Cost saving is an integral part of your business’ economics. If you want to see yourself make it through a few more milestones, you’ll need to take cutting expenses to the next level. One of the biggest costs in your budget is probably the money you’re setting aside for your IT needs. According to Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast, these costs are set to rise over the coming years and this means you’re going to need to make some serious changes in the way you spend money for your software and other tech requirements.

While you might be looking for cheaper alternatives to products from Microsoft, for example, it would be better to focus on free products like open source software. Contrary to popular belief, you can run a business using free software and expect your productivity and output to be just as good as (if not better than) your premium solutions.

Although we mentioned cost as the first reason, there are many more advantages to using open source software.

Use of Linux

Yes, your database can be turned into one of the most secure databases out there. Linux is light and can run on almost any decent-sized server. You don’t need to pay exorbitant prices for server operating systems that require even more expensive supporting hardware.

Linux also happens to be a very stable server operating system that won’t give you headaches every few weeks. It’s basically an install-it-and-forget-it software that makes the lives of server administrators a little bit easier. Your clients will also appreciate your databases being active 24/7.

Enhanced Security

The beauty of open source software is that there are thousands of people out there going through its code. With so many eyes, there is a high chance of security flaws being spotted and immediately patched. As the user, you can rest in the knowledge that your security is being taken care of round the clock. This will save you money you might otherwise spend on security experts, software and hardware.

Better Quality

Most people assume that just because a software package was developed exclusively by one of the big tech companies, the end product is of superior quality. But anyone that’s used premium packages knows that almost all of them come with their own set of rather unique bugs.

In the case of open source software, the programmer community is constantly tweaking and tuning the various applications and operating systems, so you finally get superior solutions.

Flexibility

One really annoying aspect of owning premium software is that you don’t actually own it. Proprietary software manufacturers are notorious for being overly protective of their products. If your business happens to have a unique request that needs to be addressed with a software solution, you either need to shell out more money for them to address the problem or you will be out of luck.

Not so with open source software! As long as you have the technical know how, you are welcome to look under the hood of your database and tinker away. If there is a solution to be found, you are welcome to create and apply it.

Global Support

The same community out there working on open source software is more than ready to help you in case you have technical issues. You won’t have to sign up for support agreements that’ll cost you a pretty penny and not even prove to be very effective. Whenever you encounter a problem all you need to do is post it in one of the numerous popular open source communities where you can almost instantly expect to find multiple innovative solutions to your one problem.

More Freedom

When you opt for open source software, you free yourself from the tyranny of the big tech companies. You don’t have to pay for licenses every time you add a user or install their software on a new machine. You are not forced to upgrade to a newer version every year when you are asked to upgrade your hardware.

With open source software you also don’t have to worry about support for your applications and operating systems being discontinued simply because the manufacturer has decided to phase out its product.

Rapid Innovation

Unlike proprietary software, open source software solutions are continuously being improved even as we speak. Your open source software is updated so fast, you might wake up every single day to find a new and improved version made available to you as someone from half way across the world comes up with a bright idea for an improvement. The choice to apply the new features is, of course, entirely up to you.

You and your business would be well-advised to make the switch to open source software as soon as possible. It is worth it!