How do you plan to fund the development, if at all?
For a project like this, a hosted version might be a nice idea if you eventually want to do something else than putting your free time into support and maintenance. And many users will appreciate that the hosted version takes care of DB migration and backups for them.
A hosted version need not necessarily target maximum money making. You could run it as a nonprofit whose goal is to ensure that the open-source project works well and lives long.
> A hosted version need not necessarily target maximum money making. You could run it as a nonprofit whose goal is to ensure that the open-source project works well and lives long.
I don't know why it shut down (my guess: didn't pan out with the typical revenue growth goals of a startup), but having a hosted version might save your project from such fate, making enough money to fund you, or somebody you hire who's excited about working on Free Software.
Some pricing ideas: Free for noncommercial with limited data retention (like the Chatwoot free tier), 3-5 $/month for noncommercial individuals (e.g. users to put it in their website), more $/month for commercial. Add some more expensive enterprise plan that supports Microsoft EntraID groups for externalised permission management and you're good to go :) Add easy DB import/export functionality, so people can switch between hosted and self-hosted. A lot of people will be happy to pay for the convenience of hosted. Host in EU for best data protection (makes it easier for people to sign up).
For billing, probably good to use a Merchant-of-Record service such as paddle.com (our startup likes it) to be able to sell internationally without having to deal with international taxes.
Chatwoot’s free hosted tier has limited data retention and only offers US-based data centers. However, its core functionality can be self-hosted anywhere under its MIT license.
For the OP: nh2’s advice above is worth considering. Additionally, I’m not sure Libredesk is mature enough to be a strong open-source alternative to Chatwoot yet—unless the user only needs email support. Chatwoot’s base installation, licensed under MIT, includes most of the features non-corporate users would want, such as multi-channel support, and generally offers more functionality than Libredesk under its AGPL license.
I’m under the impression that current EU case law makes it impossible for EU-based government entities to store personal data in services owned by US entities, no matter where they are hosted.
Maybe I misunderstood this?
Someone has told me that all the EU governments using Office 365 are basically violating the GDPR and getting away with it (for now). Any truth to that?
For a project like this, a hosted version might be a nice idea if you eventually want to do something else than putting your free time into support and maintenance. And many users will appreciate that the hosted version takes care of DB migration and backups for them.
A hosted version need not necessarily target maximum money making. You could run it as a nonprofit whose goal is to ensure that the open-source project works well and lives long.