I am a big advocate of open-source startups. Over the next year, you will see many more of them. You take an existing product and open-source it.
I built a social media scheduling tool (many exist in the market) and created an open-source version.
This is Postiz, an open-source social media scheduling tool.
And of course, if you could help me with a star, it would be amazing.
The thing about the source
It's open-source, and everybody can come and take your code, so what's the catch?
Open source is a community; when you start to push your product, thousands of developers will fork and clone it and help you on your journey.
It will bring massive exposure to your product.
So far, the Postiz docker has been downloaded 26k times.
On the other hand, everybody can be a competitor and use your open-source solution instead of paying you, and you have to live with this.
Some licenses can save you, such as apache-2 or Agpl-3
It means that people can't compete with you without open-sourcing your code and giving you credit, but it doesn't prevent commercial use.
Support is harder
Having an open-source repository (with docker and all) will attract many self-hosters and require much support.
So far, 3-5 tickets from Coolify, Portainer, and Unraid are received daily. This is only the start; I am sure there will be more deployment platforms soon.
Make sure you give other contributors the respect they deserve. They will help you tremendously with support.
Revenue is uncertain
If there is one thing developers are known for, it is not to pay for stuff if it's not needed. We were born with this gene, I guess 😂
So don't expect developers to pay you. They'll host you on Raspberry Pi or a $5 Coolify server.
It's important to know this.
The goal of the contributors is:
- Help you to build the product
- Help you with exposure
- Build a fun and active community where everybody can grow
I can't tell you how often I have seen a contributor tagging me on some X post about Postiz.
Or some top trending open-source article.
Enterprise
It depends on your product, but some enterprises can use only self-hosted solutions and will pay you for your support and custom implementation.
This is super important because that's something only open-source solutions can offer.
Play with the suitable license
There are no secrets. Monetized open-source (COSS) is sometimes misused in the wrong ways, for example:
Adding dual licensing to the open-source, so when you use the code, you use the enterprise version and need to figure out how to remove it from the code base.
Adding non open-source license. You can put something like BSL, but it is not counted as "open-source," and fewer people see your solution as attractive. You would need to refer to your solution as self-hosted instead.
Holding out on SSO - having SSO for enterprise is only considered a destructive pattern. I have discovered lately that you can find many websites like SSO.tax because SSO is a security thing. SSO can still be commercialized, but it's better to take a stand like Tailscale, which limits seats or enterprise providers.
Be a part of the community; don't talk like "We. " Say "I" and connect with your audience; nobody likes communicating with a corporation.
Go open-source. For me, it's the only way to build
Please help me out with a star. It would be awesome ❤️
https://github.com/gitroomhq/postiz-app
Top comments (22)
The best way to earn passive income :)
🚀
Good for you, need to find a good idea for this, maybe hardest part nowadays.
Just take something that exists and open source it
I talked about Postiz on one of my blogs. It's really awesome!
Yay! 🚀
Will try to self-host it :)
Go for it!
This is a nice way of building SaaS!
Thank you!
it seems the title is just for click baiting? when i read the whole post, i don't see anything mentioned about how it generates $700 per month at the very least. am i missing it?
So don't expect developers to pay you. They'll host you on Raspberry Pi or a $5 Coolify server.
haha this is a good one!
😂
“ I am making $700 monthly…”
Really? Cause other than the title, we don’t know how exactly this is occurring. Could you please give some more insight. Thanks
Excellent post!
This is something I’ve always thought about, and I was considering doing something similar. Thank you for showing that it’s possible.
I always remember that Red Hat has several open-source products and still makes a lot of money.
Excellent tool, by the way—congratulations on the great work.
Your journey with Postiz is really inspiring! It’s a great example of how open-source can fuel both community engagement and growth. At Game Vault Download, we’re doing something similar by building an open-source gaming platform where players and developers contribute to improving the experience. Like Postiz, we leverage community support to enhance the platform, with monetization through premium features, partnerships, and special events.
Revenue might be uncertain in open-source, but as you mentioned, the key is fostering a strong, active community and finding creative ways to provide value. Your post really highlights how open-source can lead to both exposure and sustainable growth—something we’re also experiencing at Game Vault 777. Thanks for sharing your insights!
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