[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":85},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-\u002Fblog\u002F2023\u002F08\u002Fopen-source-is-a-tier-not-competition":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"description":12,"extension":74,"meta":75,"navigation":80,"path":81,"seo":82,"stem":83,"__hash__":84},"blog\u002Fblog\u002F2023\u002F08\u002Fopen-source-is-a-tier-not-competition.md","Our Open Source offering is a tier, not our competition",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":69},"minimark",[9,13,25,28,31,37,42,51,61],[10,11,12],"p",{},"More than once we’ve been in discussion with prospective customers on what tier\nis the right tier for their current Node-RED adoption. The question is likely to\ncome up \"Why wouldn't we just use the open source version of FlowFuse?\". The\nimplicit discussion created is one that is alike the question:\n“Why wouldn’t we go with your competition?”. For FlowFuse, and most other open-core\ncompanies like us, the open licensed and free to use core is tier, not competition.",[10,14,15,16,20,21,24],{},"In the traditional sense, the prospective customer is right. By the definition,\na customer ",[17,18,19],"strong",{},"buys"," goods or services by exchanging it for ",[17,22,23],{},"money",". For\nFlowFuse’s open-source edition, which is free as in beer and free as in speech,\nno money changes hands. It can be installed and run by anyone. Once the software\nis being installed and used, we consider we've gained a new customer.\nThere’s an agreement in place, the Apache 2.0 license, and value is obtained by\nthe customer. The only missing component compared to an ‘ordinary’ sale is the lack\nof money from the customer to FlowFuse. The fact that no monetary value is exchanged,\nlike the situation where a customer picks the competitor, doesn’t make the open\nsource tier competition. It is just a free tier.",[10,26,27],{},"Another reason it's really a tier is that the core of the product is the same. In\nmany open-core products, the path to upgrade from the open source license product to\nthe paid tier is much alike customers are used to on SaaS models. In the reals of\nself-managed software that's mostly uploading a license and  at times a few configuration\nsteps.",[10,29,30],{},"Furthermore, the open tier is a tier as the customer choses to not adopt all\ncapabilities. They're leaving value on the table. Either this is because it's not\nquite clear what the value is or if  the higher tiers provides\nenough business value to warrant the expense. Or the adoption journey for the\ncustomer doesn't yet require the full featured tiers.",[10,32,33,34,36],{},"What’s unique about open source software, is that customers can exchange value\ntowards the company and community building the software in other forms: by\nopening issues, updating documentation, advocating for the OSS variant, among\nother ways. While this is not ",[17,35,23],{},", it is significant for a young company\nlike FlowFuse.",[38,39,41],"h2",{"id":40},"challenges-with-a-open-core-free-tier","Challenges with a open core free tier",[10,43,44,45,50],{},"That's not to say that an open source tier is a silver bullet for a company. For\none, it's hard to track how many users a software package has, and who these users\nare. For example; FlowFuse has ",[46,47,49],"a",{"href":48},"\u002Fdocs\u002Fadmin\u002Ftelemetry\u002F#usage-telemetry","Telemetry",",\nthough it can be turned off. Nor do we know who hosts this software.",[10,52,53,54,60],{},"Another challenge is around product and feature packaging. At FlowFuse and other open core companies it's\nuncommon to move features from the open tier to paid tier only. If this choice has\nbeen made it's a done deal, even when the product team got it wrong. Usually the\ninitial thoughts are therefor to move all features into the paid tiers. However,\nthis hampers long term growth as adoption of paid features are adopted later or\nnot at all. We follow the\n",[46,55,59],{"href":56,"rel":57},"https:\u002F\u002Fopencoreventures.com\u002Fblog\u002F2023-01-open-core-standard-pricing-model",[58],"nofollow","Open-Core buyer based model","\nto segregate the value, about which I'll write a post next time.",[10,62,63,64,68],{},"Photo by ",[46,65,67],{"href":66},"https:\u002F\u002Funsplash.com\u002F@matthardy","Matt Hardy",".",{"title":70,"searchDepth":71,"depth":71,"links":72},"",2,[73],{"id":40,"depth":71,"text":41},"md",{"navTitle":5,"excerpt":76},{"type":7,"value":77},[78],[10,79,12],{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002F2023\u002F08\u002Fopen-source-is-a-tier-not-competition",{"title":5,"description":12},"blog\u002F2023\u002F08\u002Fopen-source-is-a-tier-not-competition","PfZeBtgBAsmADE1xccmTPUtxdC946AZxHIuxAyryTVU",1780132425843]