Beyond open core

In discussions of open source businesses, the open core model tends to take up all the space in the room. Oh, and so do DevTools.

This is not the only kind of open source business model out there!!! You can:

  • Sell support

  • Package together open source projects

  • Sell management services

  • And lastly, one of my favorites that is never talked about (or lumped under open core, erroneously in my opinion), you can develop a product that is complementary to your open source project. Let’s call this option the ‘product suite.’

The challenge a lot of open source companies face is that they kind of have multiple products, in that they have to position each product (OSS, commercial offering) separately. But they don’t get the benefit of upselling that a true multi product company often would (ok, not all, but many). When, instead of open core, you develop a product that is not competitive but instead complementary to your OSS, it simplifies your story. Do you want X outcome? The OSS is for you. Do you also need Y outcome? You ALSO need the commercial product. In this model, all of your customers will also be user of your open source project.

In an open core model, none of your customers will also be open source users, because they would not simultaneously use the Enterprise Edition and the Community Edition, since both ultimately provide the same outcome, the EE just has some security/compliance/UI bells and whistles.

Deepfence is a good example of a company that does this.

Emily Omier