Bruno - Opensource, Sustainability, Privacy, Freedom and Incentives

[helloanoop]

Overview

Lately, we've seen an influx of users migrating from other API clients, all of whom have embraced Bruno with enthusiasm. However, there is a prevalent sense of concern among them regarding Bruno's future. And I am writing this to address the concerns.

This is also an attempt to chart a vision for Bruno that ensures the projects long-term sustainibility and growth, and also to ensure that the project remains true to its core values of privacy and freedom.

Early Days

In 2021, work began on Bruno as a side project. After almost a year of development, a functional product emerged, not just a prototype. In October 2022, Bruno was open-sourced on GitHub under the MIT license and launched on platforms like HackerNews, Reddit, and Dev.to.

Unfortunately, it didn't gain any attention at first, but that didn't deter me. The strong conviction that developers would appreciate a fully offline, Git-friendly API client without cloud sync gave me the motivation to continue working on it.

Having a mere 80 followers on twitter, 24 subscribers on youtube I had very little reach.
No prominent influencers promoted the product or created content about it.

Many months went by without any traction. Yet, I continued to chip away at it gradually. A small community started forming.

The Rise

After nearly two years of dedicated effort, the project has finally begun to gain momentum.
Folks who discover Bruno adore it and share it with their friends. And the community is growing.

They love the fully-offline, git-friendly, no-cloud-sync aspect of Bruno.

State of the GUI API Clients Ecosystem

Here are some stats on the most popular GUI API clients.

App	VC Funding	Opensource	Cloud Sync Option	Offline Only
Postman	$434M, $5.6B Valuation	No	Yes	No
Insomnia (acq by Kong)	$155M, $1.4B valuation	Only GUI	Yes	No
Paw (acq by RapidAPI)	$272.5M, $1B valuation	No	Yes	No
Hoppscotch	$3M seed round	Mostly	Yes	No
Httpie	$6.5M seed round	Only CLI	Yes	No
Bruno	No Funding	Mostly	No	Yes

The need for sustainable opensource

Open-source software development has thrived on the principles of community collaboration and the free exchange of ideas and code. However, as projects grow in popularity and complexity, the question of sustainability and incentives becomes increasingly relevant.

VC funding is a path taken by many projects. While it can offer resources but may lead to a loss of control for the project's original author. They might become accountable to investors and a board, potentially steering the project toward a more closed and proprietary direction over time. Finding the right balance between sustainability and control is key when contemplating monetization avenues.

Can we do better

We don't want to wait years until the project gains industry adoption and then surprise everyone. We want to be transparent about the plans for the project.

Time for a small detour to quote a few lines from the movie A Beautiful Mind

Adam smith said the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself, right? That's what he said, right ?
Incomplete. Incomplete, ok ? Because the best result would come from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself and the group.

We hope Bruno can be a shining light of how to do things differently, live long, and sustainably serve the community.

This is a long term plan. We don't want to just stick until we get acquired. We want to build a sustainable project that can last for decades.

So here is what we dont want to do

• We don't want to raise VC funding
• We don't want to sell the project (get acquired)
• We don't want to add/support cloud sync
• We don't want to start a company and hire people (edit: see here)
• We don't want to sell monthly recurring subscriptions

Here is what we want to do

• Build a sustainable project that can last for decades
• Build a community of users and contributors
• As the creator and maintainer of the project, I would like to be able to capture some of the value being created.

Here are some avenues we are considering

• Corporate Sponsorships
• Paid Support and Consulting
• Supporter Edition (Paid) - Offering very tiny set of good-to-have features that can be purchased for a one time fee

Everything that has been free and opensource will continue to be free and opensource. And will continue to evolve and improve.
Core and Advanced features will continue to be built. Bruno is for everyone.

The idea is not to limit anything, but to offer some good-to-have features in a paid plan that can support the project and ensure its long term sustainability.

Some projects who have done it right

Shoutout to Taylor Otwell, the creator of Laravel and Adam Wathan, the creator of Tailwind CSS. They have been a huge inspiration and have shown that you can build a sustainable opensource project without raising VC funding and without selling the project.

Conclusion

I hope there are some good takeaways from here about aligning incentives and sustainability of opensource projects.

Don't take this as a final word. This is just a starting point. I am open to feedback and suggestions. I am open to changing my mind. I am open to new ideas.

Please let me know your thoughts and feedback.

I hope you are excited about the future of Bruno as I am.

Best,

Anoop

---

8 Oct 2023:

Posted an Update clarifying that I intend to earn income from the project and outlined the short-term, mid-term, and long-term objectives for Bruno.

16 Oct 2023:

This ongoing discussion can be summarised as my intent to

• Build the most simple, beautiful, and powerful API client that developers love.
• And uphold these principles
  • 👩‍💻 Opensource - build collaboratively, code released under MIT license
  • 🔒 Privacy - Collections are stored locally
  • 🕊️ Freedom - Free to use and modify.
  • 🤝 Community - Foster a thriving community of contributors and users
  • 📜 Transparency - Document the journey openly and engage in public discussions
  • 🤑 Sustainability and Incentives - Generate income along the way

22 Oct 2023

Majority of our features are free and open source (which covers REST and GraphQL Apis)
We strive to strike a harmonious balance between open-source principles and sustainability.
See Golden Edition Pricing

22 Nov 2023

If you like Bruno and want to support our opensource work, consider sponsoring us via Github Sponsors

11 Dec 2023

Posted an important update

• I will be working full-time on Bruno from Jan 2024.
• Despite VC interest (8 VCs reached out in last 2 months), I have chosen not to explore raising money for Bruno. Reasons being:
  • Would like to grow slowly, preserve full liberty and freedom over the product direction.
  • Have confidence in building a profitable enterprise through Golden Edition purchases as well as building ancillary products around Bruno.
• I will be setting up a monthly community call to discuss the product, roadmap, anything and everything related to Bruno (first wed of every month at 5 PM GMT.)

