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So, my co-founder and I have basically been independently building a commercially supported alternative to this excellent open source package. But there are a f

So, my co-founder and I have basically been independently building a commercially supported alternative to this excellent open source package. But there are a few differences that make sense when offering this as a paid service: - We wrote our own terraform testing framework to validate that every change to our modules doesn't break functionality - We actively update our modules based on feedback from new client engagements - We provide commercial support for each module - We combine our modules with consulting and training as needed And of course, there are many similarities - We give 100% of the source code to our clients - Everything runs in the client's AWS account - Everything is self-documented, modularized, and can be combined/composed as the needs of different teams require I didn't mean for this to be a shameless plug; more just that I found it interesting to compare the open source vs. commercial approach to solving this same problem. Props to the Segment team for sharing this.

beat 10y ago
There's a lot of potential for such a service as a consultancy - advice and in-house customization included along with the software. As cool as the Segment stack is, it doesn't let people off the hook for designing effectively in the first place, or for taking a poor design and re-engineering it.
- avitzurel 10y ago
  My initial approach with the-startup-stack[1] was exactly that. Building an open source solution with a "pro" level all setup included in it. I had a very hard time quantifying how much companies will pay for this and whether they even will. How I see it, you are either on Heroku (or other similar) and you don't care about anything except `git push` or you have a full blown stack. I know the middle ground between the two is where the stack is but I just couldn't figure out how many companies are actually experiencing those difficulties and how much are they willing to pay for the help. Since it's not a startup for me, it's just an open source project I decided not to worry about it, but would still be nice to get some input. [1] http://the-startup-stack.com http://the-startup-stack.com
  - conorgil145 10y ago
    Based on personal experience, I strongly suspect there is a market for that type of middle ground. Also, the author of the top level comment in this subthread said they are doing commercial consulting work, so that shows there is some market for it. Given, he/she did not say how good business was, where/how/if they find customers, if they are profitable, etc.

beat 10y ago

There's a lot of potential for such a service as a consultancy - advice and in-house customization included along with the software. As cool as the Segment stack is, it doesn't let people off the hook for designing effectively in the first place, or for taking a poor design and re-engineering it.

avitzurel 10y ago
My initial approach with the-startup-stack[1] was exactly that. Building an open source solution with a "pro" level all setup included in it. I had a very hard time quantifying how much companies will pay for this and whether they even will. How I see it, you are either on Heroku (or other similar) and you don't care about anything except `git push` or you have a full blown stack. I know the middle ground between the two is where the stack is but I just couldn't figure out how many companies are actually experiencing those difficulties and how much are they willing to pay for the help. Since it's not a startup for me, it's just an open source project I decided not to worry about it, but would still be nice to get some input. [1] http://the-startup-stack.com http://the-startup-stack.com
- conorgil145 10y ago
  Based on personal experience, I strongly suspect there is a market for that type of middle ground. Also, the author of the top level comment in this subthread said they are doing commercial consulting work, so that shows there is some market for it. Given, he/she did not say how good business was, where/how/if they find customers, if they are profitable, etc.