There are already a million flavors of project management software. Well known, battle tested software created by giants in tech industry. Most of these apps are pretty fantastic but there’s one problem – they’re all SaaS apps and they all have a monthly fee.
Most people love SaaS software. I do too actually. Getting started with a SaaS product is usually as simple as setting up an account. Updates happen automatically and you don’t have to worry about installing anything. Despite the advantages of SaaS, when some small companies are looking for a project management app to run their business, it quickly becomes obvious that a SaaS project management app isn’t the right fit.
Uncertain revenues limit usefulness of SaaS for small businesses
Many freelancers and small businesses are uncertain about the amount of revenue they will be able to generate during any given month. Some months might set new revenue records and others might be extremely slow. This uncertainty can make it impossible to afford another monthly bill. That’s why I built Duet – to serve as a low cost high quality alternative with an affordable one time fee.
Unlike most project management applications, Duet is self hosted. This means that it’s installed on your existing server space using a simple installation wizard. Since Duet is self hosted it has a number of other benefits that you can’t get from SaaS software.
Complete control over the app and your Data
Since the software is hosted on your server, you have control over every aspect of the software and you have complete unrestricted access to all of the data within the application. This means there’s no lock in. If at some point in the future you decide you want to use different software, all of your data can easily be exported.
Customize Duet for your business
Every business is unique and since Duet comes with the complete unencrypted source code, it’s easy to customize it to meet the specific needs of your business. You can literally change anything in the application including custom branding, modifying existing functionality, or adding new functionality.
Simple installation & maintenance
One common criticism of self hosted software is that it is difficult to install and requires huge maintenance costs. This may be true for some applications, but it’s certainly not the case with Duet. Duet can be installed using the simple installation script. The entire process should take 10 minutes or less. If you already have a website, you can install the app on your existing server. If you don’t have a website, you can purchase almost any shared hosting plan.
Maintenance is very simple as well. Every time there is an update, you just re-run the installation script. In the future, updates will be automatic, but the app’s not quite there yet.
Perhaps there’s room for one more
There is no doubt in my mind that the market for self hosted project management is smaller than the market for SaaS project management. Because of this, self hosted project management has been largely ignored for years, which means there just aren’t many good options if you’re looking for a project management app to run on your own server. For this reason I think Duet will be a welcome addition to the project management space. In fact, the response to Duet has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive these last couple of months so I’m very optimistic about it’s future.