Are Open Source Apps Always Better?
Posted March 5, 2010 in Tools/Resources 66 Comments »
Everyone loves free stuff, myself included. But thinking of “free” always reminds me of my mother’s cliched saying, “Nothing in life is free.” Well, what about software?
As freelancers, no matter how much money we make, we’re always budget-conscience. Unfortunately, in this day and age of technology, we can no longer get by with just a copy of Microsoft Windows and Notepad. We need software–and lots of it.
I counted over 18 applications that I use daily and that that doesn’t even include the 20+ apps on my iPhone. So, it’s probably safe to say these are all free apps, right? Wrong.
The Case for Open Source Software
The biggest pro to open source software is obviously the price of free. But, what other pros are there with going open source?
- The community–The best open source software is, without a doubt, WordPress. The coolest thing about WordPress is the community. Since everyone can download it for free, and it’s a great framework, it has a huge support community. You can easily and quickly find a tutorial on anything you’d ever want to do in WordPress.
- No risk–Open source software comes with no risk. Don’t like the program? Just uninstall it and find something else. It was free so you haven’t lost any money.
- Variety–There are often open source alternatives to most paid apps if you search hard enough. So, any freelancer can have billing, coding or management software.
Why Free Isn’t Always the Best
Free almost always comes with a price, although it may not be monetary. There are several drawbacks to using open source software.
- Little or no support–With the exception of a few, most free software I’ve tried have no, or crappy, support.
- Ugly interface–Since the developers aren’t making money from the app, most don’t hire designers and the apps often look ugly or have poor layouts.
- Terrible file structures or code–If you’re dealing with an actual framework, the code and file structure can be impossible to navigate and work around easily. So much so, you’d often feel that you’d rather pay for something than deal with the free stuff. This happened to me when dealing with ZenCart and Joomla.
- Lack of updates and bugs–When you upgrade your OS, your free software may take its time upgrading–or never even upgrade at all, then you’re stuck looking for something else. What’s worse, it might have a terrible bug that’s never fixed.
Paid Apps Are Often Worth the Price
Sometimes, a free app gets the job done, and does it well. But, sometimes paying for an app will save you both time and money in the long run.
Purchasing apps can be scary though, as it’s normally a pretty long commitment, especially if you’re short on funds. What if you pay for an app and it stinks or doesn’t work right on your system? Try looking for an app that offers a demo, or even better, a full-featured trial. Ask around for opinions and see what people say.
Paid apps are often better than their free counterparts. If I find a bug or problem with the software, I’m much more likely to get a solution from someone I’ve paid. The act of receiving money for something you’ve done is a huge motivator in how well you take care of the product and its customers. Most apps you come across are less than $100 and easily affordable by the novice freelancer. (Go ahead and shake your fist at Adobe now.)
I came across the problem of finding the right app very recently when looking for a new code editor. There are several free and paid apps to choose from. I couldn’t find an all-in-one solution that was free, so I went ahead and paid for an app. However, had I been looking for a standalone editor, there were several free apps that were just as awesome as the paid ones. It all comes down to what you need and what works for you.
Almost all of my favorite apps are paid apps, even though I normally look for an open source solution first. The interfaces are sleek and well thought out. Most of them are bug free and provide great support. (Except, ironically enough, the most expensive app ever, Photoshop. Shake them fists again for me.)
Your Thoughts
What have been your experiences in dealing with paid and open source software? Have you found trends between what one has and the other lacks?
Image by jmarty
About the author: Amber is a freelancer with over 10 years of experience and specializes in clean, semantic and valid 1.0 Strict XHTML, CSS and Wordpress development. She also writes a web development blog on her portfolio at www.amberweinberg.com and just launched a web app for developers at www.codesnipp.it.
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66 Comments
Saad Ibrahim
March 5th, 2010 at 8:47 amwell… sometimes opensource apps are much better than their paid counter parts… IMO it totally depends on the specific app
Maximilian Bartel
March 5th, 2010 at 9:01 amI absolutely agree, most of the apps I use frequently are paid too and well worth it even though some Open Source projects are just as good, sometimes even better. It all depends on what you need, but after reading this I just got to shake my fist at Adobe again! :-)
No honestly, Adobe products aren’t perfect at all but as long as there’s nothing comparable they do the job even though they are a bit too expensive in my opinion.
