A confession: I used to think “lock‑in” was the price of speed. You picked a big suite, signed the contract, and got on with the real work. Then I watched too many teams hit the same wall: costs up, agility down, compliance headaches, mysterious AI we couldn’t inspect, and “exit clauses” that weren’t exits.
In the last few years, especially as AI took center stage, I changed my mind. The stack you own is the only stack that scales with you. That’s why I advocate Mautic inside an open DXP with Drupal and a CDP. It’s not about software tribalism. It’s about strategy.
