The boundary moves
A hosted coding agent usually runs in infrastructure selected by the vendor. A self-hosted agent moves the browser, terminal, checkout, and execution loop into an environment the customer controls. That matters most for teams with private dependencies, restricted networks, or code that cannot leave a defined security boundary.
Control comes with a bill
Keeping execution close to the code does not make the system maintenance-free. Someone still owns base images, network egress, secret rotation, audit retention, capacity, and incident response. The product decision is therefore less about where a machine sits and more about which team accepts each operational duty.
Start with a reversible lane
A sensible first deployment uses one repository, a small permission set, and tasks that end in a reviewable pull request. Measure startup time, failed runs, human review time, and the number of manual interventions. Expand only when the team can explain a run from prompt to patch without guesswork.