Nachiket Patel
March 5th, 2010 at 9:23 amHi Amber,
I don’t think so.
There is at least 1 competitive leader in each product type.
For example,
Wordpress, can you think of better alternative?
Eclipse/Netbeans (if you are not developer, please ask any developer)
Firefox / Chrome
Please tell me one product type where there is no good open-source alternative .
By the way, I am developer, now I don’t use any paid app. I am 100% open-source :)
Dave Jones
March 5th, 2010 at 9:23 amI found myself agreeing and disagreeing a lot whilst reading this post. I use a lot of paid apps, but I use open source as well. And I think it can be a great choice, particular for small businesses that don’t have 1,000s to spend on software.
Open source communities can be great (a la Wordpress) but some can be closed minded and highly newbie unfriendly. And open source definitely doesn’t come with “no risk” attached, even though you haven’t paid any money in license fees.
Small projects can suffer from lack of support, poor documentation and coding standards but on the whole the big players are well supported and documented. Remember with proprietary software your only source of help is the vendors support and documentation, but with open source there are many avenues.
I have seen some ugly open source projects and it does put me off them. However, I personally think there’s nothing uglier than the SAP user interface – a typical SAP implementation costs upward of $100,000 in licenses alone.
Andrzej
March 5th, 2010 at 9:24 amIt everything depends on app type. Many free apps are much better than paid solutions (for example, apps for CD/DVD recording. Also there’re many paid apps much better (Photoshop for graphic, etc).
Personally, I use free apps when I just find a really good replacement for paid app. If there’s no, then I buy paid app.
Jordan Walker
March 5th, 2010 at 9:46 amI personal always choose open source, and if there is a problem I try to fix it. In the past if the application I wanted is not free, I will take the challenge and build my own application catered to my needs specifically.
Just out of curiosity Amber, which code editor did you choose?
FreelanceApple
March 5th, 2010 at 9:56 amI think it depends on specifics, sometimes open source apps are better but it really depends on which app we’re talking about. Nice post though Amber, loved it!
Nachiket Patel
March 5th, 2010 at 10:10 amI know, People are gonna say Adobe Photoshop has no alternative. But matter of fact, there is. I use GIMP, Its well documented. I don’t need it much because I am not a designer, but Gimp has all major features provided by Photoshop.
I agree with Amber in one point, that most of open source project sucks, but many does not, and I feel each product category has a dominating open source project.
& If you are looking for PHP code editor, than try Netbeans once. (with HTML/CSS editor)
Cheers :)
Amber Weinberg
March 5th, 2010 at 11:02 am@Nachiket that’s true for every category but image editing unfortunately. Also GIMP is NOT a Photoshop alternative if you’re a designer or front end developer. It’s good for the ocassional imade edit, but if you receive PSDs from clients to code, like I do, GIMP and pixelmator are unusable because the lack several essential features, which seriously mess up the PSDs
@Jordan I went with Coda, which I feel in love with since it’s an all in one. My programmer uses netbeans and we both wrote about our thoughts on each product on my personal blog.
Shevonne
March 5th, 2010 at 11:57 amI think a few years ago, you could say that the open-source apps didn’t compare to its high-priced counterparts. However, nowadays, these open-source apps are being created with amazing user interface and technical support. Therefore, there is no much difference between the two products, except that one has a better price.
Amberly | Web Designer
March 5th, 2010 at 11:59 amGreat Read indeed.
Really interesting Discussion. Open Source Apps Always Better but there UI looks ugly. :P
But i have been using Adobe CS and other tools from such a long time. There UI looks great and performance is good to.. But they are not easy to afford. They really need hard cash to own.
Open Source Apps do have a all the features and don’t have to pay a penny. And and many of there apps are @ their begging stage. Waiting for the Good Days to Come.
Peace.
tiffany
March 5th, 2010 at 12:11 pmNatchiket if you think GIMP is a suitable alternative to Photoshop, you have never done any heavy-duty design work or image processing with Photoshop.
That’s not to say Photoshop is amazing and flaw-free (I prefer Fireworks for design). But GIMP does not compare. And I say this as someone who has used GIMP.
No, open source apps are not *always* better. Honestly, neither are paid apps. However it is definitely true that we shouldn’t pooh-pooh an application simply *because* it is open source. Many are good *enough* for most people and some are truly best-in-class.
