Are developer tools startups fighting a losing battle?

Question

I&rsquo;m asking this in light of Weaveworks closing up shop and the little investment into developer tools startups.I&rsquo;m trying to understand this area since I don&rsquo;t see developers paying for the tools they use (They use OSS software most of the time) and don&rsquo;t like closed source software either.So it doesn&rsquo;t seem to make sense to build a closed source dev tool for developers which will in a few years an open source competitor will copy all their features.Even if your strategy shifts to open source, I find it difficult that anyone would pay for &lsquo;locked&rsquo; features.In any case I don&rsquo;t see a moat nor a TAM in this sector and I am most likely going to see more developer tools startups folding up, getting acquired or just becoming stagnant and not growing.For any developer startup tool there will always be an open source competitor and usually open source wins in the long run.And it seems like trying selling tools to developers is like selling ice to eskimos.Is this all a losing battle in this space?

wmf · Accepted Answer

Yes, with the caveat that the same people who won't pay a cent for local dev tools will pay $100/month on SaaS. So every dev tool startup will probably migrate to SaaS if possible.

tony-allan · Answer

Enterprises are often ok with paying for products and support. If you have a lot of developers excellent and comprehensive tools pay for themselves quickly.Sometimes they will use open source tools and do in-house support.

PaulHoule · Answer

JetBrains seem to be doing pretty well.There are numerous areas where I think all the options are bad (pgdmin4, DataGrip, and similar products by Oracle and Microsoft) and I can picture paying for something better.

bjourne · Answer

Companies will pay lots for specialized tools requiring domain-specific knowledge. Say a C# library for reading and writing an arcane file format heavily used by that industry.

everfrustrated · Answer

Companies don't pay for tools, they pay for value.That said, Weaveworks implosion is probably more ZIRP/VC related than anything devtools.

octo-andrero · Answer

It depends on the value your tool adds for developer. I pay for IntelliJ IDEA despite there's free community version. Also, postman seems feel good. Docker in the very end found a way to monetize their solution through the enterprise licenses for docker desktop.

Are developer tools startups fighting a losing battle?

Yes, with the caveat that the same people who won't pay a cent for local dev tools will pay $100/month on SaaS. So every dev tool startup will probably migrate to SaaS if possible.

Enterprises are often ok with paying for products and support. If you have a lot of developers excellent and comprehensive tools pay for themselves quickly.
Sometimes they will use open source tools and do in-house support.

JetBrains seem to be doing pretty well.
There are numerous areas where I think all the options are bad (pgdmin4, DataGrip, and similar products by Oracle and Microsoft) and I can picture paying for something better.

Companies will pay lots for specialized tools requiring domain-specific knowledge. Say a C# library for reading and writing an arcane file format heavily used by that industry.

Companies don't pay for tools, they pay for value.
That said, Weaveworks implosion is probably more ZIRP/VC related than anything devtools.

It depends on the value your tool adds for developer. I pay for IntelliJ IDEA despite there's free community version. Also, postman seems feel good. Docker in the very end found a way to monetize their solution through the enterprise licenses for docker desktop.