[majkinetor]

Nice. I salute your transparency and hope you and the community will improve the product and everyone will be better for it.

I think mkdocs-material insiders model is excelent, along with donations. People/companies vote and pay for the features they want to get developed, and get them in private build first, then after some time it all finishes publically available. That way both the author gets deserved monetary compensation and the community gets it soon enough.

I discovered bruno today via HN and while it certainly needs some polishing, its pretty awesome as it is now. Thank you.

[mishushakov]

Hey,
Here are some thoughts:

1. What you call "momentum" is actually a temporary gain. The type of growth you're experiencing is unsustainable and will plateau at some point. In order to sustain that type of growth over time, you'd need to become an online-marketing guru (no pun intended). Or you will need to hire people to do that for you.
2. VCs aren't universally bad. Early stage VC might take 10-20%, but you will still own 80%. As long as you have most board seats, you're in control and can do whatever you want. There are also cases where the founders bought the company back from VCs at later point (Wistia comes to mind).
3. VCs aren't the only way to get funded. You can find Angel Investors or Institutions (FUTO comes to mind) to bake the project
4. If you want to do this full-time, you will have to turn revenue. Donations are not revenue. There are no incentives to donate and you will not make a considerable income from them (unless you're Wikipedia). Easiest way to turn revenue is to sell something. You can sell Bruno-themed merchandise or like Ardour you could sell downloadable binaries. Or you could sell a proprietary version with more features. If you go the consulting route, you will have less time to work on the project and you will have to deal with clients (and where to find them). Corporate sponsorships almost always come with strings-attached. Laravel and Tailwind CSS are not examples for projects that have "done it right" as you call it, but projects that managed to keep the momentum and survive. There are 100s of examples (including VC-funded) where the thing didn't work out. Basically, until you figure out how to turn revenue, there's no chance this will ever get bigger than a side project made by one internet stranger in Bangalore (no matter how talented!)

[helloanoop]

What you call "momentum" is actually a temporary gain. The type of growth you're experiencing is unsustainable and will plateau at some point.

You are right. The momentum is unsustainable. But if it reaches enough critical mass and the community finds the app valuable, it can steadily grow via network effect.

VCs aren't universally bad.

I agree. Some of the great companies - github, nextjs, mongodb exist today due to VC funding. I just don't feel that a GUI API client needs to be VC funded.

If you want to do this full-time, you will have to turn revenue. Easiest way to turn revenue is to sell something. You can sell Bruno-themed merchandise or like Ardour you could sell downloadable binaries.

Yes, I am hoping that a mix of many options suggested could make this work. Sublime text is also a good case study. They kept their app free for everyone to evaluate. The revenue that they made despite many users never paying was "enough" for them.

Basically, until you figure out how to turn revenue, there's no chance this will ever get bigger than a side project made by one internet stranger in Bangalore (no matter how talented!)

This really made me smile. I know you mean well.
Time will tell. Bruno is not just a postman alternative. Its an evolution. And currently seems to be gaining steady adoption and might reach critical mass for a possibility of a network effect to occur.

If that happens. Then the below hypothesis would be put test in the coming months.
Are fully-offline, git-friendly, no-cloud-sync, file-based API GUI Clients - the future ?

If the answer is Yes (which I strongly believe it is), then WE WIN!

[mishushakov]

Yeah, sorry about the last one, I was getting a bit emotional, since we had the same worries with Step CI. My main point is that you should strongly consider taking outside money. You will not regret taking the money, unless you take more than needed or on bad conditions. You don't want the finance aspect get in your way of building and ruin your motivation. Money will buy you time to figure out how to monetise bruno in a way that is aligned with your product vision and with the needs and wants of the community. Even if it fails, you'd be glad you had the experience of going all-in, trying to get Bruno to highest highs possible... I can recommend 😉

Edit: Of course, that's just one path, there are many others possibilities

[armandino]

Thanks for creating this project and persevering through it in the early days. Nobody knows what the future holds, but I root for your success. Also +1 for @majkinetor's suggestions on donations and the Insiders model followed by MkDocs Material.

[mishushakov]

The problem with this model is that it will take years to get you to a livable wage. What happens when you run out of features people want to support? Consider that MkDocs has a much broader market than Bruno.

[dakshin-k]

@helloanoop I don't completely understand the stance that Bruno will never implement any cloud sync.

I do understand (and very much appreciate!) that we wouldn't want to have a proprietary sync that would lead to a vendor lock-in. However, I feel there might be other ways to get the same functionality while still keeping things open.

A couple options off the top of my head:

1. If the collection is stored in a git repo, if a user provides permission, Bruno could automatically perform a pull on startup
2. Another option which I've seen the note-taking app Joplin implement is to use an S3 buket / Dropbox account owned by the end user themselves.

In other words - I feel a cloud sync functionality might be okay, as long as the user controls the storage area, and it is stored in a human-readable format allowing them to switch to other platforms if they choose (which I feel the Bru language already does).

If there's interest, I'm happy to open a separate issue describing the use cases we have for Postman right now, which would be impossible to support in Bruno without cloud sync.

[helloanoop]

Hey @dakshin-k

If the collection is stored in a git repo, if a user provides permission, Bruno could automatically perform a pull on startup

Yes, this is something I have in mind for the Golden Edition. An inbuilt git ui that allows to to git operations within the UI itself.

