Why We Recommend Open Source Website Platforms
December 2, 2020
Open Source & Microservices vs Proprietary Approach
When building sites, Madden subscribes to an open source platform approach with a microservices backbone. Many website companies use a proprietary platform to develop websites, but Madden believes that there are several downsides to this approach.
Open Source Community of Developers vs a Single Vendor
First, clients have to rely on the vendor for fixes, upgrades, and changes to the system. A proprietary solution only has the developers employed by the parent company to work on the product. In most cases, they are supporting multiple clients. On the other hand, an open source platform solution, has thousands of developers working on it all over the world. This mean that the community at large discovers and resolves security issues quickly. In the world of quality assurance, the more eyes that can see something, the more likely issues are revealed and subsequently fixed.
Flexibility vs Long Term Contracts
Second, proprietary solutions often strike longer term deals with 3rd party vendors to integrate their data into the platform. For example, a review service might sign a multi-year contract to have their reviews used exclusively in client sites. The microservice approach lets you pull from the right data source for you. You can use a plug and play approach to adding a new service if one falls out of favor or becomes unreliable. Open source platform’s flexibility benefits both you and your site visitors.
Simple Transfer vs Unorganized Data
Lastly, a proprietary approach means that when other agencies stop working with a client, they retain their proprietary software. This makes it much more challenging to move away from that system. Clients can be left at the mercy of their old developers who don’t always have clean solutions in place to hand off data to new teams. They’re also under no obligation to provide this in an organized or timely manner. With open source platform solutions, your site can be easily transferred if you decide another developer is better for your needs.
Madden believes your website should be YOUR website.
We choose open source technology solutions because we want to provide the best tools to our destination marketing partners. Open source solutions allow us the flexibility to shift and adjust strategies as marketing and business needs change. We empower our partners using these tools and strategies. They’re able to move on their own without making our teams a bottleneck.
WordPress is our preferred platform. Its easy-to-use CMS gives full control over publishing new content and updating existing content. Our partners can adjust page layouts and create new web pages quickly and efficiently. When paired with our hosting platform and best practices, WordPress sites are fast, secure, and reliable.
Need More Website Insight?
For more of Madden’s website recommendations, check out our COVID-19 Website Strategies and Inclusion Goes Beyond Compliance for Travel Websites.
