The Curious Case of Self-Hosted Agents: When (and Why) You Actually Need Them
If you’ve spent enough time working with Azure DevOps, you’ve probably heard this question floating around teams, forums, and coffee-break discussions: “Do we really need a self-hosted agent? Aren’t the Microsoft-hosted agents enough?” At first glance, Microsoft-hosted agents seem perfect. They’re fast, clean, isolated, automatically updated, and completely maintenance-free. But then there comes a day—a strange day—when your build fails for no logical reason. Or your pipeline suddenly takes twice as long. Or you discover you need a special dependency Microsoft-hosted agents simply don’t have. This is when engineers enter the curious case of self-hosted agents. In this blog, we break down what self-hosted agents are, when you should use them, and why they sometimes become absolute game changers. If you're pursuing structured learning like Microsoft Azure certification training in Chennai , these insights will help you design stronger, more efficient, and more scalable pipeline...