Another option which I've seen the note-taking app Joplin implement is to use an S3 bucket / Dropbox account owned by the end user themselves.

Hmm. AWS s3 is interesting. This also could be a good use case to support in the Golden Edition.

If there's interest, I'm happy to open a separate issue describing the use cases we have for Postman right now, which would be impossible to support in Bruno without cloud sync.

That'd be great @dakshin-k . I would love to get to know them.

[mishushakov]

Yes, that's a great idea. In the base tier you can offer local storage only, but offer integrated git, s3 and other backends for paid customers. That's definitely something you should ask the community and see the reactions. Ideally, you should be talking to people all the time and getting feedback (maybe setup a cal.com?), because once in a while someone like @dakshin-k will pop up and give you a free million dollar idea that you yourself couldn't ever come up with 😄

[kenlefeb]

I do understand (and very much appreciate!) that we wouldn't want to have a proprietary sync that would lead to a vendor lock-in. However, I feel there might be other ways to get the same functionality while still keeping things open.

I don't think this is about vendor lock-in. The real issue is that some of us will be prohibited from embracing the tool with any built-in support for cloud storage that cannot be fully disabled by policy but is under the discretion of the developer using the tool.

If Bruno focuses on making the artifacts it creates friendly to git versioning, then you can leave the syncing up to each user organization. We know how to use git and don't need you to reproduce that functionality.

1. If the collection is stored in a git repo, if a user provides permission, Bruno could automatically perform a pull on startup
2. Another option which I've seen the note-taking app Joplin implement is to use an S3 buket / Dropbox account owned by the end user themselves.

Conveniences like an automatic pull would be fine since the git server itself is under our control. The same is true of an S3 bucket, whereas Dropbox (or any consumer cloud storage service) is not under our control and would require too much effort to certify for use in many security-conscious enterprises.

I would wager that the fully offline commitment is why most people are coming to Bruno. Otherwise, we'd still be with Postman or all the other API tools that have gone to the cloud.

[wtpisaac]

I would strongly prefer something like a GitHub Sponsors, Ko-Fi, or Patreon to be able to support the project, as opposed to a paid tier.

A paid tier puts those who cannot pay as second class, and makes the software inherently split between a proprietary and free version.

Having a community fund would be quite positive in terms of providing a fully libre option for a GUI HTTP client in the space.

[mishushakov]

It's almost always turns out to be miserable for creators. Here's an example:

Uptime Kuma has 39k stars on GitHub and is donation-based. How much do you think a product with 30k+ stars deserves in donations? $1k/month? $10k/month? You wish!

Currently, it shows about $100/month and $2,717.45 in total on Open Collective.

Although, I think it is maybe worth trying to setup a donation page here just to see what comes around... I'd rather buy some Bruno-themed stickers though 😋

Tip for @helloanoop: Just try everything and see what works and what doesn't

[helloanoop]

It's almost always turns out to be miserable for creators.

I have to agree with @mishushakov. A balanced approach is needed. Purely relying on voluntary donations isn't sustainable long term approach.

A paid tier puts those who cannot pay as second class

Again, A balanced approach is needed. There are 3 classes of persona's - everyones incentives needs to be aligned

• The Users and Community They benefit from the product for free and contribute through feedback and support.

• The contributors - The entire app is MIT licensed. The creator and contributors collectively own the app and they get to collectively make the product better for their own (and the community's) use.

• The Creator(s) They invest significant time and effort. Like @mishushakov mentioned, donations aren't a long term solution, we need a solution that allows the creator to receive a portion of the value that gets created.

Talking about pricing the Golden Edition, a balanced take is needed.

Examples of hostile pricing that we shouldn't do

• limit use max 5 collections at a time
• scripting available in paid plans
• limiting collection runs (this is really ridiculous)
• locking away stuff that was already free
• locking core functionalities
• monthly recurring subscription

I think buying a golden edition of the product (with some enhanced features) for a one-time (say between $10-$30) fee seems reasonable.

Let's take one feature which I am considering to ship in Golden edition - Git Integration
This doesn't block people for using git. They can definitely use cli or use an editor, but doing it directly in Bruno can be nice addon.

People are more willing to support when they get something in return, akin to buying merchandise to support a cause.

PS:
Open discussions like what we are having attracts various perspectives across the entire spectrum. From the capitalists who want to squeeze every bit of value TO the people who want everything for free.

In that spectrum I want to try my best to lean as much as possible to the latter side. By the nature of the distribution of viewpoints across the spectrum, I clearly won't be able to satisfy everyone. The best I can do is listen to the community, listen to various viewpoints, ideas, and hopefully arrive at a balanced one.

[dakshin-k]

Side question, can we expect all features in the 'Supporter edition' to also be completely open source?

[helloanoop]

@dakshin-k I have published an update here

[helloanoop]

This is an interesting read too: https://github.com/getlago/lago/wiki/Open-Source-does-not-win-by-being-cheaper

[SinisterLight]

Really appreciate the spirit of Local-first software with Bruno!

[mmitacc]

Greetings from Peru, adding only to certain positive comments, I recommend that you first define if you want to make money with your project. Because everything will depend on it, many ways have already been explained to you, but you should not be lukewarm with the purposes you want from this. To do this, just remind you that as people we change depending on time and circumstances, and that is not bad, on the contrary, it is part of our personal development. Also remember that for a better group result, it is first necessary for each member to have the short, medium and long-term objectives of the project well defined. Make up your mind!

[helloanoop]

Thank @mmitacc !

It helped me shape my thinking more clearly.
I posted an update #269 (comment)

Having these discussions openly is challenging as it makes you vulnerable, but I'm starting to appreciate the value of these open dialogues.

