Open Source or Proprietary – Which LMS will suit your business needs?

Open Source and proprietary platforms, both deliver great results while developing solutions. At MRCC, we are focused on making an optimal choice to suit the needs of our clients. With over 20 years in the industry, MRCC has the depth and extent of experience to understand specific organisational needs in terms of what the clients need the solution to do, what attributes it should have and how it can fit into the rest of their infrastructure and walk them through options for choosing the right platform. We have worked extensively with both proprietary as well as open source platforms and hence picking a favourite ideology is not what we are here for.

However, many of today’s latest enterprise technologies are centered around open source platforms. There are certainly clear indicators that point to why open source platforms are chosen by top organisations that include government organisations, several major banks,some of the largest technology multinationals and even leading retailers and fast-food chains world over. In the contention between proprietary and open source, both have its ardent supporters, but open source steadily seems to be standing its ground.

One of the main reasons for choosing an open source platform is the flexibility it offers. Notwithstanding the lower cost that stands as its major selling point, Open Source platforms offer their customers the ability to change the platform to meet their changing needs, and the ability to change the provider down the line, if they are looking for better service. There’s a good possibility that a client’s requirements of a learning management system may vary a few years after implementing it.

To further understand this inclination among users to Open Source LMSs, we have listed down various elements of both the platforms to come in handy while you choose the LMS you want to implement:

Feature	Open Source LMS	Proprietary LMS
Ownership	You always own your data and your LMS code	Only the company owning the LMS can support it
Licensing	Zero licensing cost	Initial licensing fee and regular renewals
Cost	Low - includes basic development and maintenance cost	High – high licensing and maintenance costs
Flexibility	High – the open source code allows users to add features and applications that are not already available	Not very flexible
Security	Source code access and large user base of global developers helps in fixing security glitches promptly	Security patches are provided by the vendor
Support	Large global community of open source users provide support	Support is provided by the vendor
Vendor Lock-in	If you want a different company to support you, your options are open	You are locked into the provider as well as the solution
Scalability	Easy to scale through source code modification	Maybe a problem depending on internal architecture
Hosting	Can be hosted anywhere	Mostly hosted by the vendor
User Experience	Can be largely modified to ensure customer satisfaction	Customized to meet user requirements and expectations

So, which LMS are you planning to implement for your organization’s training needs next? Let us know your thoughts at info@mrccsolutions.com.