18.6%About 1 in 5of developers built in-house software in the past year (or plan to) to replace paid vendors; over half of them use AI to do it
18.6% of developers built in-house software in the past year (or plan to) to replace paid vendors; over half of them use AI to do it (Jun to Aug 2026, Stack Overflow, Stack Overflow Developer Survey)
SurveyChecked at source, 23 Oct 2026All sizesGlobalSaaS · Build vs buy
18.6% of developers built in-house software in the past year (or plan to) to replace paid vendors; over half of them use AI to do it (Jun to Aug 2026).
18.6%
the latest figure (Jun to Aug 2026)
Survey
type of source
Why you can trust it. Stack Overflow, Stack Overflow Developer Survey: survey, sampled survey with a published method. Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026, 30,903 responses; this question n = 13,338.
18.6% of developers built in-house software in the past year (or plan to) to replace paid vendors; over half of them use AI to do it
Data period
Jun to Aug 2026 (ends 5 Aug 2026)
Published by the source
6 Oct 2026
Who is counted
Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026, 30,903 responses; this question n = 13,338.
In the source's words
Replacing paid vendors | 2,482 | 18.6%
Checked at source
23 Oct 2026: Read on survey.stackoverflow.co 2026 overview (Markdown edition), question BuildTool, n = 13,338. Self-selected survey. New stat.
Reuse
Survey data under the Open Database Licence (ODbL 1.0). Self-selected online survey, mostly Stack Overflow users; not a random sample of all developers. Question wording changes between years.
Next expected update
31 Oct 2027 (Stack Overflow, yearly (2026 results 6 Oct 2026))
No changes recorded yet. First checked at the source on 23 Oct 2026.
Cite this number
APA
Stack Overflow. (2026). 18.6% of developers built in-house software in the past year (or plan to) to replace paid vendors; over half of them use AI to do it. Via digitaltreed, https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/saas/developers-building-tools-to-replace-paid-vendors
MLA
"18.6% of developers built in-house software in the past year (or plan to) to replace paid vendors; over half of them use AI to do it." Stack Overflow, Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Jun to Aug 2026. digitaltreed, https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/saas/developers-building-tools-to-replace-paid-vendors.
HTML link
<a href="https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/saas/developers-building-tools-to-replace-paid-vendors">18.6% of developers built in-house software in the past year (or plan to) to replace paid vendors; over half of them use AI to do it</a> (Stack Overflow, Jun to Aug 2026)
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FAQ
Questions about this number
What is the latest figure for build vs buy (Global)?
18.6% of developers built in-house software in the past year (or plan to) to replace paid vendors; over half of them use AI to do it, for Jun to Aug 2026, according to Stack Overflow, Stack Overflow Developer Survey. We checked it at the source on 23 Oct 2026.
Related
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Official dataAll sizesUSA
$177.0B
revenue of US software publishers in the second quarter of 2026, up 14.7% from a year earlier (seasonally adjusted)
Sample: Quarterly Services Survey of US employer firms; 2017 NAICS 5112 software publishers. Relative standard error about 5% for the level.
