Expertise to drive success with Saltcorn

Saltcorn is free and open-source software. It can be installed and used for any purpose with no license fee.

Professional and technical services to help you succeed with Saltcorn are provided by Saltcorn Collective Ltd.

Hosting

Self-serve hosting options

Saltcorn.com provides a free service for evaluating Saltcorn

Self-serve hosting is provided by DigitalOcean and Linode’s one-click install from the marketplace. These are one click installations, no command line interaction required, and come with their own database.

Detailed instructions for automated or manual installation using Docker or npm are provided.

Hosting

Infrastructure consulting services

We provide low-cost consulting services related to Saltcorn deployment:

Challenging deployments: cloud, intranet, constrained environments

High-availability deployments

Audit and monitoring

Integration with non-standard components

Creating managed deployment services for cloud providers

Maintenance and updates, off-site backup strategy

Training

Training for Saltcorn builders and operators

A video course covering an introduction to Saltcorn is available on YouTube. There is also an extensive wiki with documentation for installation, administration and application building.

Live training can be delivered on site or remotely to cover specific topics:

Building Business applications with Saltcorn – introductory course to build apps.

Saltcorn introduction for non-technical users – teach people how to make small modifications and gain confidence with an existing project.

Building custom project management applications.

Learning database design with Saltcorn.

Bespoke training - tailored to your situation.

Combined training and consulting: we start with basic training, then transition into a project-based learning/build support consulting using your project as an example.

Development

Enhancement and Sponsorship

Having done your feature and suitability comparison, and finding that Saltcorn neatly checks and satisfies all the requirements except that one little thing… Sponsor the improvement of the core Saltcorn codebase and its module ecosystem to check the last boxes

New modules

Add configuration option

Priority bug fixing

Deploy in new environments

Enhanced security requirements

Sponsors will have significant input into all design decisions regarding their enhancements. All code released is open source under the permissive MIT license – you have full freedom to operate.

This service is provided at a reduced hourly rate. It is a cost-effective alternative to custom development.

Development

Custom development

For specialised functionality, the fastest way to deliver can be to implement custom Saltcorn modules in code

Why use Saltcorn if custom development is needed?

90% of your app can still be built with our no-code tools. And building this in no code is both fast and allows non-technical uses to change wording and simple features as needed easily

Building a custom component is extremely easy, there are only a few lines of boilerplate code to declare this a module

Your custom component can interact with Saltcorn filters to regulate the data shown if appropriate

Your admin back end/dashboards can be built completely with no code for accelerated delivery.

You have full and exclusive copyright, usage and IP rights. Your project can live in private git repositories. We assign all copyright to you (not open sourced) for your custom module

Building

Prototyping

Extremely rapid development of a proof of concept. You will have a real working application, scaling to thousands of users. Use this for market testing to evaluate demand and measure product market fit.

Building a prototype on Saltcorn leaves you in a good place when it is time to move on:

The database is well designed and all tables including the user table are easy to reuse in a different application context

Spin up an automatically generated API server like PostgREST or Hasura for a back-end solution or write your own back end

Write a new web front end or native mobile app against the Saltcorn API or another API backend service running against the same database as Saltcorn

Why prototype?

The hardest part in software engineering is figuring out what to build. Use Saltcorn for the first implementation and rapid iterations based on initial user feedback. Building a prototype forces you to clarify many aspects of the design and function scope.

Then, if you need to switch to a traditionally engineered application due to scalability or customizability concerns, cloning the no-coded prototype application is likely 10% of the work and cost compared to using software engineers to develop an evolving, ill-specified concept.

Figure out what you want to build with Saltcorn and validate that there is a demand for this solution. Then re-implementing with a traditional software engineering approach will be much easier

Building

Application building support

We can support your organisation in building applications in Saltcorn. This support can include any of the following:

Evaluate suitability of Saltcorn

Initial training

Consulting: we assist you in achieve the implementation as needed. This can be done through face-to-face meetings or remotely

We can build the more challenging aspects of the application for you

Advice on deployment options and operations

Help agencies and consultants to deliver projects for clients using Saltcorn

Get in touch

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Saltcorn Collective Ltd

Registered with Companies House #13379522