[helloanoop]

we change depending on time and circumstances, and that is not bad, on the contrary, it is part of our personal development

100%. Bruno was my baby till Sep 27th, Then it just took-off, I am excited to see what the the future holds. There will be changes along the way, and I'm looking forward to embracing them and continuing this journey in the open.

[helloanoop]

Update 1

Date: 8 Oct 2023

Thank you, everyone, for all your valuable comments and suggestions. Here is an update.

Incentives

I recommend that you first define if you want to make money with your project. But you should not be lukewarm with the purposes you want from this. To do this, just remind yourself that We change depending on time and circumstances, and that is not bad, on the contrary, it is part of our personal development. It is first necessary for each member to have the short, medium and long-term objectives of the project well defined. Make up your mind!

I believe @mmitacc's point here is about being transparent and straightforward regarding my intentions as the Bruno's creator and lead maintainer. So, here it is:

Do you want to make money with your project?

Yes, I do.

What are your short, medium and long-term objectives of the project?

Short Term

• Build a simple, clean and beautiful api client that people love.
• Help foster the growth of a vibrant community of contributors and users

Medium Term

• Lead development of our roadmap
• Explore revenue avenues, including:
  • Corportate and Github Sponsorships
  • Golden Edition
  • Merchandise

Long Term

• Never sell out.
• Continuously improve and maintain Bruno.
• Reduce bloatware in the world. Keep Bruno simple and beautiful.

Golden Edition

Is it going to be open source?

No, the modules belonging to the Golden Edition will be closed.

Will existing features continue to be free?

Yes.

Will you continue to build new features for free?

Yes.

Will there be limits on collection runs or requirement to have a cloud account

You are struggling from ptsd. See a therapist 😉

What features are exclusive to Golden Edition?

• Bru File Explorer - An integrated file explorer for viewing and editing .bru files.
• Visual Git - An intergrated visual Git tool (similar to GitLens for VSCode).
• Terminal - An integrated terminal (similar to VSCode's).
• GRPC, Websockets, MQTT, Socket IO
• Load Data from File for Collection Run
• Performance/Load Testing
• Custom Themes

I want to emphasize majority of our features will always be freely available, with the code open sourced under the MIT license. We're committed to continuously developing features for the benefit of all users.

How much will Golden Edition cost?

I'm considering a yearly fee of $12 USD.

Do you think people will buy it?

I hope people will love and find enough value in Bruno to support it by purchasing the Golden Edition, that comes with the additional features.

Furthermore, I hope that companies benefiting significantly from Bruno will consider sponsoring its ongoing development and maintenance

Best,
Anoop

[rmehta]

I would not go for open core (it is a slippery slope). Rather a hosted version which is 100% free is a good way to become sustainable. Plausible is a great story and role model if you prefer being an indie developer: https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas

[mishushakov]

@rmehta Plausible is a SaaS and hard to self-host, thus the incentive to sign up for and pay. Bruno is a different story

[helloanoop]

@rmehta Bruno cannot do hosted saas, its designed from the ground up to be offline only

That said, if Bruno ends up gaining significant market share, it might make sense to bootstrap a company to cater to requirements of large organisation's (centralised license mgmt, phone and email support, soc compliance, custom integrations). Keeping two separate editions - community and business. IntelliJ does this very well. In my mind they are a great example of delivering value to everyone (community, shareholders and customers).

[syradar]

I mean you can always setup a company that provide enterprises with support, training and extra features. That seems fine, that separates the thing making money from Bruno.

[helloanoop]

I mean you can always setup a company that provide enterprises with support, training and extra features. That seems fine, that separates the thing making money from Bruno.

This is an idea worth exploring. Everything remains free in the community edition (all features), and an enterprise build that goes out (with soc compliance, support, consulting, license management and so on)

Kind of like CentOS - RedHat approach.

[syradar]

I think https://git-fork.com/ do it nicely, you can use it for free and you can decide to pay them. I used it without any intention to pay, until I one day thought "I use this everywhere, I should help them out" and bought a license. They have great support, so I mention them to other fellow devs.

[helloanoop]

Thanks for sharing the link. This reminds me of the Sublime Text model. Free for evaluation, license for continued use. If the app gains significant adoption in the market, the numbers will ensure that the app owners make "enough" revenue.

Key differences I see in this Git Fork model Vs Bruno's Support Editon model. (feel free to correct me here)

• Source Code
  • Git Fork - Closed Source
  • Bruno - Open Source under MIT (except for features in Golden Edition)
• Incentive to Buy Paid Plan
  • Git Fork - Goodwill
  • Bruno - Value Add in Golden Edition
• Paid Plan Cost
  • Git Fork - one time 49$
  • Bruno - yearly fee of 12$
• Competition
  • Git Fork - Sublime Merge, Git Kraken
  • Bruno - Postman, Insomnia (Kong), Paw (Rapid API) - All valued over or than a Billion Dollars

[syradar]

I feel that the supported edition model cheapens your vision statement and made me think again if you are also going to become insomnia. I started looking for something with no money incentives, building for the community. I then realized that there might not be any alternatives out there and that I should climb down from my ivory tower.

Re-reading what you planned for the paid features I think that is fair. You should do some research or user testing on the price, what do people associate with the different price points and are you setting the right expectations.

Also the business/enterprise side with stuff like: training, support, pay for development sounds like it works for larger projects, so here's hoping for the future 🤞

[helloanoop]

I feel that the supported edition model cheapens your vision statement and made me think again if you are also going to become insomnia.

Golden Edition is way towards sustainable opensource.

I started looking for something with no money incentives, building for the community. I then realized that there might not be any alternatives out there and that I should climb down from my ivory tower.

