Website building has gotten much easier as web technologies advance, with more and more capable CMS platforms and no-code/low-code tools making it even more accessible to non-developers. These great tools and platforms come either as SaaS/proprietary software (e.g. Wix, Acquia DXP, AEM) or open source platforms such as Drupal.
While the former simplify content creation and site building through streamlined out of the box functionality, this functionality rarely covers all the bases required for a particular website, and custom development would often be needed to provide the desired feature – but this is easier said than done on a proprietary platform where you’re limited to the features and the release timeline determined by the platform’s provider.
In contrast, open source technologies require more setup work up front, but are much more flexible and easily extendable in the future, making them future proof and thus a better choice for websites whose owners know will require additional customization and/or frequent custom features down the line.
Why not simply migrate from a proprietary to an open source platform if/when needed?
One of the main concerns with proprietary platforms is something called vendor lock-in, where moving off the current platform due to certain limitations would introduce too much complexity and require too much time & effort to justify investing in.
More often than not, this will just lead to the decision of staying on the current platform despite its limitations, which will make it even more difficult to replatform further down the line, meaning that the website(s) will always be at the whims of the proprietary platform’s feature roadmap, as well as any pricing/subscription changes that may occur down the line.
However, all of this is easily avoided when choosing an open source option right from the start. True, it may require a bigger initial investment (although even this aspect is being streamlined with more and more streamlined open source solutions, such as the fast approaching Drupal CMS) and more time to set up, but it gives you a ton of flexibility with much lower (or practically non-existent) cost in the long run.
Even if you do decide that a different open source platform would be a better fit for your needs, it’ll be much easier to migrate everything from an existing open source platform than a proprietary one.
So, why use open source over proprietary technologies for website development?
In addition to avoiding vendor lock-in, there are many other important benefits of relying on open source technologies for your website development needs. We’ll go through the most important ones in this section.
Future proof thanks to scalability & flexibility
The flexibility and easy customizability of open source allows you to build a future proof platform that’s able to be effortlessly scaled as your business grows and/or market trends shift. It also makes it easier to tap into and integrate with new technology innovations, covering both known unknowns as well as any unknown unknowns.
Abundance of existing solutions
With open source, you’re able to easily leverage existing solutions that have already been streamlined to meet your needs.
Firstly, there’s the sheer abundance of great open source technologies to choose from and make use of, from traditional CMS platforms such as Drupal, to modern decoupled CMS such as Strapi, as well as powerful web frameworks and languages such as React, Vue and Laravel.
What’s more, you can also make use of even more streamlined frameworks such as Next.js for React, and then to take it another step further, you also have specific integrations such as Chapter Three’s Next.js & Drupal integration Next-Drupal.
Secondly, when it comes to a specific open source technology, it’s easy to find existing features and/or solutions to your problems, as well as quickly build custom-fit features due to the code being open source (this is especially relevant for large, long-standing OSS projects).
The value of a strong community of a particular open source project also needs to be highlighted here; often you won’t even need to develop that custom feature you need, because an existing solution has already been developed by the community, and you may be able to use it without any tweaks at all, or with only very minor additional adjustments.
Easy access to top talent
In a similar vein, by opting for open source, you can easily find talented and experienced developers since you get a better overview of their skills and activity through platforms such as GitHub or a project-specific source of information such as drupal.org for Drupal developers; we wrote more in-depth on this in our article on the unique advantage of developing with OSS.
What about the costs?
Finally, we should also discuss the costs associated with choosing either open source technologies or proprietary solutions. The main difference between the two is that with a proprietary platform, the costs are recurring and consistent (of course there are occasional price bumps and/or tier changes, but these tend to be minor and relatively infrequent).
In contrast, with open source, the initial costs tend to be bigger (depending on your unique needs and the complexity of the websites), but then taper off and become practically non-existent once you have everything properly set up.
Even major upgrades can be pretty much seamless with proper and consistent prior care, and a lot of the top open source platforms have been prioritizing backwards compatibility and ease of upgrade to make the process even more user friendly.
So, if you know you’ll need a scalable platform that’s sustainable over the long term, open source is likely the more cost efficient option – and that’s without even accounting for the costs of a potential replatforming from a proprietary system which we mentioned earlier.
In conclusion
As we have highlighted throughout this article, there are a number of important benefits of relying on open source technologies for your website(s). In case you need any help with the initial setup, a replatforming/upgrade, or simply the maintenance of your existing open source based website(s), feel free to reach out to us, and let’s talk about how we can help you out.
Posted by Tim on 19 Nov 2024 in Business,Development
