Pros and Cons of Open Source vs. SaaS vs. Commercial Software

The following table outlines some pros and cons of open source vs. Saas and COTS solutions. Leave a comment on anything I might be leaving out or not considering.

		Commercial Off the Shelf Products	OSS Products	SaaS Products
	Speed to market	New features are packaged and released based on corporate release schedules	Feature Driven Development – new features are often made available as soon as they are built and certified	Immediate. No initial installation. Features are often slipstreamed in as they are developed
	Customization	Typically limited and due to proprietary nature of systems, makes upgrades difficult.	Best option for customization with products embracing open standards. OSS was founded on customization.	Worst option for customization, although depending on the platform, may offer some options.
	Interoperability	May or may not embrace open standards	Typically based on open standards, easier to share info between systems	It depends, but most successful SaaS projects are open enough to allow for plugin development (i.e. GreaseMonkey)
	Support	Depends on vendor and support plan	Community driven, the more active the community, the better the support. Many established OSS projects also have paid support options	Typically the best, since if one person is having the problem, everyone is having the problem.
	Vendor Lock In	Vendors are financially encouraged to promote platform lock in	Flexibility eliminates lock in	SaaS vendors are also financially encouraged to promote platform lock in, although exports are more standard.
	Security	Vulnerabilities typically take longer to assess, fix and deploy.	Studies show OSS tends to be more secure than proprietary. Patches often delivered in hours vs. days or months	Security tends to be the best for viable services providers.
	Total Cost of Ownership	TCO often involves software licensing, upgrade, support and larger hardware costs	Studies show 90% lower TCO for open source solutions	For SMM’s, TCO tends to be lowest for SaaS since you only pay for what you use (i.e. per user licensing) with no support or hardware required.
	Staff Retention	Skillsets are often constrained by the products you have purchased	Open source attracts innovative people and builds “street cred”. They feel part of something bigger.	End users love it, developers/administrators dislike due to black-box/outsourcing nature