Originally published on LinkedIn on 2025-10-16.
In the technology world, a familiar pattern has become increasingly disruptive. We’ve all seen the recent headlines and read the industry articles detailing the licensing chaos and sudden cost increases that follow when major tech companies acquire key industry players. The message is clear: when proprietary giants consolidate power, the terms of engagement often shift dramatically, leaving countless businesses vulnerable.
This predictable cycle has companies urgently searching for escape routes and long-term alternatives. But here’s the irony: many of the most reliable alternatives are not newly invented solutions; they are open source foundations that have been available, community-tested, and resilient for decades.
From my perspective, this industry-wide challenge is less of a crisis and more of a massive opportunity for enterprises to future-proof their infrastructure.
I want to share a concrete example of this resilience. Years ago, I had the privilege of being part of a great team at Runtastic. We made a conscious, strategic decision to build our entire infrastructure with an unwavering focus on open source technologies.
This is why I’m sharing our story with you today: to demonstrate that powerful, sustainable, and vendor-independent alternatives don’t just exist—they are the key to long-term stability and success.
Talks: Link to heading
- 2014: OpenNebulaConf 2014 - OpenNebula as an alternative to commercial products by Armin Deliomini
- 2015: Take the Next Storage Step by Armin Deliomini - Runtastic
- 2015: Open Source driven Datacenter - Gerhard Sulzberger - Runtastic
- 2017: OpenNebulaConf2017EU - Hyper converged infrastructure - Armin Deliomini - Runtastic
Articles: Link to heading
Hope this is an inspiration for some teams to also evaluate Open Source alternatives.
And many thanks to my former colleagues within the infrastructure team at Runtastic.