SaaS vs. Open Core Software: An Introduction

As someone who previously co-founded a SaaS company and more recently co-founded an Open Source Software company, I wanted to explore SaaS vs Open Source from a go-to-market perspective to illustrate how the Open Source model can succeed and help confirm that I am not just a masochist. I’ll start with a brief overview of SaaS and how it came to be such a dominant model and touch on how different Open Core models for selling Open Source Software may be creating a viable alternative market. However, I recently noticed a post by Thomas Tunguz (in a blog primarily focused on SaaS, by the way) about a company (Mattermost) with a new software delivery model:

For all its benefits, SaaS is not a panacea.

Source: gravitational.com