Leisha
March 5th, 2010 at 12:22 pmOpen Office and GIMP are my two most used open source applications. My husband/partner uses Net Beans daily. Soon Inkscape will catch up to Illustrator and I will begin exploring that alternative.
You’re right that not all open source products provide a wealth of support or a pretty interface. But the same can be said for paid applications. There are a few gems in each category and you have to sort through the rest of the junk to find them.
I think open source has the potential to outperform paid software in the long run. With no one person/company making profit and a huge community of users contributing to the further advancement of the product, priority is placed on what matters most – performance and user-friendliness. There are no “secrets” in the development of open source products, so as one product evolves, the lessons that were learned during its development can easily be applied to new applications.
richard
March 5th, 2010 at 2:04 pmhmmmm, not sure I agree with your point about there being little/no support for opensource software. If anything, the majority of opensource software has great support in the form of it’s community, which you praised in the previous point.
The community (i’m talking about actual people; in forums, IRC chatrooms and the devs themselves via email/whatever medium) serves 3 purposes in my opinion:
1. helping the n00bs
2. developing the software further
3. serving the software
David W.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:24 pmI find Inkscape a much closer alternative to Illustrator than Gimp is to Photoshop. I use Gimp whenever I can, but it won’t be in the same ballpark with Photoshop until it has nestable layer groups, vector layers, vector masks, non-destructive effects, non-destructive filters, fully integrated inline text editing, full typography controls with opentype, and full non-destructive PSD import/export capability.
As much as I want to use open source for everything, PSD import/export is essential for anyone working cooperatively on projects and passing files back and forth.
This is why I will continue to pay for Adobe software. And I’m a linux user, I try not to pay for anything.
Also, there sadly *isn’t* an alternative for everything. I do a lot of Flash development, and the only alternative Flash GUIs I’ve seen are mere shadows of Flash 3.0. I do most of my flash work in Vim now, as pure AS3 movies compiled with mxmlc — but when I need a GUI, there’s nothing but Adobe.
Flavio Mester
March 5th, 2010 at 2:24 pmExcellent points.
Actually, we offer something in between. Our platform is free for designers to create non template-based, content managed sites. The designers’ clients are the ones who sign up with us and pay a (quite reasonable) monthly fee, and they can update the content of their sites on their own.
If anyone is interested, please visit us at http://www.yourwebdepartment.com and request a demo.
Nothing against open source, we use it ourselves whenever appropriate. It’s just that sometimes “free” is not really “free”.
George Fragos
March 5th, 2010 at 3:08 pmWell written article but I think you missed one important advantage of open source — no vendor lock ins because open source follows standards. I’m an Internet Coach and designer that runs Ubuntu Linux only — my sites will run on any platform. A Linux distribution like Ubuntu gives you direct access to a large number of free applications making them more accessible than open source applications that only run on Windows. Every six months Ubuntu has a new distribution release which includes updated versions of applications it provides access to.
e11world
March 5th, 2010 at 3:09 pmThis is always going to be the case where it depends on that you are doing. I personally prefer the open source things a bit more because even when you pay for apps/programs, when updates or a new version comes, you’ll pay again. Am I wrong?? (example, photoshop plugins, you’ll find many free plugins that do the job and no need for updates.. others you buy will keep evolving and so more dollars will be spent on that down the road) So what’s the point of that then. I will buy certain things and use open source for others. That’s the way it will always be.
Amber Weinberg
March 5th, 2010 at 3:17 pm@Richard Unfortunately I’ve come across several open source apps with little to no community, such as BuddyPress (almost IMPOSSIBLE to find tutorials for a lot of stuff on there), ZenCart and Joomla to name a few. Of course, plenty of paid apps, like Adobe, have ZERO support as well (I waited over an hour for a support tech who barely psoke english to say he didn’t know my problem, check the internet)
Travis
March 5th, 2010 at 3:19 pmI think open source apps are more and more becoming the way to go. It’s all about the cloud and community collaboration these days!
ricky
March 5th, 2010 at 3:34 pm@ David W:
Off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure layer groups and inline text editing are on their way this year. Not sure about some of the other features.
And you are absolutely right. Flash gui is the only thing I’ve found that has no usable open source alternative, at least on Linux.
I have no background in Flash development, but have thought about learning AS. Your comment has me curious. Any good resources you can recommend?
David W.
