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Originally published 2016, updated Nov. 8, 2018, and April 21st, 2023
Twenty years after the Generic Public License (GPL) sparked the open source revolution, open source technology has become a keystone of the enterprise software market.
Open-source software is a type of software that can be freely modified and distributed. It's a great way to create powerful, tested, reliable, and efficient development without breaking the bank. In this blog post, we'll explore the top open-source technologies for web development.
It is difficult to provide an exact number of companies that use open source software today as there is no centralized database that keeps track of this information. However, it is safe to say that open source software is widely used by companies of all sizes and across different industries. In fact, according to a 2021 report by Tidelift, nearly all software applications (99%) rely on open source code, and 90% of companies use open source software in some way or form. Additionally, many big technology companies, such as Google, IBM, and Microsoft, have embraced open source software and have contributed to various open source projects. Overall, the use of open source software continues to grow and is becoming an essential part of modern software development.
ReactJS
React is an open-source JavaScript library for building user interfaces, and it was developed by Facebook. React was initially created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook, in 2011 for use in Facebook's newsfeed. It was later released as an open-source project in May 2013. Since then, it has been maintained by Facebook and a community of individual developers and companies. The library's popularity has grown rapidly in recent years, and it is now widely used by many big tech companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, and Netflix, among others.. It's widely used by developers because of its ease of use and flexibility. ReactJS is a component-based library, which means that developers can build web applications by combining several small components. It allows creating reusable UI components and enhances web performance by minimizing the number of DOM updates.
Bootstrap
Bootstrap is a popular front-end web development framework that was initially developed by Twitter. The framework provides developers with a set of pre-built HTML, CSS, and JavaScript components and tools for building responsive, mobile-first web pages and applications. Bootstrap is available on GitHub as an open-source project, and its source code can be accessed and downloaded from the official Bootstrap repository on GitHub and is licensed under the MIT License, which means that it is free to use, modify, and distribute, even for commercial purposes.
Django
Django is an open source Python framework that makes web application development faster and more efficient. It follows the model-view-controller (MVC) architectural pattern, making it easy for developers to build scalable and maintainable web applications. Django is known for its security features, making it an excellent choice for building secure web applications.
Node.js
Node.js is a popular platform for creating network applications that are both scalable and fast. It uses less CPU horsepower and has a smaller memory footprint than the .NET framework or Java.
Node.js is revolutionary in that it helped usher in real-time web apps using websockets to deploy push technology. It uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O structure based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine.
While Node isn’t the best choice for heavy computation, it is ideal for creating network apps that can scale.
LESS
A CSS preprocessor, LESS has a similar syntax to CSS itself. Developed by Alexis Sellier, LESS helps developers make CSS more extensible and maintainable with a full feature set including functions, variables and mixins.
It can be used on the command line as a script file for a browser or inside a number of third-party tools.
AngularJS
AngularJS is a web application framework that is maintained by Google it extends the power of HTML using markup for data binding and dynamic views.
A Model-View-Whatever (MVW) JavaScript platform, it is well-suited for creating one-page web applications and connecting HTML forms to JavaScript controllers and models.
It uses two-way binding to seamlessly synchronize data from the user interface with JavaScript objects.
Brackets
Adobe designed Brackets from the ground up to be a powerful tool for front-end developers and web designers.
Based on CodeMirror, its native shell rests on Google’s Chromium Embedded Framework. The lightweight web design editor is a superior tool for working on CSS, HTML and JavaScript.
Brackets adds dynamic visual tools inside the editing area. For example, developers can open a window into selected code or get instant feedback on changes by creating a real-time connection to a browser.
MongoDB
MongoDB is a popular document-oriented database. With the ability to work across multiple platforms, it uses documents with dynamic schemas for rapid data integration.
Related data is kept together for faster access. MongoDB lets developers start forming data records without knowing the data fields or values beforehand, which is ideal for arrays, hierarchical relationships and other complicated data structures—documents aren’t required to have the same fields.
It also comes with built-in auto-sharding and replication.
Cassandra
Originally developed at Facebook by Avinash Lakshman and Prashant Malik, Cassandra is a highly scalable database.
It has a short learning curve and is highly fault-tolerant. Unlike HBase, which prioritizes consistency, Cassandra was created to handle extreme workloads with an emphasis on throughput over consistency.
That makes Cassandra better suited for operational applications including product catalogs, time series and recommendations.
Looking Forward
The future of open source development looks promising as more software companies are adopting the use of open source technology. It is expected that in the next five years, open source development will be driven by necessity, and corporations will need to utilize it to stay relevant.
One significant trend in open source development is the idea of creating platforms for enterprise software development teams. This approach involves using a set of tools, technologies, and open source projects in applications, which aligns with the direction that enterprise software development teams are taking.
The increased adoption of open source technology is driven by its viability as a business model. Open source development has proven to be cost-effective, efficient, reliable and secure, making it a valuable asset for software companies. Furthermore, open source projects have large communities that provide support and resources for developers, making it easier to develop and maintain software applications.
In conclusion, the future of open source development is bright, and it will continue to be an essential part of software development for years to come. The increasing adoption of open source technology, the trend of creating platforms, and its cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and security all contribute to its promising future.
Concepta's Open Source
Concepta Technologies has developed a range of open source tools and technology designed to help development teams deliver innovative software efficiently and securely. Our open-source code library is a culmination of the knowledge and experience of its developers and IT professionals. The technology is transparent, tested, and open-source, ensuring reliability and accuracy. We encourage collaboration and connection between like-minded developers and IT professionals, offering a chance to contribute to open source projects and benefit from the expertise of the community. Recently, we have published several projects on GitHub, including a scalable enterprise development platform, a design system API for Flutter, a Flutter Version Management tool, and a desktop interface. These projects are intended to support transformative open-source development and help development teams go-to-market faster with scalable apps that accelerate growth.