| Operating model | Managed product. Install, connect tools, ask in Slack or Microsoft Teams, and let Dash handle the agent infrastructure. Tie | DIY or self-directed agent setup with more control and more responsibility. Tie |
| Team readiness | Designed for shared channels, shared memory, approvals, and non-technical teammates. Edge | Great for technical power users and agent enthusiasts who enjoy configuring their own environment. Tradeoff |
| Maintenance | Dash owns hosting, connector upkeep, browser sandboxing, skill updates, and product reliability. Edge | You own setup choices, plugin behavior, model routing, updates, and many of the security tradeoffs. Tradeoff |
| Control | Enough control for business workflows, less low-level runtime tinkering. Tradeoff | More control over models, local execution, and agent customization. Edge |
| Approvals | Approval-first execution. Anything that sends, writes, posts, or spends waits for an inline approval in your team chat. Edge | Approval and safety depend on how the local agent, plugins, and workflows are configured. Tradeoff |
| Business outputs | Finished work: reports, dashboards, docs, sheets, approvals, follow-ups, PR reviews, and internal tools. Edge | Can do impressive personal and technical automations, but team-ready business workflows require more assembly. Tradeoff |