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I'm a fan of alternative pricing models (as opposed to saas) but this one seems odd. A selling point of "avoid lock-in" doesn't play well against a hosted serv

I'm a fan of alternative pricing models (as opposed to saas) but this one seems odd. A selling point of "avoid lock-in" doesn't play well against a hosted service that the customer has to pay you to download from.

pyxxi 9y ago
Thanks for your feedback. I see what you mean, but I suppose I meant not "locked in" as in not locked in to a subscription or a hosting fee, but a pay-as-you-go-model instead, especially as the website created would be portable, so it could be be hosted on Amazon or similar. In theory, someone could use Pyxxi to design, build, and export to html an entire responsive website for only a $1. Actually, I don't really know much about pricing models. Can I ask if you know of any other models that would be more appropriate? Caroline
- stephenr 9y ago
  Well it depends how much control you have. Personally, I think something like this could work quite well as a "open source, $$ to use our hosted version". In that model, you'd open-source the tool itself (which means there can never be any lock-in concerns) and charge organisations/people who want to use the hosted version. This also means you could get buy-in from e.g. freelance developers. They'd be able to run the tool in private to build a client site, and then say "hey if you want to keep editing this site, upload this <specially-formatted-export>.zip to Pyxxi.com and you can keep editing it. The selling point for the hosted version might then be 'extras', such as the ability to push the generated content to an sftp server, or s3 bucket the user specifies.
  - pyxxi 9y ago
    Thanks, that's interesting 'cos I have been thinking of adding import/export to GitHub via Markdown, so that website content isn't locked into Pyxxi. I'm not sure how much of the tool itself I could open source (I've never done that) but I could at least make the client-side search and lists open source, I think, so that web developers could generate their clients' sites without using Pyxxi at all if they needed to. Perhaps they would then only need to use it if they wanted to redesign a site or generate new style sheets. Plus, as you say, their clients could use Pyxxi to edit their site. Especially, as they might not want to do that in Markdown. Do you think that's feasible or would it be better to open source the entire tool?
    - stephenr 9y ago
      I can't speak for everyone obviously, and the pure-SaaS model is definitely popular at the moment, so I'd imagine there is still a market without open sourcing the whole thing. Having said that, I still think open sourcing it will be a net positive for you. Regardless of whatever unique client-side logic your product handles, there are numerous other static-site generators available, that are open source (heck, I'm writing one myself). In this scenario, I believe that being closed, and a service (as opposed to say a closed source, but self-hosted tool) can lose you some potential customers. I don't think being open (and thus self-hostable) will lose you any actual paying customers - those who are able and willing to self-host it are probably unlikely to have paid for a closed service in such an active (in terms of competing products/projects) niche. > I'm not sure how much of the tool itself I could open source (I've never done that) Regarding this specifically, the key thing here is going to be what (if any) libraries/frameworks you're using. Assuming you're not using any commercial libraries, it's probably mostly about making sure the various licences of the libraries are compatible with whatever license you choose to use.
      - pyxxi 9y ago
        Thanks. That's really helpful, and interesting what you're saying about self-hosting customers not being willing to pay anyway. I hadn't really thought about it like that. Caroline

pyxxi 9y ago

Thanks for your feedback. I see what you mean, but I suppose I meant not "locked in" as in not locked in to a subscription or a hosting fee, but a pay-as-you-go-model instead, especially as the website created would be portable, so it could be be hosted on Amazon or similar. In theory, someone could use Pyxxi to design, build, and export to html an entire responsive website for only a $1. Actually, I don't really know much about pricing models. Can I ask if you know of any other models that would be more appropriate? Caroline

stephenr 9y ago
Well it depends how much control you have. Personally, I think something like this could work quite well as a "open source, $$ to use our hosted version". In that model, you'd open-source the tool itself (which means there can never be any lock-in concerns) and charge organisations/people who want to use the hosted version. This also means you could get buy-in from e.g. freelance developers. They'd be able to run the tool in private to build a client site, and then say "hey if you want to keep editing this site, upload this <specially-formatted-export>.zip to Pyxxi.com and you can keep editing it. The selling point for the hosted version might then be 'extras', such as the ability to push the generated content to an sftp server, or s3 bucket the user specifies.
- pyxxi 9y ago
  Thanks, that's interesting 'cos I have been thinking of adding import/export to GitHub via Markdown, so that website content isn't locked into Pyxxi. I'm not sure how much of the tool itself I could open source (I've never done that) but I could at least make the client-side search and lists open source, I think, so that web developers could generate their clients' sites without using Pyxxi at all if they needed to. Perhaps they would then only need to use it if they wanted to redesign a site or generate new style sheets. Plus, as you say, their clients could use Pyxxi to edit their site. Especially, as they might not want to do that in Markdown. Do you think that's feasible or would it be better to open source the entire tool?
  - stephenr 9y ago
    I can't speak for everyone obviously, and the pure-SaaS model is definitely popular at the moment, so I'd imagine there is still a market without open sourcing the whole thing. Having said that, I still think open sourcing it will be a net positive for you. Regardless of whatever unique client-side logic your product handles, there are numerous other static-site generators available, that are open source (heck, I'm writing one myself). In this scenario, I believe that being closed, and a service (as opposed to say a closed source, but self-hosted tool) can lose you some potential customers. I don't think being open (and thus self-hostable) will lose you any actual paying customers - those who are able and willing to self-host it are probably unlikely to have paid for a closed service in such an active (in terms of competing products/projects) niche. > I'm not sure how much of the tool itself I could open source (I've never done that) Regarding this specifically, the key thing here is going to be what (if any) libraries/frameworks you're using. Assuming you're not using any commercial libraries, it's probably mostly about making sure the various licences of the libraries are compatible with whatever license you choose to use.
    - pyxxi 9y ago
      Thanks. That's really helpful, and interesting what you're saying about self-hosting customers not being willing to pay anyway. I hadn't really thought about it like that. Caroline