Combining Open Source & Custom Software

When it comes to developing custom software, we're very much about combining open source and custom software to build a unique solution that meets all of your needs. We've talked about why open source is good before.

Now we want to cover how using a combo of open source and customizing it can speed up the development process of a digital product or system by months, if not years. Let's dive into just why that is.

When it comes to coding, many tend to opt for starting from scratch because:

1. they believe it's better to own your code and build up your own expertise and
2. they want complete control over the code — which we get.

Yet developing all of your own code is incredibly expensive, time-consuming, and risky if it goes wrong. And what if there were already a ton of other established developers out there who had done the groundwork? Ones who have already built a software system used by thousands, if not millions, and that has been put to the test time and time again?

For us, it simply does not make sense to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch when you can stand on the shoulders of giants who are already succeeding.

Speed is everything in this digital age. So if you want to stay competitive, you've got to be fast. But, if you ask us, the best way to ensure you're up to speed is to leverage open source software and add custom software on top.

Everything moves fast; you can publish your technology much sooner and quickly get ahead of the competition.

Just like a house needs a solid foundation to be built on, software needs a reliable infrastructure to be built and run on.

At TRIGO, we've built up our infrastructure tech stack over the past decade or more. Leveraging open source solutions enables us to get set up just in days, whereas it used to take us at least 3-6 weeks in the past — saving our clients a ton of time and money.

Leveraging open source technologies like Next.js allows us to reduce the complexity of projects and achieve a fast time to market. This is great because not only do we keep end-users happy (bugs are fixed fast by the open source community), but our clients can launch new and innovative features in no time.

Developing APIs used to be something rather complex and time-consuming not that long ago. But if you have a community of thousands of developers behind you, it speeds up the development process big time.

All in all, we've also found that developing from scratch can be something related to ego. But at TRIGO, it's clear that one's ego shouldn't stand in the way of getting the best result for the client. We leverage open source software such as:

• Keycloak for user management (authorization and authentication)
• Hasura for database management and API creation
• Next.js as a basic web framework
• Chakra UI as a CSS framework and base for our design system

That way, we can focus on the core value and function of the application while getting it to market faster.

For us, it's clear that implementing open source software and customizing it — absolutely makes sense. Outsourcing certain aspects of the solution, like user management, database management etc., to a reliable, established open source provider just makes sense. What matters is that both your system and the open source software are talking to each other, your data is being tracked in an aggregated way, and your workflows are smooth.

That's why we've doubled down on custom software that leverage open source. Interested in developing your very own custom software? Book a free first consult with our Project Owner Kerstin right here.