I agree with what you’ve said. I’ll even join you in praising plausible, well done!
However I still wonder about the TCO of self hosting.
For big companies TCO is a number on a spreadsheet. For a technical person it includes total amount of minutes per year net above a hosted solution. The concerns I have about this are:
1). I think it’s extremely easy to underestimate this metric. It’s not just the download or set up or configuration (although if those parts go wrong it could turn from minutes into hours)
It’s also the fact that it’s going to have more downtime that you have to fix. You’re going to have to stay current on updates and relevant security issues. You’re going to have to run it somewhere which although light weight takes up some resource. That doesn’t mean the software is not as good. It just means a hosted service has people (supposedly) managing all that crap.
2). Say the TCO is not deceptively low and it really isn’t very much time extra per year. Now let’s decide how much of your time is worth giving up that could be spent on critical path or uniquely value add functionality to your own product or service that could make you more successful? Seriously, what’s the amount of time you’re willing to give up per year on that?
I don’t know the exact right answer to number two. All of this is a trade-off right? Not just the TCO but also the control someone else has over you, and the openness and utility of open source.
But it’s a concern. If for no other reason than it’s not obvious when a new product comes along.
Every minute we have is opportunity cost. The only thing we get to choose is which bucket to put it in.
I dont quite understand your concern here, If you value your time why not just use their paid services?
What are your expected PV per month? Out of all the hosted analytics out there, plausible is one of the most affordable solution, with a very low entry level price.
The OP seem to be talking more about the benefits of self hosting, Hence that line of reasoning.
Secondly, I was specifically not critical of plausible in fact I was positive toward them.
The issue in general is that the trade off is subtle and not obvious, and I think a fair number of people think it’s an easy decision one way or another but it’s often not.
Isn't the whole premise "Self-Hosted"? There are lots of organizations that still don't use online services and prefer things to be in house and in their own data center.
There are people who jump off a bridge too not sure what your point is.
Also I was specifically not talking about larger organization level decisions as much as smaller start ups or individuals who have to make the decision.
The premise is even after this many years experience we all have with SaaS versus self hosted it’s still not an obvious decision. It seems like some people can be dismisses of it as an easy decision but the devil is in the details and the specifics of the situation.
However I still wonder about the TCO of self hosting.
For big companies TCO is a number on a spreadsheet. For a technical person it includes total amount of minutes per year net above a hosted solution. The concerns I have about this are:
1). I think it’s extremely easy to underestimate this metric. It’s not just the download or set up or configuration (although if those parts go wrong it could turn from minutes into hours)
It’s also the fact that it’s going to have more downtime that you have to fix. You’re going to have to stay current on updates and relevant security issues. You’re going to have to run it somewhere which although light weight takes up some resource. That doesn’t mean the software is not as good. It just means a hosted service has people (supposedly) managing all that crap.
2). Say the TCO is not deceptively low and it really isn’t very much time extra per year. Now let’s decide how much of your time is worth giving up that could be spent on critical path or uniquely value add functionality to your own product or service that could make you more successful? Seriously, what’s the amount of time you’re willing to give up per year on that?
I don’t know the exact right answer to number two. All of this is a trade-off right? Not just the TCO but also the control someone else has over you, and the openness and utility of open source.
But it’s a concern. If for no other reason than it’s not obvious when a new product comes along.
Every minute we have is opportunity cost. The only thing we get to choose is which bucket to put it in.