CNCF-hosted Co-located Events Europe 2025

Organizations often ask themselves when building a new solution whether to develop everything from scratch or integrate existing tools into an end-to-end solution. Kubeflow’s journey was exactly at this crossroads when it started. Part of CNCF as an incubating project, Kubeflow integrates a series of leading open source tools such as Knative, Istio, KServe amongst other AI/ML tools for both predictive and GenAI/LLM applications.

In this panel we will discuss the trade-offs between building a product based on existing tools vs. a DIY approach. We will delve into the key considerations of adding new enhancements and components, based on the developments in the industry and user adoption. The panel will highlight the challenges of being an official distribution of such a product and customer use cases and the influence they had over the project’s roadmap. We will talk through the trials and tribulations that paid off in a win-win outcome for the Kubeflow community and our users.