March 5th, 2010 at 3:49 pm@ricky You’re right, layer groups (though I’m not sure about nestable) and inline text editing are supposed to be here with 2.8, whenever they get GeGL worked in — but sadly, not until the end of the year. I think I heard that vector layers are coming too.
If you want to learn AS, you can’t go wrong with Colin Moock’s book “Essential Actionscript 3.0″ from O’Reilly. Once you get into it, the official AS3/Flex ref is here http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/index.html. If you’re going to be compiling with mxmlc (free command line compiler) I highly recommend using Ant to manage the process. http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=anttasks_1.html. For coding, if you’re on Windows then Flash Develop is one of the best editors I’ve ever used http://www.flashdevelop.org. I’m not sure about mac alternatives. I use linux and do all of my AS development in vim. I’ve used Eclipse and netBeans for AS development in the past, too (which would also be options for a mac).
Maria
March 5th, 2010 at 3:55 pmYou can wait, but in 5 years most apps, textures and codes are for free on the internet, that is what future will bring :)
Jamie
March 5th, 2010 at 4:34 pmWhile Open Source often has a steeper learning curve, what you’re describing is not whether or not an application is friendly, but whether or not it holds your hand throughout the process.
You point to ZenCart and Joomla as examples of bad FOSS (free and open source software) systems, but both are widely used and have plenty of assistance available if you put in more effort than checking the first Google hit.
Personally, the first time I used ZenCart, I was able to customize the store front to match the website design, update the inventory management system to track availablility of multiple clothing sizes in multiple styles on single store items, and add the feature to opt to download a digital copy of a product (automatically).
FOSS takes commitment, but the end is much more rewarding. With most COTS (commercial off the shelf) products, sure, there are ones that do a great job, but most are very limiting and if you want to do something outside of their package, you have to hope the original manufacturer has a plugin available.
Is FOSS *always* better than COTS? I don’t think I’d go that far, but when it comes to software development, in many cases you’re better off going open source, _especially_ if you’re working on the web.
JAlexoid
March 5th, 2010 at 5:37 pm“Lack of updates and bugs”
I don’t know what commercial software are you looking at, but most open-source software has a better track-record on this point than any commercial software. Unless you are buying something from the big software houses(Microsoft, Oracle, IBM etc) you are risking more with commercial software than with open-source.
“I’m much more likely to get a solution from someone I’ve paid”
Except that experience tells, that you are more likely to get a solution from a community or pay one of the core developers to fix the problem.
Caesar Tjalbo
March 5th, 2010 at 6:28 pmWhat you’re missing is the “Free as in free speech” part. Software that gives you the freedom to look at its heart, learn from it, change it and pass it on without breaking any license. However fantastic and useful a proprietary or closed application is, you can’t share it legally, you can’t look at its inner workings or change it in other ways than the maker allows you too.
Now if you’re into design and horrified by the UI of otherwise useful programs, get in touch with the makers and share your thoughts for the benefits of yourself and other users. Won’t be easy, I tell you that, but it’s worth the try.
I don’t want to sound too idealistic but here’s the idea: since software can be duplicated essentially without limit and globally distributed almost without cost, even the tiniest improvement can have a huge effect.
P4blo
March 5th, 2010 at 6:43 pmNot totally agree with some points, the most successful open source softwares haves great support because it is supported for the comunity, if we need a plug or patch someone already did it, and I don´t feel the softwares are updated on a long period. Even there are par example lots of versions of GIMP… made by a lot of users and for several needs.
Tai
March 5th, 2010 at 7:48 pmI have the feeling open-source will eventually prevail over closed source in many applications. On reason is that support for open-source is far superior. Who needs a call center when techies help techies. I like helping people!
Don’t get me wrong I love the Adobe Creative Suite CS4. Dreamweaver and Photoshop/Fireworks are superior tools. Nothing else comes close. However, its surprising to me how much Firebug code I copy and paste into Dreamweaver. Firebug knows CSS much better than Dreamweaver. Especially vendor specific CSS, CSS 3 and CSS that IE never adopted but I happily use for progressive enhancement.
Perhaps, with complex software, the answer is in the “Freemium” business model. Maybe Adobe will product free “Lite” versions of its software (like simplified Photoshop Elements) with upgrades that will be cheaper than they are today due to increased adoption of Photoshop.
(I am not convinced that Gimp can ever compete with Photoshop).
