But… What is Scoutflo all about? 💙
An introduction to the company, our products, and how you can use them.
What’s Scoutflo 💙
We’re a small, bootstrapped team working on:
- Amplifying open source and commercial open source software (COSS) products.
- Helping businesses discover, adopt and maintain open source products for their needs.
- Encouraging contribution to open source products.
We’re building a suite of products and solutions to make finding and using open source products a quicker, easier and SaaS-like experience!
In other words, make users of open source say…
- We also share new updates in this space on Twitter (X) and LinkedIn.
- Write articles about amazing COSS Products and their Founding stories.
- Help OSS Contributors with beginner-friendly content.
The Why behind Scoutflo 💙
While working on a different problem statement, we came across 2 amazing open source products such as Chatwoot.
More research and conversations led us to MANY more well-built, high-quality, reliable open source products! 💙
BUT
They were clearly lacking the visibility, reach, distribution as that of their proprietary counterparts 💔
We started working on a solution behind the scenes — something to potentially cater to both ends of the problem.
Along with that, we also started busting open-source related myths, imparting education and spreading awareness about the same.
A lot of our content (on socials and blogs) is for helping you learn about ⬇
- Different open source products in the market
- Ways to add value to the open source community
- Creators actively contributing to and talking about open source
We also share amazing origin stories of OSS companies.
Here’s our official website: Scoutflo — Find the best commercial open source alternatives
What Scoutflo has built so far 💙
Scoutflo Atlas 🌐
A platform exclusively built for commercial open source (COSS) products.
But… what is COSS?
COSS or commercial open source software is the best of both worlds — combining the benefits of open source and commercial business models.
Adopting a commercial business model on top of the open source layer helps COSS companies generate revenue to sustain the development; while serving the needs of, and offering reliable support to paying customers ☑️
Well, it’s not just about the commercials.
The general principles of open source help with:
- Transparency
- Community contribution
- Higher customizability
- No vendor lock-ins
- Cost-effectiveness
and *many* more benefits! ✨
What can you do on the platform? ⬇️
Search for open source alternatives to proprietary products via category or keywords.
You can also compare up to 3 products based on metrics such as:
- Hosting and Pricing
- Tech stack
- Community strength
You also get an option to switch to ‘Scoutflo’s Choice’ — where you get to try out a *Sandbox (free trial) version, and easily self-host a product.
*currently applicable for selected products (Beta)
“The next wave of SaaS is COSS”
And Scoutflo Atlas is the new home for the best COSS products out there 🌐💙
Explore Scoutflo Atlas: Scoutflo Atlas — Open Source Marketplace
Scoutflo Sandbox 🎮
Scoutflo Sandbox aka the playground 🎮
You can instantly try out a COSS tool with just one click! 🚀
- No self-hosting ❌
- No DevOps knowledge ❌
- No points of friction ❌
Just go ahead and get a LIVE demo.
- Try out the product ✅
- Get its Live experience ✅
- Evaluate whether it fits your needs ✅
All for FREE!
Note: The Sandbox feature is currently available for Select COSS products.
How can you check out Scoutflo Sandbox?
1. Go to http://atlas.scoutflo.com (and sign up if you like it!)
You’ll find a “Sandbox” option on the left, under “Scoutflo Choice.”
2. Turn the toggle switch “on” ☑️
3. Get access to a list of COSS (commercial open source) products offering a quick, free trial — in just one click! ✨
4. Select any tool and click on the “Sandbox” button.
A hassle-free, quick trial is now just one click away.
Scoutflo Deploy 🚀
Before we get into the details, what is self-hosting?
“Self-hosting is the practice of running and maintaining a website or service using a private web server, instead of using a service outside of someone’s own control.”
It offers a lot of advantages like higher security, greater control, flexibility, and most importantly — saves a TON of costs.
Commercial open-source (COSS) products are FAR more affordable.
Proprietary SaaS versions of their open source alternatives cost 5x to 75x more!
Here’s another example of why self-hosting makes sense.
But here’s the catch — self-hosting is NOT self-serve.
Usually, the process involves:
- Going through the product documentation
- Understanding the specifics
- Manually executing the tasks
- Having suitable technical expertise
- Spending time, resources (and $$$)
Here’s where Scoutflo Deploy comes in 🚀
It helps you automate the process of self-hosting a COSS product.
In just a few clicks, you can set up your open-source stack on your own cloud infrastructure.
Even without (extensive) DevOps support, you can now easily onboard, manage and maintain your preferred COSS product(s).
All your manual effort is replaced by Scoutflo Deploy, and you can get the tool up and running in minutes! 🔥
[For context — The alternative, manual approach to this process usually takes days to weeks]
But with Scoutflo Deploy you can onboard and maintain your preferred commercial open source (COSS) product(s) in a much quicker and easier way! 🚀
Once you sign up, here’s what it looks like!
That is all about Scoutflo Deploy for now, but expect more features real soon :)
BONUS 🎁
Scoutflo x Hacktoberfest 💙
This year, we built a dedicated place for contributors and open source enthusiasts to find projects participating in the 2023 Hacktoberfest!
You can look for projects based on your preferred tech stack, and also see what’s trending!
See for yourself: Best Hacktoberfest Projects 2023
Yep. Scroll up again to check out that platform if you didn’t yet :)
That’s all for today.
Make sure you subscribe for more on Scoutflo! And don’t forget to follow us on X (Twitter) and LinkedIn! 🚀
Happy Hacktoberfest and Open Source FTW 💙
