What is the difference between open and closed source?

What are the needs of your new digital solution?

When you're working on bespoke solutions, you can't marry a single programming language. What is right in one particular project is not necessarily optimal in another. And one of the big differences is whether you work with so-called closed or open source.

“There are pros and cons to both, so it depends entirely on the customer's needs. But it is important to clear up the concepts a little,” says Odd Einar Betten, developer at Increo.

How open — how closed?

The short definition of “open source” is that everyone has access to the source code — it is openly available to anyone.

“It's not that as long as you put your source code online, it's open source. It depends on whether people can contribute to it, explains Odd Einar.

There are also different levels of open source, with varying degrees of limitation. But what the vast majority associate with open source is “free software”, which is completely without restrictions.

-- On the opposite side, you have completely closed solutions, and you have proprietary solutions built on open source. The latter is considered closed, but is usually not locked as long as you pay a license, says Odd Einar.

Open Source 101

When we work with open source in Increo, we usually talk about WordPress. This is “free software”, and that is, completely open. One of the benefits of this is that you don't have to reinvent gunpowder.

Read more about WordPress and Wondercode as a CMS here.

“Sometimes there are already plugins that can do exactly what you're looking for, and then we don't have to create them from scratch. Thus, it may be right to choose WordPress if you mostly have “common” needs that are similar to those of others.

He says that open source isn't necessarily cheaper.

“There are a lot of customers who “know” to have WordPress because they think it's just plug and play. It's not like that. Because it is made for a whole world, and not specifically for the customer, removing noise requires a fair amount of work. In other words, there will still be a lot of tailoring to remove choices and streamline the solution,” says Odd Einar.

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Security and volume

Open source is also a double-edged sword when it comes to security. On one, it is under constant attack, allowing obscure flaws to be discovered and security gaps plugged on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, you are totally dependent on being up to date.

“For every person with good intentions, you will find one with evil intentions. Maintenance is therefore extremely important, since so many errors are detected all the time. If, on the other hand, we discover a bug in a closed source code, we are the only ones who know about it until we fix it.

Another consideration is whether your solution will process large amounts of data.

WordPress is built on PHP, which is not very good at large volumes. Therefore, if you run a large online store, or have ambitions to scale up, we recommend choosing something else, explains Odd Einar.

Need help developing an online store? Read more about how we work with the development of online stores here.

Not a straight answer

An alternative is Increo's proprietary, proprietary Wondercode. Technically built on .NET, which is open source, but it is for all purposes a closed source.

“Since it is only we in Increo and potentially the customer who have access to the code, there is far less chance of anyone discovering a security hole.

But for the vast majority who opt for closed source, it's ease of use, stability and scalability that are the heaviest weights on the scale bowl.

“Wondercode is designed to quickly create clean, noise-free solutions, while keeping everything tailor-made from the start. But there is no fixed answer here, says Odd Einar and concludes:

Together we will find what is right for your project.