With a SaaS, you have one platform that you fully control. Broken dependency? Need to update/rollback? It's all in your hands.

Local software has to target multiple OSes, multiple versions of those OSes, and then a million different combinations of environments that you as a developer have no control over. Windows update whatever broke your app, but the next one fixed it? Good luck getting your user base to update instead of being pissed at you

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theshrike79 2 days ago | parent [-]

A single Go binary can cross-compile to multiple OS-versions with a simple Github Action.

And if it's a free open source application, why would I care if someone can't run it on their specific brand of OS? I'm open to PRs.

If the "user base" wants to update, they can come to the github page and download the latest binary. I'm not building an autoupdater for a free application.

	▲	sofixa 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		But you're talking about a free open source application without guarantees, that's not comparable to a SaaS vs self-hosted "paid" software in model. And even for the cases where you it is, even with a modern language like Go that makes it easy, you still have tons of OS specific complexity. Service definitions, filesystem operations, signal handling, autoupdates if you want them, etc etc.