Enterprise Buyers Require SaaS Audit Logs But Building Them Right Is Weeks of Undifferentiated Work

Audit logs (who did what, when, in what org) are a hard enterprise security checklist item for SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR. But building a correct audit trail requires strongly-typed event schemas, log streaming to SIEM tools, tenant-scoped API exposure, and immutable storage - weeks of work that does not ship features. HN builder threads confirm 'deceivingly complex' implementations, multiple open-source attempts, and a dedicated DB built specifically for this. WorkOS Audit Log, Frontegg, and Apptrail exist but are enterprise-priced or limited. Small SaaS teams still hand-roll it.