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Ask HN: Non-SaaS enterprise software business?

7 points by pickle-wizard ↗ HN
I've been researching an idea I've had for a software product. I am still early in the process, but I would like to only offer an on-prem version. As I'm not really interested in running a SaaS business. Also a couple of target customers I have in mind would only want an on-prem solution.

My idea for how to generate income would be by selling licenses. Recurring revenue would come via support contracts and consulting services.

I do know that not having an SaaS product will likely limit the investment I could get. I am ok with this.

Is a Non-SaaS software business still a viable model, or has the world moved on?

7 comments

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piterrro
There is no single viability model here, it entirely depends on what kind of software are you building, selling and who are your customers. SaaS vs on-prem has its pros and cons, you should always listen to your customer and carefully analyze which model fits best. Many models offer both SaaS and on-prem as well.
meiraleal
> Is a Non-SaaS software business still a viable model, or has the world moved on?

Yes. SaaS is losing its advantage as the browser is becoming a better environment with better processing, soon it will not make sense to pay for many things hosted because of open source alternatives that are very easy to run nowadays - meanwhile saas/subscriptions fatigue is only growing.

ezekg
> soon it will not make sense to pay for many things hosted because of open source alternatives that are very easy to run nowadays

You underestimate how many businesses don't want to waste their time running things in-house that they don't have to. So your point maybe true for B2C, but B2B will always have a need for SaaS. I pay for a lot of software that I could run myself, but I don't because I can't be bothered. I have my own software to maintain.

piterrro
> soon it will not make sense to pay for many things hosted

the opposite is where we started in the first place. As applications grew in complexity the SaaS model became more popular. The advancement of the internet connection made it possible. SaaS model boils down to 2 big advantages that are hard to beat by on-prem:

1. Instant upgrades 2. No maintenance effort and infrastructure costs

That's definite for B2B but even for more busy B2C's the above 2 are a life savers. SaaS model allows you to focus on your core bussiness rather than running "OS on-prem shop".

SaaS model also stimulates competitiveness, imagine SaaS model doesn't exist at all. What would happen is we would end up in a world of homogenous, mundane and primitive software. When you build a company you do a one-time purchase of "the office suite" consisting of document editor, project management tool and maybe a communicator, etc.

meiraleal
> 1. Instant upgrades 2. No maintenance effort and infrastructure costs

That is exactly what is getting lower and lower for free software compared to SaaS. Currently I can run a codeLlama 34B in the browser and use as a personal chatGPT running local. What SaaS can beat this? The UI/UX around this tech isn't ready yet but things will change fast in the next months and disrupt almost all recent AI SaaS startups. I wouldn't start a SaaS today thinking it is the holy grail of business models.

ezekg
I offer an on-prem version of my SaaS product (https://keygen.sh), both a community edition and an enterprise edition. It is absolutely a viable (and a popular!) business model. I know because that's what a large portion of my customers do. :)
snthpy
> open, source-available

I see what you did there. That's clever! I might use that phrasing myself.