Should I Open Source My Project If a Better Alternative Exists?

Hey everyone! This is my first post in the Dev community, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on something I’ve been debating. For the past three months, I’ve been building my own social media scheduler, and recently, I started considering making it open source. My thinking was that the code itself isn’t that valuable to keep private, and open-sourcing would allow developers who don’t want to pay for a tool like this to self-host it instead. But here’s the dilemma: I just discovered Postiz—an open-source project that does exactly what my tool does, but better. It’s already well-developed, has extensive documentation, and was built by a more experienced developer using NestJS and a more modularized architecture. So now I’m wondering: Does it still make sense for me to go open source? Would anyone actually want to contribute or use my project when there’s already a superior alternative? That said, I still want to keep working on my project because: I believe in my own vision and like having control over the app I use. My project is more beginner-friendly since I built it with a simpler stack. Backend: Pure Node.js/JavaScript (no NestJS). Frontend: Vue. Because of this, I think it has a lower learning curve and is easier to customize. So, what do you think? Would open-sourcing still make sense in this case? Or should I take a different approach? Would love to hear your thoughts!

Feb 16, 2025 - 09:56

Should I Open Source My Project If a Better Alternative Exists?

Hey everyone! This is my first post in the Dev community, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on something I’ve been debating.

For the past three months, I’ve been building my own social media scheduler, and recently, I started considering making it open source. My thinking was that the code itself isn’t that valuable to keep private, and open-sourcing would allow developers who don’t want to pay for a tool like this to self-host it instead.

But here’s the dilemma:
I just discovered Postiz—an open-source project that does exactly what my tool does, but better. It’s already well-developed, has extensive documentation, and was built by a more experienced developer using NestJS and a more modularized architecture.

So now I’m wondering:
Does it still make sense for me to go open source? Would anyone actually want to contribute or use my project when there’s already a superior alternative?

That said, I still want to keep working on my project because:

I believe in my own vision and like having control over the app I use.
My project is more beginner-friendly since I built it with a simpler stack. Backend: Pure Node.js/JavaScript (no NestJS). Frontend: Vue.

Because of this, I think it has a lower learning curve and is easier to customize.

So, what do you think?
Would open-sourcing still make sense in this case? Or should I take a different approach?

Would love to hear your thoughts!