Historically, water utilities have favored the modern ideal of piped infrastructure despite shortcomings in ensuring water access to the urban poor. Consequently, various state and non-state actors play influential roles in shaping water access to the poor through piped and non-piped socio-technical regimes of water provision. However, the existence of piped and non-piped water regimes and how they interact is often not seen as the work of municipalities, and as a result, a plethora of vital water services and actors are still largely ignored in water policy and decision-making. Drawing upon two empirical case studies in Delhi and Nairobi, this article foregrounds the role of conflict and cooperation in the interaction between piped and non-piped water regimes using an analytical framework that builds on Science Technology Studies and Urban Political Ecology.