That's super hard. Creators usually get burnt out. Also, many (that includes me) don't usually want to put many many years hard work creating something unique and original and end up having no financial upside as a creator. Monetizing opensource is hard, and hence the creators turn to VC funding which can sometimes be a slippery slope for products that don't need the scale and scope of Venture Capital (we we have seen this in the last decade in the Api GUI client ecosystem)

Re-reading what you planned for the paid features I think that is fair. You should do some research or user testing on the price, what do people associate with the different price points and are you setting the right expectations.

Hoping for the best.

Also the business/enterprise side with stuff like: training, support, pay for development sounds like it works for larger projects, so here's hoping for the future

This is also an idea worth exploring. Unlike libraries or frameworks, enterprises care a lot about security, compliance, support and custom integrations when it comes to desktop apps (or hosted apps in general)

so here's hoping for the future 🤞

me too :)

[dcoomber]

👋 Hi Anoop (and community)

Disclaimers

1. Apologies in advance if I missed that this already being discussed
2. I also apologise for this being a somewhat morbid post

On the topic of sustainability, have you given any thought to business continuity / succession planning should something happen to you? Things happen to people - it could be something sudden and terrible, such as death or a disability, or something else that blocks further progress on Bruno due to the unavailability of the only person who can merge / build / deploy.

At a previous company, the intellectual property was transferred into a trust so that a small group of trustees could, within the memorandum of association make decisions about that "property".

I've seen statements in previous threads that that allude to to "not wanting to set up a company" and Anoop saying in Discord

"As a creator, I own the trademark and the brand "Bruno" and would like to have ownership over the binary distributed under its name."

I am not questioning either of these stances. There are good reasons to back them up.

I do, however, think that a parallel "organisational" roadmap could be considered to cover the operational aspects of sustainability of this project.

(The additional complexity that this brings is not lost on me, hence the suggesting of it being a roadmap item that can be planned in parallel with the features).

[helloanoop]

Hey @dcoomber !

not wanting to set up a company

By this I meant more of "hiring people, building things nobody asked for and then using that as a justification for future actions that may not be in the best interest of the community".

will you register a company

By the nature of regulations in India, it is necessary for me to establish a registered company in order to accept payments from overseas sources for revenue generated through sponsorships, merchandise sales, and purchases of Golden Editions.

"As a creator, I own the trademark and the brand "Bruno" and would like to have ownership over the binary distributed under its name."

Having ownership over the brand is very important since I have explicitly expressed my desire to make revenue from this project.
Inspiration for brand ownership was from seeing how Laravel Project is run. Taylor Otwell owns the brand Laravel.

succession plan

I00%. Have added it as an item for v2 in the roadmap

PS: Thanks @dcoomber ! 😊 I look forward to more open dialouges in this public thread. Discussions around opensource, money and brand ownership comes with vulnerability, and are usually hard. Creators usually shy away from it - I am glad we are having this discussion.

[helloanoop]

Some further thoughts on sustainability and pricing.

I decided to rename Supporter Edition as Golden Edition 🐶

There is fundamental trap that needs to be avoided which is - No matter how valuable your product is, most people don't usually pay for or support something they can get for free.

Right from the start of this public discussion thread, I have expressed my desire to strike a delicate balance between open-source principles and sustainability. I'm still in the process of finding the right equilibrium that works for both me and the broader community.

Among the multitude of things that are planned in the roadmap, a few of them will be only available in the Golden Edition. This is to ensure that there is an incentive (not just based on goodwill, but based on real value addition) for people to purchase the golden edition.

[ranma42]

What is the plan for contributions that do not align with the interests of the Golden Edition?
Is Bruno going to be open-source but not open-contribution a la sqlite?

A couple of points that I could not find mentioned in the thread:

• (depending on local regulations) going non-profit might be a viable approach; iirc this is the path followed by the Zig Foundation
• a free "core" and paid plugins (as in the vscode marketplace, sqlite extensions, ...) could be an option (maybe?)

It is always tricky to find the right balance, I wish you and Bruno the best of luck! :)

[helloanoop]

What is the plan for contributions that do not align with the interests of the Golden Edition?

The features ofGolden Edition will be closed source, hence we won't be able to accept contributions

going non-profit might be a viable approach

As I have expressed here I intend to make income (profit) from the project

paid plugins (as in the vscode marketplace, sqlite extensions, ...) could be an option (maybe?)

Bruno has extensive scripting capabilities unlike any tool out there, so this is not possible. And most things will already be builtin.

a free "core"

Yes. Not just a free core, majority of the features in Bruno (which covers REST and GraphQL Apis) will be free and opensource. See pricing

It is always tricky to find the right balance, I wish you and Bruno the best of luck! :)

Thanks @ranma42 ✌️

[krishraghuram]

Supporter Edition (Paid)

LFG, go the sublime text / merge way :)

Although I have to be honest, I used sublime text for free for many years (when I was a student and didn't have any money). But it was one of the first things I paid for once I started my job.

[solsticesurfer]

You stated above that your target annual subscription rate is $12. Personally, I would have absolutely no problem with paying that to support the project if it can fulfill the promise of getting me away from Postman permanently.

However, the "golden" tier features are of little (if any) use to my needs. That said, I would still subscribe as a way to support the project. But, there are many folks that will not subscribe simply because those features aren't useful to them. This is a common issue that SaaS platforms have to deal with when offering different subscription plans. People might not be opposed to paying for a higher level but will be reluctant to do so if they don't see their needs listed in the benefits of the higher plans.

I would suggest setting up a Patreon or OpenCollective option as an addition/alternative support method to the "golden" tier. A $1 per month option gets you that same $12 (less fees) and higher options would bring in more revenue based on a wider range of motives such as good will and altruism. Just having a $3/month option would triple the revenue from a single subscriber.

