DIY Social media buttons Vs. Ready built (e.g. AddThis)

Question

Is there any benefit from rolling-your-own set of social media 'like' buttons rather than using a pre-packaged widget, such as that provided by AddThis? Are there any downsides from using out of the box services?

Answer 1

Out of the box services

• may go out of business
• their servers may go down
• they may not be responsive when new social media sites appear and their widget doesn't include them
• they may not be responsive when existing social media sites change their APIs in a way which breaks the widget
• you have a lot more control over behaviour and appearance

Of course rolling-your-own may be a lot of work, particularly if you're the one changing your widget because someone changed their API.