Hi friends,
It's a bit surreal writing a Show HN post, being a HN member since 2012, but I'm still excited to be here.
We are Arek and Michal (hn: mgl), and we have published Openkoda - an open-source low-code platform for the rapid development of SaaS and enterprise applications.
OUR STORY
We met at the university and spent the next 10 years building high-performance applications for finance, eCommerce and travel sectors, while working in different companies.
We started building our own products like Recostream (AI/ML personalized recommendation engine, acquired by GetResponse last year) and ScanRepeat (affordable continuous web security scanner).
Enterprise applications have a lot of common logic which we had to re-implement almost every single time in different configurations. At some point, we realized that by compiling all these lessons, we could build a solid and proven foundation for creating SaaS and enterprise applications.
We added a few fancy features to help us build our own products like Javascript-based low-code extensions running on JDK, Data AI for data quering using natural language, Stripe payments, plus popular integrations.
And that's how Openkoda was born.
Openkoda is based on modern Java, which is still the primary choice in enterprise companies. You can build your apps on top of Openkoda with Java, server-side Javascript extensions or anything else running on a JVM.
We decided to release the core under the MIT license, and selected enterprise features under a commercial license.
WHY OPENKODA?
We believe that building large-scale SaaS and enterprise applications should be easier and faster.
Easier, so we don't need to reinvent the "enterprise wheel" every single time.
Faster, as the real business value of our applications is not in these "enterprise features," but in the actual application logic. Enterprise features are just the required coating to run this logic in a controlled, sustainable way.
We experienced increased velocity on our own building Recostream (3 months to build a working product competing directly with Barilliance, Recombee and Amazon Personalize).
OWN YOUR CODE
When looking for time/cost savings in enterprise software development, the first idea is usually to use low-code/no-code solutions, but as engineers we all understand the "low-code trap."
The "low-code trap" starts by investing years of time building a custom solution for your business in a low-code environment to realize that you became fully dependent on the vendor, their used-based pricing and changing commercial terms.
You also discover that your key application logic tends to land in the "Custom Code" box of you low-code platform more and more often, which ultimately looks like proper code but hardly allows to follow real software engineering practices. And when you are ready to quit, the only way out is to export your application as a miscellaneous XML, which you cannot run anywhere else.
We believe that providing developers with a robust open-source application foundation, coupled with the flexibility to customize and expand upon it according to their needs, offers the best of both worlds.
WHAT'S NEXT
We are working hard on building two things now: a) a partner network and onboarding software vendors to use Openkoda in their software projects. b) our managed cloud service where we can host Openkoda applications for business clients.
We would be super thankful for any introductions to people/companies who may be interested in: a) building their own products faster in Java, b) looking for flexible software solutions they could customize without falling into the low-code trap.
If you have any questions or your personal perspective to share, we would love to hear and learn from you.