Again, this approach would not be instead of the golden tier. Instead, it's an alternative way for people to support the project who might otherwise feel that they would be "wasting money" for features that they don't need.

[helloanoop]

Hey everyone 👋!

If you like Bruno and want to support our opensource work, consider sponsoring us via Github Sponsors.

https://github.com/sponsors/helloanoop

I appreciate your support! 💛

Best,
Anoop - Creator and Lead Maintainer of Bruno

[MelGrubb]

I dislike when previously free features get locked away (goodbye, Thunder), but there are a couple Bruno features that I could see make the move without being overly hostile. Let's look at LINQPad as an example. I pay for a license for LINQPad with every new release because the extra features are worth it to me. Auto-complete, formatting, renaming symbols, etc. These are all things that I can certainly live without, and I did for many years, but I don't hold any ill will toward the author for making those paid features. I can still work with LINQPad just fine in the free edition. It's just better in the paid version.

Schema comprehension and auto-completion are totally things I would move to the paid version if I were you. People could still use Bruno without those, and without limit. It's just not as powerful of an authoring tool. Still, an authoring tool isn't usually what most of the people on my team need. Most of the people on a team have already written their queries, and just need to run them as part of a test suite, or perform simple, exploratory queries that are more about the data than the syntax. Auto-complete would make that task easier, but it's not a deal-breaker if it's not there. Taking away the collection runner, though. That would be an unforgivable betrayal (goodbye, Thunder).

The trick is finding that line between core functionality and creature-comfort features. Crossing that line means holding essential functionality hostage, and that's the quickest way to burn your goodwill.

And finally, I dislike the subscription model in general. The idea that the program I already have will just evaporate if I stop paying? That's a hard sell for me. Again, I go back to the LINQPad model. It's not a subscription. I own it, but newer versions come out on a semi-regular basis, and I absolutely upgrade every single time. That's usually because the new version aligns with a newer version of Entity Framework that has just been released, so it's more of a need than a want. I get genuinely excited when LINQPad tells me there's a new version available. And here's the weird thing. If LINQPad had a $20/year subscription model, I'd hate that too, but here I am paying $65 to upgrade to the new version every 2-3 years. Mathematically, that makes no sense, but I like it better because no one can take my past versions away from me. I have licenses for LINQPad 5, 6, 7, and now 8, and they're all perpetual. I didn't rent them. I own them. They're mine... forever.

[helloanoop]

Thank you for the feedback @MelGrubb !

I dislike when previously free features get locked away (goodbye, Thunder), but there are a couple Bruno features that I could see make the move without being overly hostile.

All work done on Bruno so far has been open-sourced under MIT license. I did build Bruno alone for 2 years, but the community has helped improve the app with a lot more features in the last 2 months. I don't intend to take away or paywall any feature that already exists in Bruno today.

And finally, I dislike the subscription model in general.. have licenses for LINQPad 5, 6, 7, and now 8, and they're all perpetual. I didn't rent them. I own them. They're mine... forever.

I have been thinking about this. I am considering to offer Golden edition for a one time price for developers (the license can be used for both personal and professional work), and keep the recurring model for businesses. (This is inspired by the older model used by IntelliJ.)

[helloanoop]

Hey everyone, I have some updates to share

Summary

• I will be working full-time on Bruno from Jan 2024.
• Despite VC interest (8 VCs reached out in last 2 months), I have chosen not to explore raising money for Bruno. Reasons being:
  • Would like to grow slowly, preserve full liberty and freedom over the product direction.
  • Have confidence in building a profitable enterprise through Golden Edition purchases as well as building ancillary products around Bruno.
• Will be setting up a monthly community call to discuss the product, roadmap, anything and everything related to Bruno (first wed of every month at 5 PM GMT.)

Business ?

In the past, my vision for Bruno didn't involve establishing a company or hiring individuals. The plan was to earn income from the project by offering select features under the Golden Edition (closed source) while working on Bruno part-time.

Bruno's exponential growth has surpassed those initial plans. Currently, there are over 400 pending issues and 80 pull requests awaiting review, despite merging 250 PRs in the last two months alone (averaging 4 merges per day). Balancing this part-time alongside my dayjob as a tech lead is no longer feasible.

Here are some of the highlights that happened in the last 2 months compared to the previous two years:

• Grew from 500 to ➡️ 25,000 monthly active users
• Github stars skyrocketed from 500 ➡️ 9,000
• Launched version 1.0.0
• Presented Bruno at India Foss 3.0
• Opensource Contributors increased from 15 ➡️ 100
• Number of PRs merged grew from 50 ➡️ 250
• VC inbound interest to explore increased from 2 ➡️ 8
• GitHub Sponsorships revenue grew from 0$ ➡️ 40$/month

Thoughts on VC funding

I would like to first clarify that I am not against VC funding. It's the reason why many of us in the industry have well paying jobs in swanky offices. They inject capital and help push the ecosystem forward.

When it comes to Bruno, my stance on VC funding remains the same. An API client is not venture scale.

Some friends and colleagues are baffled on why I would reject an opportunity to explore funding when there is inbound interest from VC's. The irony is that - before Sep 2023, I would have accepted funding in the blink of an eye; but now despite inbound interest, I am no longer interested.

Looking back, I had nothing. Just an innovative api client with little to no visibility. That may be the reason that would have accept taken VC funding in the past. Just to "matter", to be "heard", to gain some visibility.

Its not the case anymore today. We have a growing community and contributors who help make Bruno better.
We have feedback where people literally say - "I love Bruno". What more do I need as a creator (as long as I figure out a way to make a living out of it)?