Matthew Moran
March 5th, 2010 at 9:59 pmI’ve had good experiences with Wordpress and Joomla – but there are some other open source apps out there that leave me wanting more. Open source accounting is pretty lame, go with quickbooks.
Juan Camilo Prada
March 6th, 2010 at 12:39 amIMO the writer didnt even care to look for or get in touch with an open source community. First of all, no private/commercial software will get you updates and fixes as fast as an open source applicaiton (well of course there are exception like those open source applicaitons that not even its own developer knows). Pretty much all open source software that comes with a default Linux distribution gets updates/patches/fixes in a daily base which means the software get better ona regular basis, plus you can always get the latest features…. beat that Adobe, Microsoft and Apple
Second, support of a commercial applications isn’t better than an open source application support. on IRC you can get pretty much all your problems fixed by the community.
Its just a matter of researching… which apparently the author didnt do when writing this arcticle
Amber Weinberg
March 6th, 2010 at 12:51 am@Juan imaorry to disagree with you there, but I don’t write about stuff I don’t know about. I listed several open source software with terrible resources, support an/or community above. Please don’t presume to know what i did or didn’t do.
Carl
March 6th, 2010 at 2:03 amFound this article through Smashing Magazine. Interesting points, and perhaps the most notable comment about paid solutions is the support. It can be great to have that centralized knowledge and support team, which for a business you’ll likely contract, or individuals, get X number of days of support for your purchase.
I’m a developer myself, and I’ve written webstores and CMS from the ground up primarily in PHP for server side. This leaves a little bit of both: they got my support if they need it, and it leaves them free of the bind that proprietary software gives with it.
I’ve checked out applications like Joomla, Drupal, Zen Cart and osCommerce, as well as Wordpress, and they certainly have their advantages. It all depends on the risks and benefits, just like most decisions, I suppose.
Good write, got me thinking. =)
Online outsourcing
March 6th, 2010 at 4:40 amYou have given fruitful thing which should be managed for the betterment of the open source…I hope the commercial motive on that won’t be success.Your suggestions are nice to gain…we will try it for the mutual benefit.keep sharing.
Andrew Olson
March 6th, 2010 at 10:05 amI actually prefer free alternative office software. There is no reason anymore to pay for software these days. They have all the functionality that any general user may need.
And to make things even better for alternative office suites is that they have not converted their interfaces to a ribbon mess.
I personally tend to favour SSuite Office’s free office software. Their software also doesn’t need to run on Java or .NET, like MS Office and so many open source office software, so it makes their applications very small, efficient, and easy to use.
There are no trials, no registering your personal information, no strings attached at all. Just free office software.
http://www.ssuitesoft.com/ssuiteexcalibur.htm
…
Ramona
March 6th, 2010 at 11:35 amNachiket Patel, I agree that GIMP is OK if you’re not a “heavy user”. For a web designer who has to work a lot on the visual aspects too, unfortunately GIMP is a joke. I would love not having to deal with the sinisterly expensive Adobe Photoshop, but unfortunately it cannot be replaced for me at least. I cannot replace Corel or Illustrator with InkScape for instance, even if it’s cute and pretty OK feature wise.
Was able to ditch Dreamweaver years ago, so now I use a free code editor, am using a free anti-virus software etc. Most of the cases I am trying to find free solutions or at least less expensive ones. In some cases the free solutions are OK. Never stayed to compare them side-by-side with the paid ones, I don’t have the time to, but, as long as they’re doing the job for me, I’m pleased.
David W.
March 6th, 2010 at 12:41 pm@Ramona Well, I don’t think it’s fair to call GIMP a joke, even for a web designer. When I first started using Photoshop for web design, around v3.0. GIMP compares more than favorably to what PS was then, and nobody was calling PS a joke. It’s just that when relatively measured with, say, CS4, it is missing many of the layer management, text, and vector capabilities that I’m used to from PS.
But the fact is, I don’t need all of that every time I open a graphics tool. I use GIMP whenever I can, and it’s a fantastic tool for pretty much everything I do that isn’t website mockups. It loads faster and doesn’t require nearly as much memory as PS, has several tools that even PS lacks, and includes a much more robust scripting framework.
Pablo
March 6th, 2010 at 2:04 pmUgly interface, little or unexisting support and uncertain sustainability are usually the case for open-source projects.
When using closed commercial products, you have a lock-in with them.
But there are some products like Teambox that offer the best of both worlds. A commercial team is leading an open-source project. It’s a better product responding to needs, and maintained by professionals.
