What is open source web development? Can it help me improve my website and its functionalities? Is it secure?

Those are questions our clients always ask when we bring this topic in our conversations, and that is the reason we write this article trying to explaining the benefits and advantages of this type of methodology.

What is open source?
Open source is a development methodology, which offers practical or total accessibility to a product's source code.

Can it help me improve my website and its functionalities?
For sure, not only that, everything you can think of can be done using open source technologies.

Is it secure?
As my own point of view it is the most secure and honest method of development, it is completely open, so it's also visible to other developers and people in general to look at it and inspect it for vulnerabilities, errors and bugs.

We as a high-end web development firm, that supports Open Source Web Development 100%, are dedicated to create all our application developments, shopping carts, ecommerce services, administration platforms and other services using open source technologies, services and programs.

The benefits of the Open Source Web Development are several, including:

• Cost less - Open Source web sites do not need to pay expensive licenses or servers requirements to run
• Ownership - Open Source allow our clients to really own the code of the applications we create for them, no encryption or compilations.
• Flexibility - The owner of the code do not need to be bound to a specific company or person, the code is open so can be customized for anybody.
• Audit ability - Closed Source software forces its users to trust the vendor when claims are made for qualities such as security.

Don't get me wrong, developers get a lot of benefits of this technology too, there is no need for specific and expensive software to develop open source online applications, most of the time a simple notepad do the work and this is translated in cost less for the final client.

Trust is a very important feature on the open source web development. When the code is encrypted or compiled, as closed source is, there is no way the final user can say if it is well done, there is no way for a security expert to look into it and identify vulnerabilities, bugs and errors. That do not happen on open source, the user have the freedom to look at the code directly and with a little bit of knowledge identify and debug errors and vulnerabilities.

You may now wonder if your website is an open source web site, visitors will be able to make changes on it without your authorization. The answer is no, only people with access to the server where the code is hosted, can make changes, they will have the option to download it, change it and upload it again, and overwrite the original one.

Next time you need to create a website or online application ask your developer if they use open source programming languages and programs to create whatever you need, if they don't, be aware, that could be the beginning of a real nightmare.

For more information about open source web development methodology and the way we use it creating online applications give us a call, we will be more than happy to talk to you 305.386.9003