Open source in Action

Open source technologies are increasingly being used, have become the standard on many levels and offer a wide range of advantages. This also applies to mission-critical business projects. For these, the trend is increasingly gaining acceptance and provides important competitive advantages such as transparency, quality and low costs.

A lot has happened from its bumpy beginnings in the 1990s to today: open source software has been able to establish itself and has become a real alternative to proprietary software. As of 2019, 69 percent of companies in Germany already use open source software (Bitkom: Open Source Monitor 2019). But what are the benefits and how can open source help mission-critical projects succeed?

Software and technologies have become the centerpieces and success factors for many companies - not only as products, but also for their own business processes. Their integration and maintenance often require enormous resources - both financial and human. The open source movement offers a remedy, with new products and solutions being created almost daily. So why spend time and money developing the same basic functionalities from scratch or buying expensive proprietary software when they are already available in high quality and with tested security standards?

Companies that use open source solutions in the area of their mission-critical projects benefit significantly. The time gained can instead be invested in customizing the solution or designing additional functionalities. In this way, companies ensure the functionality of basic applications on the one hand and secure an advantage in the increasingly fierce competition on the market on the other.

Open source software, unlike proprietary products, is developed in collaboration between communities and is freely available. This offers many advantages for companies:

• peer-reviewed quality, fewer bugs and faster bug fixes
• Transparency through open source code
• Reliability through independence from individual programmers or companies
• Flexibility due to the possibility of individual adjustments
• Cost savings through free use
• Interoperability with other systems and programs
• uncomplicated access to innovations, as testing and experimenting with the product is possible free of charge

We at byte5 also know the potential of open source and have consciously decided to rely on open source technologies. For us, the flexibility, interoperability as well as the individualization possibilities of free software play the decisive role.

In order to successfully solve mission-critical projects, we examine and evaluate the use of open source technologies in advance and use a mix of proven as well as innovative methods and technologies. In this way, we offer our customers the best possible solutions tailored to their individual needs. For example, we use Umbraco as a content management system and IOTA in the area of distributed ledger technologies (DLT). Laravel is our PHP framework of choice for a strong, modern architecture.