I think this is the way to go!
Viet
March 6th, 2010 at 2:18 pmI’m sorry but you are biased and unfair to FOSS :)
1. Many FOSS have well written code. Have you read any? jQuery, Prototype, Nokia Qt C++, GTK+
2. Many FOSS have beautiful designs. Think Nokia Qt C++ and Maemo. What about AdiumX and Chrome? You should try CyberDuck too. I bet you have not tried Django and Cherokee admin back-ends. Try jQueryTools and jQueryUI too ;)
3. You get lousy support for paid software too. It’s up to the company, but not software’s fault to be FOSS or commercial.
4. It’s very nature of software to die and slack. FOSS and paid software are not exceptional. FOSS have chance to re-incarnate, though, but closed source software mostly die once and forever :)
I pay for better choice if it is justifiable. I pay for Mac and TextMate. I use OpenOffice though. I think that it’s hard to argue which type is better in general. It’s up to your discretion and strictly depends on context and budget.
Juan Camilo Prada
March 6th, 2010 at 6:43 pm@Amber.
You say that open source application’s code is a mess (quoting “If you’re dealing with an actual framework, the code and file structure can be impossible to navigate and work around easily”)
The fact is open source communities usually dont have the chance to meet personally to hack or develop those softwares you list there, in order for others developers to help fixing bugs, add new features and in generall mantain the software, specifications have been defined by the same community so the code is as readable as possible for others to know how to work on that project. so dont say code of open source applications is a mess, specially when refering to web frameworks as they can only survive if code is readable and people can understand it.
Now, saying that when you upgrade you OS you dont get updates for your open source applications and that there will be bugs that will never be fixed… i think that is some sort of lie.
As i said in a previous comment, there are some cases of software whose only mantainer is the developer who created the project, of course those projects are small and dont get as many updates as some other applications. But pretty much all open source applications that run on non opensource OS’s like Windows and OSX get updates faster than any commercial software…. (i.e, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Inkscape….) I invite you to use Ubuntu or better yet try Fedora Linux and check how many updates you get per week.
I’m not saying all opensource applications are the best software out there, but the points you say are drawbacks are usually exposed as pros when choosing open source software over proprietary. Of course you have to choose well, there are crapppy software in both worlds open source and commercial.
and just so people know, I do all my design and development on Fedora Linux, I mantain a home server where my applications are developed and my main working laptop runs Fedora, plus Iam a Fedora contributor, and all the software I use works on Windows and Mac and i get updates for that software every week, and using IRC helps me with problems and bugs I found.
As I said, its a matter of researching a bit (and as I assume you get this wrong, im not saying you didnt research when writting the arcticle, I’m saying you didnt research when selecting your openSource software… and that is a thing you have to do even when buying commercial applications as you mentioned in your post)
Dave Jones
March 7th, 2010 at 6:36 amI don’t think Amber has written a biased article as some are suggesting.
She has written about open source software from her experience, and with an emphasis on free (beer) as opposed to free (speech) – which may be a mistake but is nevertheless commonly perceived as a major feature of open source.
I have seen many businesses and individuals have similar poor experiences with open source software, and have found this is usually partly the fault of the respective open source community and partly the fault of the user. I have probably spent an equal amount of time in organisation experiencing similar problems with proprietary software. Commercial software support varies greatly, sometimes you are simply paying for the privilege of speaking to someone in call centre in India.
Nicolas
March 7th, 2010 at 3:49 pmIf you need paid software it’s because of what you do : designing web sites.
For exemple I am a java developer, I mostly have done GUI for desktop applications (SWING) and web applications (JSP). Il was not web sites through. One app was a buggzila like application, another was a GUI to manage an hypermarket.
And basically, we are used to use MS Office for the specification, but i think it’s not mandatory at all, we could use Open Office, or even some sort of wiki for that.
And my main tool is Eclipse IDE. It is very advenced, mature and perform so many usefull tasks. It can do all you need as a web developper : edit your code, comes with many wizards, shortcut and refactoring facilities. It can manage your java web server (be it websphere, JBoss, Tomcat…, several at the time if you want… And even remote ones)., it can connect to the database and execute scripts, it of course deal with CVS, SVN…
It can help you will writting javascript, HTML and CSS… Deployement is not a problem because typically your web app is bundled in a war or ear that the application server can load or update automatically.
