[koeng]

Cell-free synthesis is really nice for R/D (it's fast!) but honestly kinda sucks for producing things. Cells have a really nice property of making more of themselves for the cost of basic chemicals (salt, sugar, nitrogen).

TXTL also can be pretty finicky generally - cold storage is required, have to store chemicals separately, ribosomes tend to fall apart and not get recycled, etc. Cells will heal themselves perfectly (sometimes too perfectly, kicking out your construct)