Internal registries are a smart way to manage OSS packages. They let you curate reusable code for your apps and cut down on risky repeat pulls from the wild. But when every team spins up its own siloed registry and tooling sprawls across the org, you end up with duplicate work, outdated packages, and security headaches that didn’t need to happen.

If one team is on Verdaccio and another is using GitHub Packages, suddenly every step in your pipeline needs its own configuration, and each registry comes with its own idea of “secure.” That adds up to fragile pipelines, rough onboarding, and builds you can’t reliably reproduce. The solution is to pull everything into a single, central registry with unified workflows.

In this article, we’ll look at why scattered, team-specific registries create so much friction and how you can move toward a single, organization-wide registry that actually streamlines development instead of slowing it down.

Good Intentions, Fragmented Execution

Pulling packages into internal registries is generally a good move. It lets you curate a store of useful code, and reduces pulling directly, which risks vulnerabilities, non-compliant licenses, and even malicious code into your pipeline. But when every team runs its own siloed registry with no real oversight, you end up with completely different workflows, tools, and configs across the org. Those ad-hoc setups and quick fixes might feel fast, but that speed only shows up inside individual teams. Not across the company.

With fragmented registries, nobody has visibility into what already exists. Useful packages and fixes stay hidden, collaboration drops, and the whole point of having an internal registry starts to fall apart. Devs end up grabbing OSS packages directly anyway because they don’t know what other teams have already built.

And when every team pulls what they think is the “same” package, you get incompatible versions and transitive dependency conflicts. Suddenly, you’re dealing with crashes, unreproducible environments, higher infra costs, and frustrated developers who stop trusting packages maintained outside their own team.

On top of the firefighting from version mismatches, team-specific registries also push developers into running their own “governance” because there’s no centralized oversight to keep everyone aligned. One team might scan every package, just not in a way that matches org-wide policies. Another team doesn’t scan at all. When someone does find a security issue but doesn’t share it, that knowledge stays trapped in one corner of the org. Meanwhile, your apps stay exposed because the rest of the teams never got the memo.

It’s easy to see why developers get frustrated. And if you try to scale this kind of scattered setup, you’re really just scaling the chaos. A single source of truth, a centralized registry, gives teams the visibility, consistency, and shared standards they’ve been missing.

Why Centralize?

Centralization, a pillar of a package management practice we’ve taken to calling CMPR, means adopting a single org-wide registry:

⭐ A single source of packages means existing tools are visible and can be trusted, all OSS code being curated to the same standard.

⭐ When devs can share code without worrying whether ‘it will run on their machine’, collaboration becomes a natural part of the workflow, not a coin toss.

A single registry makes governance enforceable, instead of stretching oversight across a scattered array of tools:

⭐ With consistent policies in place, developers can rely on vulnerability and license assessments, ensuring the packages they’re using meet the standards required by your apps.

⭐ When all your CLI tools point to the same registry, it’s easy to whip up a template of commands, allowing devs to unify their workflows.

Sure, this is a scalable approach, but to implement a centralized registry, you’ll need a modern package manager with flexible governance, leaving you looking for a capable tool.

Centralizing in Practice

ProGet acts as a registry for all your package types, storing them in proxy feeds, and allowing you to pull packages via connectors, protecting your pipeline from namespace attacks. When you shift to a single source of packages, all teams have access to the same versions, meaning collaboration becomes a functionality of your registry, and build environments are easily reproducible.

Promote vetted packages to approved feeds, curating a validated dev accessible collection of OSS. Approved packages will adhere to your customizable assessment rules, enforcing org-wide governance by default, and these policies can be adjusted at the feed-level where appropriate.

From Team City to Jenkins, ProGet is compatible with all CLI tools and has its own dedicated tool pgutil, enabling teams to adopt universal configs. Beyond dev visibility into package feeds, ProGet’s builds and SCA provide insight into your builds at every stage, with SBOMs showing what packages your teams are consuming every step of the way.

From Scattered to Centralized

Team-specific registries leave developers guessing about what code already exists and what risks have already been spotted. With no visibility, teams reinvent the wheel, and without shared policies, you open the door to vulnerabilities and license issues slipping into your apps. When every team follows its own playbook, frustration builds, trust erodes, and collaboration takes a hit.

Shifting to a single, org-wide registry, backed by a modern package management tool like ProGet cuts out all that friction. Unified workflows and smooth CI/CD integration make onboarding way less painful, and flexible governance makes it possible to actually enforce consistent policies across the board.

There’s a lot we covered here, so don’t forget to bookmark this page for when you need it later. Better yet, check out our free eBook “Package Management at Scale,” which contains everything on this page and more, from scalability bottlenecks and developer enablement to providing a metric to assess your org’s package maturity. Download your free copy today!

Or, take the next step and implement a CMPR solution in your own organization using ProGet. You can start a 30-day free trial of ProGet Basic and see how centralized package management streamlines workflows, improves compliance, and boosts developer productivity firsthand.