And guess what ? It’s completly free (Open Source).
Keith Humm
March 7th, 2010 at 9:19 pmIn my experience, paid software is better than FOSS competitors in more instances than not.
However, there are certainly many, many cases where the alternative is true.
My biggest concerns with FOSS are generally UI related, and lack of accountability and support. Quite often for business reasons FOSS has to be shelved, simply because managers want someone to yell at if something goes wrong.
I also tend to find that FOSS quite often suffers badly from feature creep. Eclipse is something that springs to mind instantly here – it’s a very, very heavyweight and bloated platform these days, especially when compared to Visual Studio.
For PHP IDEs – compare Zend Studio, based on Eclipse+PDT, to the open source PDT alternate. ZS is light years ahead, and PDT lacks support and is, to be frank, somewhat shocking.
Viet
March 7th, 2010 at 9:27 pm@Keith: You are comparing Languages which software was built on, not types of Software when taking about VStudio and Eclipse. You may rethink when comparing VStudio with QtCreator and KDevelop. The same applies to Zend Studio and PDT. Java sucks in term of speed and memory, we all know. That’s plainly unfair to praise C++ written software for speed and claim that closed source software is better. It’s more logical to take FOSS alternative written in the same language and compare.
Linux, Unix beats Windows in terms of speed. Oh, and Mac relied on FreeBSD and branched their very own GUI.
WebKit and Chrome (WebKit based) beats all IEs. They all written in C/C++. This comparison makes sense :)
Dmitry Dulepov
March 8th, 2010 at 7:00 amI fully agree with this article. Why OS app is a good solution for freelancer, often you end up spending far more time doing stuff with them than you could spend with a commercial app. That extra time means loss of money.
Recently I started to get commercial apps instead. Usually it is worth the money.
Julian
March 8th, 2010 at 2:43 pmGreat article. Open source is often better coded than their paid counter-parts because their code is viewable by anyone in the world, including prospective employers. Closed-source stays within the company…often, no extra effort is made to make the code easily readable, as long as it works, employers pay developers and both parties goes home happy.
It would be great if this article was followed up by a list of awesome paid apps.
David W.
March 8th, 2010 at 3:10 pm@Julian — great idea! Can we get some examples, Amber? A side-by-side FOSS/commercial comparison of applications you’ve experience with would be great!
Amber Weinberg
March 8th, 2010 at 3:15 pm@David and @Julian I did a post a couple of weeks ago about my fav apps, both paid and free. here’s the link:
http://freelancefolder.com/8-apps-that-every-freelance-developer-needs/
Keith Humm
March 8th, 2010 at 4:52 pm@Viet True, there is a notable difference in capabilities between the likes of Java vs. C++, but I don’t see how this affects PDT vs Zend Studio? Zend Studio (the newer versions) are based on PDT and Eclipse – so they share a common platform. ZS is vastly better executed, however. To be frank though, I’ll stand by VStudio over both KDevelop and QtCreator – certainly the gap is smaller.
Interestingly, you mention WebKit and Chrome. WebKit is a brilliant engine, but it only really became so once Apple (and then Google) picked it up and ran.
I think really what I’ve noticed is a difference between commercially-supported (closed or open-source) software and community supported software. Other than the obvious ones (Linux/BSD kernels), I can’t think of many cases at all where a commercially-supported product doesn’t win over the best open source counterpart.
Compilers – Intel’s C compiler produces marginally faster code than GCC.
Graphics apps – Adobe’s suite is better featured and (getting less so) more reliable than GIMP / InkScape
Web Browsers – Chrome, Safari are better browsers than their completely open-source counterparts
Perhaps it doesn’t matter whether the source is open or closed – maybe it’s simply the organisation and direction present moreso in commercially-supported products that puts them to the fore (in my eyes).
Viet
March 8th, 2010 at 8:46 pm@Keith: Good catch! I can name a few top FOSS backed by commercial support and add-ins/components. Trolltech Qt C++ (now Nokia Qt C++), Magento e-commerce, SurgarCRM, Zimbra, Wt C++, POCO C++. From my point of view, having commercial support + components is better for both company and community: Community can use FOSS if they are on budget. Clients can use FOSS with commercial support to reduce risks. And the developing company get sales to survive and bring their FOSS + commercial components to the next level.
