Integrated vs External process

I'm working on a tool for working with large log files - something like
Logback Beagle (except not for Eclipse).

I'm wondering about the relative merits of a completely integrated tool
vs an external tool that can talk to IDEA through a plugin (similar to
what YourKit does).

At the moment what I have is a completely stand-alone application, but
it's still far from finished and I think integrating it with IDEA would
be a big win.

Thank you,

Donald