.
A one-hour call with an engineer, not a salesperson. You leave with a written recommendation either way.