Ask HN: Is open sourcing my personal SaaS project a bad idea? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is open sourcing my personal SaaS project a bad idea?

5 pointsfrabjoused6 comments

I'm working on a SAAS project that I'll be releasing soon. It's a free service model with optional premium subscriptions.

I'm thinking about open sourcing the whole thing, including the front end UI, API server and database schema.

I would like to make this OSS if I can, however I'm concerned releasing the schema / server side could open the door to exploits, and I'm not sure someone wouldn't fork my product and put up a competitive clone.

I'd like to get others' thoughts on this.

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In your question you didn’t put any specific reasons why you think it’s a good idea to open source your project. There may be certain immediate benefits, such as the discipline it would force you in to. There are big downsides too, such as the distraction of bug triage or code reviews taking you away from focusing on growing your business.

Until you decide, why not work on project as if it was already open source (PRs, unit tests, documentation, etc.) without actually opening it up, and see how it feels first? If the hassle of keeping it going feels like too much when you’re by yourself, that would be valuable to know before you involve others.

Cloud software is slightly different than conventional software. As a general rule, you don't get access to the source code, even if the hosted software is built entirely on open source software. That may not make the software proprietary, strictly speaking, but it doesn't give you all the benefits of open source. In that sense, the benefits of using the "pay for what you use" software as a service model may outweigh the disadvantage of not having access to the source code. But here's one recent project that impressed me https://audext.com/.

I would not open source unless and until I had a solid strategy for how I was going to try to win.

Then again

None of my stuff has ever really been successful

So open sourcing could be a way to get some attention

Clones could still prob copy you in a day or two

Even without your code

But they probably would not try unless they saw you making money

If anything, making it open will help you fix bugs. (fwiw, I’m building an open source saas myself, see profile, so my opinion is clearly biased.)

What I’d reconsider instead is the free forever. If you’re already open sourcing, users can already run it “free” (i.e. at their own expenses). I personally wouldn’t make a free saas, unless 1) it’s b2c and 2) you have very strong reasons to.

If anything, open-sourcing would give you help in fixing bugs and exploits. Also, the standard business model that has worked for many projects is, open-source it, then sell support.

While the second part of this is true, don't count on anyone helping you fix bugs unless you pay them. The average number of contributors to GitHub projects is 1. All the big projects have paid people from FAANGs or non-profits who pay devs for open source bug fixes.

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