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Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

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Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

#1

Post by reisr3 »

The OSS model for collaborating on code is broadly understood. I'm curious if anyone has been successful in deploying and hosting a SaaS app in an open-source way, using community or public user funding.

For example, many of us use Calendly. There are many for-profit Calendly alternatives. Could we band together and create an open-source, truly free Calendly alternative where users split hosting costs in a fair way? The cost for functionality would go down to pennies per user, since no one expects to make a profit. I don't necessarily want to take on the whole burden of self-hosting an open-source platform, but would be happy to pay for usage if those funds only go towards keeping the platform online.

Just curious if some such experiment has been successful, or perhaps why they fail.

Re: Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

#2

Post by penaazv »

Have you heard of Commercial open source (COSS)? It's a growing industry of promising OSS tools combining the benefits of proprietary SaaS with open source software.

As for the Calendly alternative instance - have you heard of cal.com? It's free for individuals.

I recently wrote this article featuring their origin story: https://blog.scoutflo.com/cal-com-the-coolest-open-source-al...>

Re: Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

#3

Post by reisr3 »

penaazv wrote: post #2

Have you heard of Commercial open source (COSS)? It's a growing industry of promising OSS tools combining the benefits of proprietary SaaS with open source software. As for the Calendly alternative instance - have you heard of cal.com? It's free for individuals. I recently wrote this article featuring their origin story: https://blog.scoutflo.com/cal-com-the-coolest-open-source-al... >

No, I hadn't heard of COSS! Thanks for that - reading up on it now. Seems like exactly the framework I'm thinking about.

I love the Cal.com story. What gives me some pause is that they're VC-backed. $25M Series A. The free tier might be great, and I might come to rely upon it. But they're expected to produce an outsized ROI, and the traditional SaaS play is to give it away for free to capture the market and then raise prices. I'd much prefer a community-driven effort where we have no ROI expectations, so it can remain low-cost forever as we're just splitting overhead.

Re: Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

#4

Post by Peer_Rich »

reisr3 wrote: post #3
penaazv wrote: post #2

Have you heard of Commercial open source (COSS)? It's a growing industry of promising OSS tools combining the benefits of proprietary SaaS with open source software. As for the Calendly alternative instance - have you heard of cal.com? It's free for individuals. I recently wrote this article featuring their origin story: https://blog.scoutflo.com/cal-com-the-coolest-open-source-al... >

No, I hadn't heard of COSS! Thanks for that - reading up on it now. Seems like exactly the framework I'm thinking about. I love the Cal.com story. What gives me some pause is that they're VC-backed. $25M Series A. The free tier might be great, and I might come to rely upon it. But they're expected to produce an outsized ROI, and the traditional SaaS play is to give it away for free to capture the market and then rais…

hey, peer here, cofounder of cal.com. We are quite fortunate to have a growing enterprise business that is subsidising the free plan.

we will never raise prices for the free plan, free stays free, especially since it's open source which means if we were to raise, it would compete with the self-hosted product and we really dont want that

rest assured, we are comfortable providing a free product with enterprise customers

Re: Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

#5

Post by penaazv »

reisr3 wrote: post #3
penaazv wrote: post #2

Have you heard of Commercial open source (COSS)? It's a growing industry of promising OSS tools combining the benefits of proprietary SaaS with open source software. As for the Calendly alternative instance - have you heard of cal.com? It's free for individuals. I recently wrote this article featuring their origin story: https://blog.scoutflo.com/cal-com-the-coolest-open-source-al... >

No, I hadn't heard of COSS! Thanks for that - reading up on it now. Seems like exactly the framework I'm thinking about. I love the Cal.com story. What gives me some pause is that they're VC-backed. $25M Series A. The free tier might be great, and I might come to rely upon it. But they're expected to produce an outsized ROI, and the traditional SaaS play is to give it away for free to capture the market and then rais…

You're welcome! You can check this https://cal.com/open> out to know more about the philosophy behind it.

You'll also find something called OSS Friends on this page - featuring more COSS startups in the ecosystem.

Re: Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

#6

Post by reisr3 »

Peer_Rich wrote: post #4
reisr3 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I hadn't heard of COSS! Thanks for that - reading up on it now. Seems like exactly the framework I'm thinking about. I love the Cal.com story. What gives me some pause is that they're VC-backed. $25M Series A. The free tier might be great, and I might come to rely upon it. But they're expected to produce an outsized ROI, and the traditional SaaS play is to give it away for free to capture the market and then rais…

hey, peer here, cofounder of cal.com. We are quite fortunate to have a growing enterprise business that is subsidising the free plan. we will never raise prices for the free plan, free stays free, especially since it's open source which means if we were to raise, it would compete with the self-hosted product and we really dont want that rest assured, we are comfortable providing a free product with enterprise custome…

Awesome, thanks for explaining this. Reviewing cal.com today for my company - it seems like a great product.

Re: Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

#7

Post by Kalpeshbhalekar »

reisr3 wrote: post #6
Peer_Rich wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey, peer here, cofounder of cal.com. We are quite fortunate to have a growing enterprise business that is subsidising the free plan. we will never raise prices for the free plan, free stays free, especially since it's open source which means if we were to raise, it would compete with the self-hosted product and we really dont want that rest assured, we are comfortable providing a free product with enterprise custome…

Awesome, thanks for explaining this. Reviewing cal.com today for my company - it seems like a great product.

I'll highly recommend Cal.com! Been using them for a while, huge advocates for it :)

Re: Ask HN: Does a framework exist for “open-source SaaS”?

#10

Post by kornhole »

A good example of this is Nextcloud. The SW is FOSS. Over 400K installations are hosted in many ways including on home single board computer servers, Synology NAS, on a VPS, or as a service from providers such as https://ppp.woelkli.com/ or Hetzner.com. The calendar app is very functional and allows booking of appointments based on availability similar to Calendly. This is one of many apps within its large and expanding suite.
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