I was just reading a recent post on the VistaDB blog titled Looking ahead to 2008, and back at 2007. (What's funny is that I have no idea who is writing the blog post because they don't seem to post their name though they're trying to be 'transparent' about their business and plans!).

In any case, this was part that made me think:

Where we are lacking is in sales, marketing and business partners. The website and store have to be overhauled, and the training of new users to ADO.NET and VistaDB needs serious work. This is not just documentation; it is also samples, case studies and tutorials. We do have a few strong partners, but we need to do much more to get the word out about VistaDB. Not just about the engine, but about the philosophy of managed code, and why we are doing all this in the first place (the business case).

As a hobbyist developer at home, my "buy a widget" budget is extremely limited. It's really hard to convince the CFO (wife), that I need some widget or tool for an application I'm writing for home use (I've been successful a total of one time in 10 years in buying a widget). So, I'll spend hours scouring the Internet for other options, or writing it from scratch (or deciding I don't need as badly as I originally thought).

At work, we can buy components of course that fit various needs. I'm sure this is true of many development shops, from internal IT tools, to departmental applications, to commercial applications that are being sold.

But, where do you draw the line (both personally and for work)? How much effort are you willing to put into a 'widget' before you decide that it's worth buying instead? In this example, the product they're selling is VistaDB 3.3:

... is the world's first  100% fully managed and typesafe embedded SQL database designed specifically for Microsoft .NET Framework, Compact Framework, 64-bit .NET and Mono. Build fully managed and typesafe ASP.NET and WinForms applications using C#, VB.NET and other CLR-compliant languages.

At $169 currently, it's not a very compelling product if I'm being frugal about money spent (raw dollars, ignoring time here). Looking around at free options that are immediately available from Microsoft as competitors, I could use an Access database or SQL Server Express database, or even a SQL Server Compact database. All are decent options -- and available for no charge from Microsoft. They each have limitations on the number of connected users and the size of the database, but for many applications (especially home users), these limitations aren't an issue. The compact edition is especially nice as it doesn't require any special installation.

If my needs were relatively simple, I'd go with one of the free options -- no questions asked. If my needs scaled, I'd likely go with SQL Server as it has the best growth and management opportunities (well known, etc.).

So, where does that leave a product like VistaDB? If you believed that having a 100% fully managed embedded SQL database is important, then it may be a good option and worthy of potentially purchasing (after a thorough test). But, if you're not as interested or don't believe that it's that big of a deal, then there are many database options that you could employ in an application.

Sometimes it makes sense to build yourself. However, writing a decent database should rarely be on the "build it yourself" lists (I don't consider an XML file to be a database). Clearly, either buying a database or taking advantage of a free option is really the only choice when considering a database.

Although I've been talking about mostly databases in this post, I'm more interested in hearing the answer to what types of things you'd be more likely to buy rather than build? Is there some price point where you decide that the 3rd party product costs too much, so you'll look elsewhere?

What should a company like VistaDB do for hobbyist developers? Should they offer free versions for home use? Or, provide free versions to developers who link back to their site (and provide a review / feedback)? Or ...

There's no way for example, I'd buy VistaDB for home use, which means I'm not likely to talk about successes, provide feedback, etc., on my blog, which would amount to "free" advertising. It's a tough call for any vendor.