Stephen Webb
March 9th, 2010 at 5:04 amThis is an interesting argument considering the vast range of open source and free software now available. There seems to be an alternative to nearly every paid application out there, but what the real advantages and disadvantages of free software are is still to be decided.
While I agree with many of the points made here by users, regarding the fact that open source has great community support, that you can find a solution to nearly anything on open source software and that it will constantly evolve, I still think paid apps have a fundamental advantage.
With a paid app you do have a better structure, as designers have been paid to facilitate this side of the product, the code structure is better and more reliable, and there is usually a good customer support structure in place. I’d be interested to see what alternative apps people suggest in the user comments.
Viet
March 9th, 2010 at 5:14 amI don’t think that code structure of paid software is better. Many FOSS have been developed by top developers. Think PHP, Python, Perl languages, Ruby on Rails framework. Design of paid is often better, but when talking about code, this argument becomes false. Code of FOSS is often better because: Everyone can screen it. Therefore bugs and security holes get fixed much faster than closed source softwares. Reason is simple: Development is open and everyone can contribute their goodness.
AeM
March 9th, 2010 at 5:32 pmmost of big open source players are not done freely…
examples :
apache : ibm+oracle+others
drupal : mostly companies
php : zend+yahoo (mostly)
python : think google
openoffice : ex-sun, ibm
and so on
heavysilver
March 10th, 2010 at 8:44 amopen sources apps have really poor support services :/ great article!
iphotoshoppr
March 10th, 2010 at 2:55 pmI do use open-source apps as well as commercials ones.
Though there are a lot of open-source apps that meet everyone’s needs (e.g. Chrome, Filezilla, Thunderbird, Firefox, Pidgin), there are some that can’t be used by designers and illustrators: inkspace and GIMP. Inkspace is slow if it has a certain number of layers. Use Xara instead (not free, but not expensive). Xara has features Inkspace doesn’t. Illustrator is much more powerful than Xara and is an ultimate tool for any kind of creative people. GIMP can’t be used for print at all. It doesn’t have support for 3D, does it? Something similar to VersionCue? Pen tablets support? Open-source community that develops GIMP has to invest a lot of time/money to create a commercial-like software that does its job as well as Photoshop does. If they did, they won’t give it for free :) GIMP is still for an occasional use but not for serious projects.
Linux can be great for developers but I wonder how you guys, check sites you develop in IE 6-8 if you run Linux on your machines? Do you use Virtualbox or any similar app? Do you use a legal copy of Windows/MacOS to run inside it? Do you use some online services like browsershots? There are a couple of free apps for Windows like ietester/multipleIE you can use but Windows still ain’t free. Linux is great for servers and web development but you can’t live without Windows and it can’t be completely replaced while 80% of people use it.
MS office is still better though it gets slower with every release and bloated with features a normal user won’t ever need. But I’m sure some people need them. OpenOffice is just slow. OO Writer can’t format text/lists normally. OO Calc has problems with a floating point calculations. There’s no need to pay $400 for MS office if you need Word/Excel. Get them for $100. Or replace them with Google/Zoho if you’re an occasional user and spend a lot of time online.
My point is that only simple commercial apps can be replaced with open-source ones (which are a way better in most cases).
Dene
March 19th, 2010 at 2:04 pm“Little or no support”
Yes and no … that’s mostly down to the community, although some open source projects do offer premium support, so you can argue there’s really not much difference in some cases.
“Ugly interface”
I agree that there are some real ugly ones out there. Although this can be down to the OS environment you use … most open source software I know of has been designed to run on Linux or some *NIX equivalent, so it might not integrate into windows or mac so well. Exceptions to that rule (as far as UI is concerned at least) can be applications built using a programming language like java for example.
“Terrible file structures or code”
It does happen. Using tools to reformat code can be a minor inconvenience.
“Lack of updates and bugs”
Yes. Long established apps with a big community doesn’t suffer from this problem so much though and are often updated faster then then a lot of commercial equivalents.
@iphotoshoppr
Blender is one of the industry standard open source 3D design applications. Asking if GIMP can do 3D design is like asking if a screwdriver can be used as a hacksaw. Also, GIMP’s support for printing (or lack of) is more a legal issue, although there are work arounds ;)
Dene
March 19th, 2010 at 2:06 pm“Exceptions to that rule (as far as UI is concerned at least) can be applications built using a programming language like java for example.”
I meant to say “Examples” there, rather …
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