The concept of composable software is that systems are built and connected with modules. By deploying a composable architecture, companies can repurpose existing code to streamline their toolsets and stay ahead of their competitors.
The idea of composable software is making waves in the customer data platform (CDP) market. Today, while some companies are gravitating toward integrated, purpose-built platforms that deliver on long-standing CDP promises, including real-time identity resolution, seamless activation, personalization, decisioning, and governance, without the operational headaches of a fragmented tech stack, the conversation around composable vs. packaged CDPs has created a false binary in the market. In fact, today, enterprises don’t necessarily need to choose between a complete build or a complete buy.
For many companies, a hybrid approach that delivers flexibility without the burden of custom engineering is going to be the right fit. Forward-looking companies may choose to deploy an innovative hybrid strategy that leans into the strengths of a packaged CDP, with composability layered in.
What is Composable Software?
Composable software components can be swapped easily when needed. This allows code to be written once and reused across multiple instances by breaking core applications into specialized microservices. Microservices make applications easier to scale and faster to develop, which can help to improve innovation and speed up time-to-market. They typically communicate through APIs.
Composable systems are distinguishable from platform architectures in that every component can be replaced, and no component is required for the entire system to function. In a platform architecture, replaceable modules depend on a shared core system that cannot be moved.
A CDP can be looked at as a composable module of the larger marketing technology stack, something that can be easily switched out for new software when needed, and that allows other software modules to be swapped out easily, too.
Since CDPs are built from the ground up with built-in connectors or APIs, they can help companies make their technology stack easier to integrate and interconnect. A CDP makes it easier to collect and share data between different platforms, making it more practical for companies to use multiple best-of-breed Martech platforms. This allows brands to reduce dependence on a single vendor when building an ideal tech stack.
What is a Composable CDP?
According to the CDP Institute, a composable CDP “refers to an architecture where customer profiles are built in a company’s enterprise data warehouse, rather than a separate CDP database. It implies that the tools used to build and access the profiles are components provided by different vendors, all working directly against the data warehouse files. This contrasts with a conventional CDP, where a single vendor provides all the tools to build and access the profiles in the CDP database. Composable CDP advocates argue their approach avoids creating a new copy of customer data, leverages existing data warehouse resources, and gives the company greater control over its data. While most products to support a composable CDP are provided by vendors who specialize in a particular function, such as reverse ETL, some conventional CDP vendors have unbundled parts of their system to support a warehouse-based approach.
The composable approach is ultimately one method for building a CDP system rather than buying a conventional CDP package. Other options for building a CDP include building the tools internally or using a mix of built and bought tools. The actual advantage of building a CDP depends largely on how much change is required for the existing data warehouse to support CDP requirements. If many new capabilities are needed, it is often more effective to use a conventional CDP instead.”
The Challenges of Composable CDPs
As data volumes surge, composable CDPs can falter under the weight of manual oversight and ad hoc scaling. Performance degrades, costs balloon, and teams can be left scrambling. Further, updates across the composable stack don’t necessarily translate to other systems, yielding broken models, delays, and often a full stop of operations.
Composable CDPs tout cost savings by leveraging existing data warehouses. But rather than eliminating compute expenses, they shift the burden upstream to platforms like Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, or Redshift. These systems end up handling intensive tasks like data transformation and identity resolution, running longer and racking up heftier bills. What appears as a vendor cost cut often masks a spike in overall expenses, leaving enterprises questioning the promised savings.
| High risk of failure | Hidden costs | Compliance chaos | Vendor fatigue |
| Too many components introduce a high risk of system failures | Staff costs: Forced to fund a large team to manage: – Integrations – Interoperability – Maintenance – Compliance wrangling- Development – Training | Difficult to maintain and audit global compliance for 5-7 vendors | Different vendor cultures |
| Composable architecture is still a relatively new concept with very little evidence it can handle scale | Exposes multiple security vulnerabilities across vendors, increasing breach risks | Disjointed Support, Sales, and Success teams | |
| Interoperability | Variable compliance across vendors | Strain on Procurement with multiple contracts | |
| Different roadmaps | Hidden usage/feature fees | Compromises regional compliance with gaps in global datacenter presence | Forced to negotiate multiple SLA environments |
| Extended deployments | Burdens IT with maintenance instead of driving innovation | ||
| Inconsistent AI strategy |
The Integrated, All-in-One CDP
Regardless of the current state of CDP vendor market positioning, most companies do not have data warehouses, and building out a CDP into modules may not make a lot of sense.
For specific enterprise customers, an integrated CDP will be just what they need, giving them the data collection and integration capabilities that are required to tailor the customer experience with personalized messaging.
An integrated CDP allows companies to capture customer data across any channel. It can then ingest that data, clean it, combine it into unified single customer view (SCV) profiles, orchestrate the customer journey, and store it indefinitely and persistently over time. Data warehouses cannot achieve this type of functionality unless they are specifically built that way.
Read More: CDP vs. Data Warehouse: What’s Best for Your Business?
Why a Hybrid CDP Approach May Makes Sense
For some companies, a hybrid approach to composable CDP or integrated CDP may be the right fit, as it delivers flexibility without the burden of custom engineering.
- Composable Is Not Custom-Built: Composability is about modularity, not total customization. Enterprises want to plug best-in-class tools into their existing stack, but they don’t want to be in the business of building and maintaining every component of a CDP themselves. A hybrid CDP gives teams this flexibility, without sacrificing reliability.
- Data Activation Is Where Packaged Shines: Packaged CDPs are still stronger at activation, especially across paid media channels. A hybrid approach allows you to compose your data pipeline upstream, but rely on a packaged CDP’s connectors, audiences, and privacy tooling to execute downstream without building everything from scratch.
- Data Infrastructure Is a Team Sport: Modern data infrastructure spans data engineers, privacy leads, analysts, and marketers. A hybrid CDP respects these boundaries, and it allows engineers to maintain control of core data systems (e.g., warehouse, orchestration) while giving marketers the packaged interfaces they need to self-serve.
- Time-to-Value Still Matters: Pure composable CDPs promise ultimate control, but at the cost of time, resources, and risk. A hybrid model leveraging a packaged foundation gets you 80% of the way fast, then composes around the edges where you need customization (e.g., identity stitching, custom audiences, advanced governance).
- Privacy & Governance Are Too Critical to DIY: With increasing regulation and complexity, building your own consent management, data minimization, and opt-out enforcement is a risky move. Packaged CDPs often come with battle-tested compliance workflows. The hybrid model lets you compose on the data layer, but lean on prebuilt, defensible privacy features downstream.
- Composable CDPs Don’t Have to be Hand-Coded. The most scalable and sustainable approach is a hybrid one: build your data layer, but buy the activation layer. Leverage a packaged CDP where it excels—privacy, identity resolution, marketing activation—and plug it into your existing warehouse and data tools via composable interfaces.
What is a Composable CDP vs. Integrated Customer Data Platforms
Having unified customer profiles that can be shared as a single source of truth across an enterprise is critical for brands to differentiate themselves and deliver a personalized customer experience at scale.
For some companies, an integrated CDP will be the right solution to help them understand their customers better so they can serve up data-driven, personalized customer experiences across any channel. For other companies, a hybrid approach that delivers flexibility without the need for custom engineering is going to be the right fit.
Today, enterprises don’t need to choose between build and buy. Forward-looking companies today may choose to deploy a hybrid strategy that leans into the strengths of a packaged CDP, with composability layered in.
