Open source continues to be an interesting discussion in the information technology world.  The Cloud Tweaks blog outlines some of the major pros and cons of open source in their piece, “Advantages And Disadvantages Of Open Source.”

First, they begin with the advantages:

Open-source software is free to use, distribute, and modify. It has lower costs, and in most cases this is only a fraction of the cost of their proprietary counterparts.  Open-source software is more secured as the code is accessible to everyone. Anyone can fix bugs as they are found, and users do not have to wait for the next release. The fact that is continuously analyzed by a large community produces secure and stable code.

These advantages are well known and serve as the major draw for most open source users.  The article then balances out the argument with a discussion of the disadvantages:

The main disadvantage of open-source software is not being straightforward to use. Open-source operating systems like Linux cannot be learned in a day. They require effort and possibly training from your side before you are able to master them. You may need to hire a trained person to make things easier, but this will incur additional costs.

Fortunately, choosing a professional open source provider like LucidWorks can mitigate many of the disadvantages of open source.  Support and service is the strength upon which LucidWorks was built, adding stability and usability to their LucidWorks Search and LucidWorks Big Data offerings.  Both resources were built on Lucene and Solr, open source superstars, and are well worth a second look.

Emily Rae Aldridge, September 12, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.