We built a $1M ARR open source SaaS

• PostHog

  99 17,013 10.0 Python

  🦔 PostHog provides open-source product analytics, session recording, feature flagging and A/B testing that you can self-host.

  

Since reading the thread on money-making side hustles on HN a few days back[1], I was able to finally brush off my procrastination and start twiddling with some of my side projects that have been lying dormant over the years! And the model Plausible uses (I think the right term is "Open Core"?) which is also used by the incredible Product analytics tool Posthog [1] aligns really well with how I want to build out my side-hustles. Open source, but also available packaged and hosted if you so prefer.

One thing I was concerned about was about revenue that these "open source by default" products make, so glad that this post has come along just in time to alleviate some of those concerns (of course, as with most engineering side projects, the priority is to build something cool first, and if it ends up making some money, then all the better!) and it's always nice to see successful OSS-driven products in a crowded analytics space.

Congrats folks!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31764696

[2] https://posthog.com/

• pirsch

  41 830 9.0 Go

  Pirsch is a drop-in, server-side, no-cookie, and privacy-focused analytics solution for Go.

  

I also started a privacy-friendly analytics SaaS without looking at the market. Sometimes it's better to just get started. Otherwise you probably won't start doing anything, as there are existing products most of the time. In my case, I was looking for a Go (golang) solution that I could embed in my website, as a library so to speak, and just turned it into a product later as I was looking for a new project to work on.

We're now at $1500 MRR and growing. I'm also opposing the position of "just being against GA" now and we try to differentiate more. It's almost impossible to get anyone away from GA who does do performance marketing. So I don't quite see how Plausible or other privacy-friendly products are a replacement. But most websites that use GA just don't have to, because they don't rely so much on ads or personal data to get value.

Our product: https://pirsch.io

• SurveyJS

  surveyjs.io sponsored

  Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.

  

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