By Stephan Schambach, Demandware Founder & Executive Chairman

There is a lot of hype (again) around open source ecommerce platforms. They seem irresistibly sexy: no cost, just a download away, own the code and modify, customize and develop at your own pace. Many features are developed by the "Community," and you could argue that no commercial software company could employ as many engineers. Also, open source applications that run in the cloud seem like an alternative to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). But the business benefits of an open source based ecommerce solution are not always what they seem. Here are some things to consider when deciding whether or not to build your site on an open source ecommerce platform:

First, if one looks at the history of open source innovation in nearly every sector—not just ecommerce—there’s a natural evolution of enthusiasm from a core set of pioneers, to mass adoption as the idea spreads and gains traction. At some point however, the masses fragment into spin-offs and subcultures, as the developments of one mass community becomes too unwieldy to address the specific needs of the sub-segments. So sub-segments secede, start their own project to address their needs, attract followers to the next new open source project. And history repeats itself. Such is the rise and fall of open source and it is—and will be—no different with ecommerce.

We’ve seen this before, with OS Commerce and XT-Commerce, whose users are now left with an old platform that receives very little community development. True to form, this has given rise to the new open source platform, Magento. Time will tell whether or not it will be the one platform that breaks the historical trend. Sure, there have been some examples of open source software that have remained successful in the long-term (Linux is a great example) but these are typically technical infrastructures that millions of people need, not business applications used by business users.

Second, most brands and retailers do not have the technical resources or desire to "develop" their own platform—for good reason. There is no enterprise solution that is more complex—and consists of more pieces—than ecommerce, and the mere server software is just a tiny piece of it. Experience has shown that the cost of an open source based "home grown" ecommerce site to be equal to or even greater than commercial offerings, and certainly more expensive than a SaaS platform. The reason is that the open source user owns the responsibility for all peripheral pieces belonging to a functioning ecommerce website such as hardware, databases, firewall, security, monitoring, content distribution, analytics, search engine, scaling, software upgrade, ongoing feature development and so forth.

Third, open source implementations will lock retailers into a captive relationship with a systems integrator or agency because once a site is implemented, they end up with a proprietary, totally customized solution that only this one company can maintain, leading to further economic disadvantage after the initial deployment.

Fourth, users of open source must upgrade their software themselves. Often this is simply impossible due to code-level customizations that are incompatible with the new version. With SaaS, the provider will upgrade frequently and keep all customers on the newest version automatically and without any service interruption. In other words, once an open source solution is deployed, it becomes a liability to upgrade and therefore cuts the customer off from affordable innovation.

And last but not least, in an open source environment the end user is responsible for quality assurance (QA). Most functions developed by the community are raw and have not gone through the same level of testing as with SaaS based systems. Being a beta tester can be expensive.

Now, that is not to say that Demandware is opposed to open source—we just use it differently. Much of our software stack—operating system, application servers, etc.—is open source. But we build a commercial SaaS platform on top of it and do all the heavy lifting for our customers. We take care of upgrading underlying components, should this be necessary, and we can afford it because we spread the effort among hundreds of customers.

All this is not to say that open source is not a viable option for your business, but rather to help you see beyond the flashing neon sign that says "FREE!" Before diving into any ecommerce platform, open source or otherwise, be sure to understand the total cost of ownership not just for the platform, but also for the ancillary hardware, software and support that is required.

As a result of the many comments we have received in response to this post, we have published a follow-up post—Open Source eCommerce, Part II. We thank you all for your comments and encourage you to read on and participate further.