Ask HN: Favorite strategy to monetize open source?
Curious about successful experiences. Sell support, sell as a package, sell as a SaaS, sell hardware (where it applies). Sponsorships. Ads (?)...
8 comments
I've been able to obtain some funds through paid binaries. Basically the major other options are: selling support, hosted instances of web software, patreon/subscription models (long buildup period before there's noteworthy income), paid work on individual features/bugs (formal contracts work better than bounty models), and general 1 time donations (typically very little income).
It's hard to make a lot of cash in open source. It can be done, but 'success' is likely not going to be what happens in the end.
It's hard to make a lot of cash in open source. It can be done, but 'success' is likely not going to be what happens in the end.
> hosted instances of web software
Do you still have anything online? I looked at http://fundamental-code.com and didn't see anything, but maybe I missed something.
I'd be interested to see if there are ways to simplify the open source -> saas process.
I built a quick & dirty landing page, I'm curious if something like this resonates. Any feedback? https://saasform.dev/transform-open-source-in-saas
Do you still have anything online? I looked at http://fundamental-code.com and didn't see anything, but maybe I missed something.
I'd be interested to see if there are ways to simplify the open source -> saas process.
I built a quick & dirty landing page, I'm curious if something like this resonates. Any feedback? https://saasform.dev/transform-open-source-in-saas
I'm personally pretty weak with the web stack work, so I've never had a long term open source project where a SaaS model made sense. Feel free to discount my opinion as I'm not the target audience of your project.
The landing page to me looks bland to the point of being suspicious. The github page certainly seems to do a better job of selling the idea, but you need to have some example projects using your tooling to get most people over the hump of "This is likely going to be a massive pain to setup and maintain without a good chance of reasonable payback". Monetizing open source is hard and additional code doesn't really fix it. It's a problem of user support, marketing, changing project priorities, site reworking, etc, etc. One of the reasons why things like github, patreon, etc work is they help obtain an audience which is an example of the non-code factors at work.
The landing page to me looks bland to the point of being suspicious. The github page certainly seems to do a better job of selling the idea, but you need to have some example projects using your tooling to get most people over the hump of "This is likely going to be a massive pain to setup and maintain without a good chance of reasonable payback". Monetizing open source is hard and additional code doesn't really fix it. It's a problem of user support, marketing, changing project priorities, site reworking, etc, etc. One of the reasons why things like github, patreon, etc work is they help obtain an audience which is an example of the non-code factors at work.
Thanks this is very good feedback. Both on the quality of the landing page and on articulating the value / comparing with other solution that focus on building an audience.
I see also your point on web vs other kind of open source, I for example run a hardware open source project and that's a completely different story.
Curious if anyone with a more web-related OS project has feedback/wants to chime in.
I see also your point on web vs other kind of open source, I for example run a hardware open source project and that's a completely different story.
Curious if anyone with a more web-related OS project has feedback/wants to chime in.
You know, I have actually seen many open source projects charging money to get you the binary. And since most of the userbase were non-tech people, they would either watch youtube video on how to use "./configure and make" or just pay and get the readymade binary. I don't remember exactly which app was this, but it was a mac app. Hope that helps
I believe that may be Textual, the source is available on GitHub but it'll cost you on the AppStore.
I would check out linux mint and vue.js, they seem like pretty good role models.
The book Working in Public has a good section about funding models for open source.