A New Chapter for Enterprise Low-Code: Transitioning to Open Source

Hello HackerNoon Community!

I'm James Haliburton, Co-founder and CEO of Noodl. Today, I'm thrilled to share with you some transformative news about our company. We're transitioning Noodl, our next-gen low-code platform, to an open-source model!

Our decision to embrace open source marks a significant milestone in our journey. It reflects our commitment to democratizing software creation, making it more powerful, more accessible, and more customizable. It also speaks to a belief that's been at the heart of Noodl since its inception: the idea that investment in our platform should never be a risk to your time or resources but rather an investment in yourself.

This transition will position Noodl as one of the most comprehensive and potent open-source low-code tools available - and the only one geared towards building custom business-critical apps. We're excited to provide developers, businesses, and the open-source community with everything they need to build, deploy, and host Noodl applications under open-source licenses.

Balance of open-core and open source

We're moving towards an open-core model. This means that all the essentials to build, deploy, maintain, and host applications will be free and fully open-source. However, we also understand that some users and businesses seek advanced features. To cater to them, we'll offer a commercial version with additional features like collaboration tools, version control, and optimizations for scaling applications. It's our way of maintaining Noodl's accessibility while providing added value to those who need a little more.

Our hosting services will remain available, and we'll be rolling out additional enterprise-grade features in the coming months. We aim to enhance the overall experience for customers who prefer integrated Noodl hosting.

Community

The Noodl community has already been growing at breakneck speed recently, with between 30% to 45% monthly growth of new users. But our mission is not about raw growth alone - it’s about working together to build a community that is sustainable and has a lasting, transformative impact.

Our phase will focus on setting up a solid governance foundation and de-risking a commitment to a low-code platform, and secondary phases will invest increasingly in stimulating community innovation and contributions.

Timing

The transition to an open-core model is a substantial undertaking. We expect it to take 6-12 months, during which we'll be releasing code regularly for the community to access and contribute to.

The code base will be divided into two main components. The first will cover everything needed to build and run the Noodl editor, and the second will address all aspects necessary to deploy and host Noodl applications.

Balancing the needs of the community and commercial users is crucial to us, and we've chosen two different licenses to achieve this. The first component, related to building and running the editor, will be licensed under GPL3. This license encourages collaboration and contributions from the community, allowing for ongoing improvements to the platform. The second component, covering deployment and hosting, will be licensed under the more permissive Apache 2.0 license. This will enable organizations to build, deploy, and host commercial Noodl applications while still benefiting from the contributions made to the community version of the platform​.

Here's a glimpse into our transition timeline:

1. Official announcement of Noodl transitioning to an open core model. To celebrate this exciting development, we are updating our pricing model, making self-hosting applications completely free of charge! Previously $299 / month.

   
   

   
   

   

2. The first code releases of Noodl will be published, allowing the community to start exploring, contributing to, and improving the platform.

   
   

   
   

   

3. Completion of the transition to an open-core model. Noodl will be available under open-source licenses, with additional features offered in the commercial version.

A new chapter

We believe this transition will breathe new life into our community, driving the platform to new heights and empowering developers, businesses, and organizations to create groundbreaking applications using Noodl.

I invite you to join us on this exciting journey. Stay up to date with the latest developments and be the first to know about our open-source transition by joining our newsletter. Your participation will help shape the future of low-code development.

Noodl is already free to download and get started with today.

Thank you for being part of the Noodl community.

James Haliburton, Co-founder and CEO, Noodl.