Open Source Insights

Ideas & Insights

Tutorials, guides, and insights about building with open-source software. Learn how to replace expensive SaaS with powerful alternatives.

15+ articles
Opinionated takes
15 posts

Latest Article

FeaturedBusiness & Growth

From 1M to 4M Developers: Supabase's COSS Growth Playbook

How Supabase grew 350% in 12 months to 4.5M developers and $70M ARR through activation optimization, documentation quality, and developer-led growth.

Feb 8, 2026
17 min read
Read article

More Posts

Business & Growth

The New Open Source Stack: What $225B AI Investment Means

How $202B in AI investment created vector databases, inference infrastructure, and observability platforms that replace traditional stacks.

Feb 7, 2026·14 min
Read
Ecosystem & Trust

License Wars: How Fauxpen Source Killed Developer Trust

How license changes by Redis, HashiCorp, and Elastic destroyed community trust and what developers need to know before choosing infrastructure.

Feb 5, 2026·14 min
Read
Business & Growth

Developer-Led Growth: The $26B Open Source Distribution Win

How developer-led growth achieves 35-50% lower CAC than traditional SaaS while driving $26.4B in COSS investment.

Feb 4, 2026·15 min
Read
Business & Growth

Beyond Stars: The Two Metrics That Signal Investment Quality

How combined health and technical scores reveal investment-worthy open source projects better than GitHub stars ever could.

Feb 3, 2026·12 min
Read
Business & Growth

Open Source Investment Boom: $26B Validates What We Knew

$26.4B invested in COSS. 25 years of data prove open source outperforms closed source in valuations, funding speed, and exits. But fauxpen source threatens it all.

Feb 2, 2026·13 min
Read
Economics & Self-Hosting

Self-Hosting Myths Developers Believe That Aren't True

Debunking five persistent myths about self-hosting that developers repeat without questioning in 2026.

Jan 26, 2026·9 min
Read
Economics & Self-Hosting

When Open Source Isn't the Answer: Choosing SaaS Wisely

Honest analysis of when SaaS wins: small team economics, compliance acceleration, time-to-value, and specialized infrastructure with decision framework.

Jan 19, 2026·15 min
Read
Ecosystem & Trust

Hidden Gem Open Source Tools You've Never Heard Of Yet

Six production-ready open source tools solving real problems in overlooked niches: ERP, invoicing, localization, analytics, API management, and accounting.

Jan 12, 2026·10 min
Read
Enterprise & Scale

Open Source Projects That Actually Scale to Enterprise Use

Documented proof that open source scales: DoD deployments, Netflix data warehouses, 12M users worldwide. Reference architectures you can verify.

Jan 5, 2026·11 min
Read
Technical Guides

How to Choose the Right Open Source Alternative for You

A systematic three-factor framework for choosing between open source tools: health scores, technical quality, and use case fit with real CMS examples.

Dec 29, 2025·12 min
Read

Join founders buildingwith open source

Opinionated takes, migration guides, cost-saving tips, and insights from the open source ecosystem.

Subscribe on Substack

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Join 750+ subscribers
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Search