Say Hello to TYPO3 SaaS - Swift Website Builder!

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.

When it comes to adopting a Web CMS (Content Management System), a customer has three options:

Option #1 Build

You could rely on your development team and build your own, bespoke CMS from the ground up, or on top of open source platforms. This road is long, costly, potentially buggy, and full of ongoing maintenance.

Option #2 Buy

You could buy a CMS from a respected software vendor, and this has traditionally been the best option for most brands. However, prices are high, deployment time is long and you may be left to your own devices unless you pay hefty support fees to the vendor.

Option #3 Borrow

Imagine using software that you don’t have to buy and move in-house. It exists in the cloud, allowing you and your team to log in and operate from anywhere. All the while, the vendor maintains the software, handles the hosting, and deals with all your support queries, all for a monthly or yearly fee. That’s SaaS (Software as a Service).

A SaaS CMS offers you similar features to your current self-installed CMS.

But, instead of being installed locally, you’re relying on the cloud to offer you a distributed CMS, which can be configured to your unique website needs.

X-axis: company size (# of employees); Y-axis: # of SaaS products used

Source

Which are Most Popular SaaS-based CMS?

According to Opensource CMS blog post, the most popular SaaS-based CMS are as follows:

• Best Overall SaaS CMS – WordPress
• Best SaaS CMS for eCommerce – Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento
• Best SaaS CMS for Small Business – WordPress and Joomla
• Best SaaS CMS for Beginners – Squarespace and Wix

So, What do you think, where can we (TYPO3) fit well in a SaaS-based CMS solution?

Web CMS Market Share

What about CMS Marketshare? Unfortunately, TYPO3 is not even in the top 10 CMS. Take a quick look at the below report, where TYPO3 CMS is continuously losing CMS market share since mid of 2019.

Is SaaS-based ClosedSource CMS growing?

Yes! Because the SaaS platform solution is the ultimate goal for Closed-Source CMS.

If we start looking at relative growth, we can see new competitors really are. As soon as you start looking at relative growth for the top 20, three systems jump out:

• Squarespace, which grew 114%.
• Wix, which grew 150%.
• Weebly, which grew 120%.

Means, Is Open source on the decline?

At the beginning of 2018, the top 4 CMSs by market share in the world were all open source: WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Magento.

So I also drive-in and checked whether Open Source as a whole was losing or winning.

The numbers are clear, based on the top 25 CMSs (including all the sites that fit in the W3Techs “None” category, classified as closed source):

On the whole, Open Source market share is growing tremendously, but really only because of WordPress and a little bit of help from Prestashop. I think this is a worrying matter. We’re losing diversity in the CMS market and with it, we’re losing open-source alternatives.

Financial ramifications

Consider this:

• Shopify expects to do about $1.578 billion in revenue in 2019, with a 2.5% market share.
• Wix expects to do about $0.761 billion in revenue in 2019, with a 1.4% market share.
• Squarespace reportedly had 300 million USD in revenue in 2017, when it was still much smaller.

I think it’s not unfair to extrapolate these numbers for these CMSs and compare them to WordPress’s 33% market share.

If we do that then WordPress as a whole is true, as Matt (founder of WordPress) said in his State of the Word, a $10 billion industry. In fact when he says that he might even be on the low side.

TYPO3 International growth strategy with PaaS & SaaS

At the end of 2019, Mathias (TYPO3 GmbH), Daniel (DFAU GmbH) & I started to think about the TYPO3 SaaS solution, Thanks for your brainstorming and ideas.

The opportunities and chances of delivering platform services for TYPO3 professionals and accessible TYPO3 services for users worldwide.

Scope

Reaching out for a significant worldwide market share sounds ambitioned. Yet the idea of raising worldwide visibility for TYPO3 by increasing its user base is key.

The idea of growing internationally through TYPO3 as a trusted CMS is at the core of PaaS & SaaS.

Source: https://typo3.com/

A high density of TYPO3 agencies in Europe speaks for itself. There is a need for international growth for TYPO3 as a business opportunity.

SaaS - Software As A Service

With TYPO3 SaaS, Users will experience TYPO3 CMS without deeper knowledge of integration and development can start with TYPO3 with complete ease.

Benefits

• Website Solutions as monthly plans / reliable costs
• Introducing a wide range of people with unique requirements to TYPO3
• Alternative to proprietary systems as well as open-source competitors
• Sustainable business opportunities for TYPO3 related companies

Principles

• Easy to build and publish a TYPO3 website in minutes
• Optimization of Security, Performance, SEO, Marketing tools, etc
• Support & Education

TYPO3 SaaS Business: Chances and Risks

The enormous potential is at hand. Let’s have a look at the business we are talking about:

Let’s assume WordPress really has 33% of all webpages, so

• 1.5 billion * 0.33 – let’s round it up to 500 million
• And they grew 4 % over a year
• That’s 19 million-plus … 
• if a TYPO3 PaaS/SaaS only could grow 1% of this we would end up serving 190.000 Websites.

Risks

• Users are unwilling to adopt a new platform
• Marketing efforts could be underestimated
• By the time it’s difficult to handle the growth of requirements (support/maintenance) or the growth at all
• Doesn’t work: total loss of investment

Chances

• Increased market share will also increase the demand for TYPO3 professionals & agencies
• High potential markets are developed faster and more efficient
• The TYPO3 Brand will get more visible and bring a positive effect to enterprise business
• Exponential growth for TYPO3 Website Builder is possible

How a true cloud web content management solution expedites digital marketing initiatives.

Costs are kept Low

As SaaS CMS is based on a subscription model, there is no large licensing fee upfront. Generally, a SaaS CMS project entails a small setup fee that covers up basic website implementation.

IT Staff Unburdened

No longer IT assistance from your internal resource is required. Instead, your SaaS vendor will take care of any upgrades, maintenance, and issue, and at no additional cost. 

Accessible

SaaS CMS being a virtual product can usually be accessed from any computer, tablet, or mobile device with an available internet connection.

Easily Add-On More Users and More Sites

Easy scale up or scale down of plan and add new users as your team and content needs growth. Adding more sites is as easy as a click on the button as you want to spin up new sites — microsites, campaign sites, landing pages, etc. Only pay for what you use.

Up-to-Date Software

With SaaS, you can count on new features being added in real-time. The latest features and innovations are typically available to all users at no additional costs.

Security

As your SaaS vendor handles all the development and QA, no need to worry about malware or buggy add-ons to the CMS. 

Support Included

SaaS vendors are extra motivated to resolve all reported issues promptly and effectively with a multi-tenant architecture, if an issue is affecting one customer. This also means that you get to benefit from issues found by other users of the SaaS CMS, leading to a more robust CMS for all. 

Implementation Speed

Launching a new website is faster with deployed CMS in underlying cloud infrastructure. No need of required setup & configuration for Dev, QA, and Production sites. Proving to be faster than traditional web and mobile app development.

We are having a tried-tested robust successful platform with our TYPO3 Shop venture. And, a bit sure that, we will achieve the same with TYPO3 SaaS.

Build a TYPO3 website in minutes! 

Take a look at our TYPO3 SaaS solution, I’m sure you will love it.