Perils of VC funding

Many opensource projects thar raise funding may end up struggling to make enough revenue to justify the valuation. Then they start to paywall features which were previously free, and the users start looking for alternatives. That is what has happened in the API client ecosystem (many times over).

Most founders eventually lose control over the product direction and may be forced to make decisions that are not in the best interest of the community.

Money and Altruism

Lets get into this uncomfortable topic.

Just like 99.99% of you, I am motivated by money and would like have nice things. And secure the financial freedom for my family. I just don't have outsized ambitions to raise money and build a unicorn. Would be happy with a small business that makes enough money to live a comfortable life.

Most people who deny and say that they start a company to change the world are lying. There is always an element of self-interest. If they still say that they are not motivated by money, ask them to hand over half of their shares to a non-profit. They won't. Very few people get to a place where they are no longer motivated by money.

The business model for Bruno is simple. Its just aligning the incentives.

• Build and maintain most of the features as opensource (most things a developer needs)
• Offer select features under the paid plans (features that a business needs)
• Foster a thriving community of contributors and users
• Be transparent and do right by the community always
• Maintain full autonomy over the company and product direction
• Continue to build and ship cool stuff, provide value and have fun along the way

Rebellion

Bruno, at its core is a rebellion against the the status quo of the API client ecosystem.

Its quite common these days to raise money and go big when your opensource project gains traction and a certain number of github stars. Many api clients have done that.

The spirit of rebellion (challenging the status quo, rethinking from first principles) continues in the choice to bootstrap Bruno. Explicitly choosing to not raise money and grow slowly.

What's on the Horizon?

Starting January 2024, I'll be devoting my full attention to Bruno. Priorities include tackling our backlog of issues, PRs, and fulfilling feature requests.

I am going to bootstrap a self-sustaining developer tools company crafting tools that delight developers.
Starting alone, will expand the team as we grow.

Moreover, as Bruno matures, we will build more products around the API development ecosystem.

The path ahead is the one less travelled. I look forward to sharing lessons as I trek this journey and continue to make Bruno Awesome, an API client that developers "love".

Thank you for all your support ❤️

Best,
Anoop

PS: Happy to answer any questions you might have.

[melroy89]

[MSGoodman]

I would like to first clarify that I am not against VC funding. It's the reason why many of us in the industry have well paying jobs in swanky offices. They inject capital and help push the ecosystem forward.

When it comes to Bruno, my stance on VC funding remains the same. An API client is not venture scale.

I agree very strongly with this, and am very happy to see you say it. If you really were approached by VCs to fund this (which I believe) and turned it down, then it inspires optimism in me for the direction of this project/software/company. I basically want a pretty and convenient wrapper around curl that easily lets me share stored requests, and I don't think that needs millions of up-front VC dollars to accomplish. Can it support the livelihoods of a few engineers in perpetuity? I certainly hope so!

I've used Bruno and like it so far - it does what I need it to do without fuss, and it lets me easily check my collections into version control to share with others. For that, and for your transparency, I am more than happy to personally donate at least $2 a month for a tool I use nearly every day, for as long as it's being supported and I agree with the vision. Though my preference is for everything to be open-source, I also understand the reality that others can't/won't simply donate enough to make this a reality, so when the Golden Edition releases, I will likely begin using that.

Something worth thinking about: I and others might be interested in sponsoring this project at a higher level, especially if it meant having a tiny bit of say in what free and open-source features are prioritized by you (for example, I would like your telemetry to be optional and flagged behind clearly given user consent). Perhaps there is some better alternative (this in some ways feels wrong to me / the beginning of a slippery slope), but I think there is some money in direct support/feature requests.

In any case, I hope to see you succeed here, and I look forward to your monthly community call whenever it's set up!

[helloanoop]

@MSGoodman

Our Jan Community call is today 10th Jan 2024 5pm GMT
Link: https://discord.gg/RwxXfAKS?event=1192078400463056897

For getting invites for future calls, please join our mailing list: https://groups.google.com/g/bruno-community

[peauc]

Happy to see Bruno going in this direction. 🎉
I think your arguments in relation to VC funding are very wise.

[daniavander]

it is the best api tool, we are waiting the performance possibility
after that i will push to change from postman to bruno gold :)

[Napam]

• I will be setting up a monthly community call to discuss the product, roadmap, anything and everything related to Bruno (first wed of every month at 5 PM GMT.)

Thanks for the updates! Where will the communicaty calls be held? Discord?

[helloanoop]

@Napam

Our Jan Community call is today 10th Jan 2024 5pm GMT
Link: https://discord.gg/RwxXfAKS?event=1192078400463056897

For getting invites for future calls, please join our mailing list: https://groups.google.com/g/bruno-community

[regunakyle]

Hi, Bruno is listed as proprietary in Flathub. Is that an error? Or is there indeed proprietary code in the GUI app?

[helloanoop]

Hey @regunakyle !

All code currently distributed is opensourced under the MIT license. We will be releasing a small set of features (closed source / proprietary code) as a part of our Golden Edition

If you are interested to know the long term plans of Bruno, how we see the balance between opensource vs propietary code, our model for sustainability, our worldview as a company, I've written extensively about it in the discussion and also in this blogpost

[regunakyle]

@helloanoop Nice to hear that this is indeed fully open source.

In this case, could you mark Bruno as open source in Flathub?

[berlingoqc]

it's not fully open-source and they don't release an OSS version of bruno without the paywall inside.
I think it normally to be tagged as proprietary.
You cannot fix all bugs yourself.

[nacengineer]

"Money is a jail" ~ Jean-Baptiste Kempf

https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/kempf-interview-vlc-videolan

[mdreano]

Currently, there are over 400 pending issues and 80 pull requests awaiting review, despite merging 250 PRs in the last two months alone (averaging 4 merges per day). Balancing this part-time alongside my dayjob as a tech lead is no longer feasible.

Hello, what are your plans to leverage this? Will you grant more rights to active maintainers?
I am afraid that this is discouraging people from improving bruno by pull requests.
Good luck with all the work! 🐶

[jonbk]

Love the mindset. I've bought the Gold Edition with the unique purpose of supporting the project and your mindset for its future. Take cares!

[oc013]

Biggest thing holding me back from recommending this to my team is the lack of being able to stay in postman format. Import is nice, but other tooling is creating postman collections already requiring an import/conversion to .bru every time

[melroy89]

I prefer the plain text bru file. And I will never ever use Postman again.

[oc013]

Nice, but that's not my use case.

[berlingoqc]

Ideally the import/export could be automated using the cli if it added there

[melroy89]

I'm also planning to buy bought the Gold Edition, I'm however wondering about how this "2 years of updates" works..? Can I still use Bruno after 2 years? What updates are we missing? I mean, it's a bit vague IMO. Do I really need to buy the gold edition every 2 years? Will my gold edition have GRPC, Websocket and Performance/Load Testing support?

I would also love to see some features move from Gold to Free, even if I bought Gold.

[danielalexis]

I would love for gRPC support to become free

[zenware]

This is something I'm wondering about as well. If it's $19/2y I'm happy to pay $0.80/mo and minimize the transaction fees by doing years at a time up-front, but $19 every two years is anti "pay-once"

[melroy89]

I don't like the subscription model. I rather have pay once and own it.

[helloanoop]

Do I really need to buy the gold edition every 2 years?

No, it's a perpetual license. You get to keep the version indefinitely.
You only need to renew (at 60% off) if you want to continue receiving updates after 2 years.

Charging a renewal fee for updates and support after two years ensures our ability to continue to develop and maintain Bruno.

[crimsonvspurple]

We got bruno golden for org and there's one thing we are really concerned with.

A lot of people are fixing stuff, adding lots of nice features but the pending PR count is always so high. For example: 200+ now with stuff like this: #1792

What is being done to review PRs faster and get pending PR count to a reasonable number (like <15)? It is a really bad sign to have so many pending PRs with completed fixes/improvements and we cant use them.

[melroy89]

I think it's important for open-source to scale if @helloanoop can find another dedicated contributor and give that person merge rights on the repository. This is exactly how I do my open-source projects. Yes, it is based on trust, but on the other hand this will scale much better. Another plus is that it's mentally better for helloanoop.

EDIT: There are already a lot of contributors. Just give some of them a chance to become a maintainer.
EDIT 2: Introducing a chat of any kind (eg. Matrix chat, in your case you already have Discord) helps a lot in knowing each other and working together. Which helps you to pick another maintainer.

[helloanoop]

We have ramped up the speed in Jul and Aug. Here is the summary for Aug 2024

🐞 Issues Closed - 1️⃣0️⃣4️⃣ (🔻34% down from Jul)
👩‍💻 PRs Merged - 1️⃣0️⃣1️⃣ (🚀 206% up from Jul)
🚀 Releases - 7️⃣

Around the topic of giving merge rights to a contributor, its a slippery slope. Finding alignments on timelines, UX, Code quality, Architecture decisions become complex. As of today, we have an internal team of 5 developers - working on core features, as well as integrating pull requests from the community. Our team headcount is expected to grow in the coming months, and we look forward to ramp up our speed even further.

[berlingoqc]

Can we add golden feature to the open source version? I would like to implement some of the paid features to be free of use. Are you open to that ?

[berlingoqc]

It's not about the pricing, it's more about being able to contribute and upgrade those features. I could pay 19$ but if I have an issue with the feature I paid for I can't fix it or upgrade it to add functionality.

Also, most people I know don't like the idea of paying for development tools. They only use open-source tooling. And currently, there is no OSS release

[berlingoqc]

personally i don't want 90% of the feature in golden edition but some basic functionality like options for Runners are behind the pay wall. I wish those feature could be rewritten under MIT license.

Stuff like git support is fined to charged for because it's in no way a core feature required to used this software.

[MelGrubb]

I think it should be possible to clone the repo and build your own golden edition locally with all the features. If you're willing to put in the time it takes to keep your personal fork up to date with the main line, then go for it. As for me, my personal time is worth more than $19 to me. I wouldn't spend any of my own time trying to end-run a $19 payment for a project I get value from.

You should be able to issue a PR back to the main project with a bug fix for a Golden Edition feature, too. What you can't do is make a PR that would make a Golden Edition feature free for everyone. That would undermine the income stream that allows the developers to work on this project as more than just a hobby.

[berlingoqc]

I was only asking if it was worth the time to contribute to the open-source part of project and if they are willing to add some features to the open-source edition for everyone to use. But if it's not me too I won't spend my time rewriting functionality to save some money. It's not about the money

[asirota]

I would build a commercial add on: a Mock server. Instead of using one from npm or whatever a mock server for an api collection is super useful. Even if it is a local mock server that would be useful!

[WaldemarH]

All I can say is thank you for Bruno. Postman is such an awful tool that I was running as fast as I can from it. And also constanly loosing all my requests.

Now the idea of paying for Golden version is good and also from watching other small companies going this way... normally they have a 1 year support and then you can purchase an upgrade if you want. The app will stay running indefinetelly with the old license.

I wish you all the best and I'll be updating the licenses every time it expires.

And yeah I love Bruno. :)

[TheRealRyanReynolds]

Thanks @WaldemarH !