SHARE

In one recent survey, IT managers said that the most important project their teams are working on for 2015 is cloud computing. And IDC predicts that by 2018, the worldwide market for public cloud services will be worth more than $127 billion, accounting for "more than half of worldwide software, server and storage spending growth." The open source community is heavily involved in this cloud trend. Open source technologies provide the foundation for many public cloud services, and many enterprises are using these same technologies to build private clouds and hybrid clouds. In addition, many open source projects offer cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) versions of their applications. This month, we're updating Datamation's list of open source cloud computing applications, which includes infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), SaaS and other cloud-related offerings. This year, we've added quite a few new projects, including many related to cloud infrastructure, cloud storage and containerization, which isn't surprising given all the growth and interest in cloud technologies. However, it was somewhat more surprising to see that some of the projects with SaaS offerings on last year's version of the list have stopped offering the cloud-based versions of their software. We'll be watching to see if this trend continues. As always, if you know of additional projects that you think should be on our list, feel free to note them in the comments section below. Also, please note that this is not a ranking; projects are divided into categories and arranged in alphabetical order within those categories. Cloud Infrastructure and Management 1. CloudStack Sponsored by the Apache Software Foundation, CloudStack describes itself as "open source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines, as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform." Known users include Cloudera, Citrix Systems, China Telecom, Dell, Disney, Huawei, Nokia, SAP, Verizon and many other organizations. Operating System: OS Independent 2. Eucalyptus Now part of the HP Helion ecosystem, Eucalyptus is a private cloud platform that is compatible with Amazon Web Services, which enables hybrid cloud computing. In addition to the free community version, it comes in paid standard and premium versions, and HP also offers a number of related services. Operating System: Linux 3. FOSS-Cloud FOSS-Cloud is a comprehensive project which aims to allow organizations build their own private clouds. It is positioned as an alternative to Ctirix and VMware that can save organizations up to 40 percent. Operating System: Windows, Linux 4. ManageIQ This cloud management solution is the open source project behind Red Hat CloudForms. It enables services like chargebacks, service orchestration, lifecycle management and automated workflows, as well as enabling hybrid cloud environments. Operating System: Linux, VMware 5. Mesos Apache Mesos is a distributed systems kernel that abstracts computing resources away from physical or virtual machines, allowing users to treat their data centers like a single pool of resources. It's often used with big data tools like Hadoop, and it also integrates with Docker. Operating System: Linux, OS X 6. OpenNebula "Simple yet powerful," OpenNebula is a turnkey solution for managing virtualized environments and creating private clouds. Paid support and services are available, and there is also a commercial arm of the project at OpnNebula.systems. Operating System: Linux 7. openQRM Downloaded more than 370,000 times, openQRM enables end-user self-service for cloud provisioning and billing. It addition to the free open source version, it comes in paid SMB, Large, and Enterprise Editions. Operating System: Linux 8. OpenStack Backed by organizations like Red Hat, SUSE, Rackspace, IBM, Intel, HP, Ubuntu and AT&T, OpenStack powers hundreds of public and private cloud computing environments. The website includes a marketplace for purchasing related products and services. Operating System: OS Independent 9. Scalr Scalr aims to simplify the management, security and governance of multi-cloud environments while providing greater business agility for users. Well-known users include Expedia, Samsung, Disney, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Sony and Accenture. Operating System: Linux 10. Synnefo Financed by Greece and the European Union, Synnefo (which means "cloud" in Greek) is an open source cloud computing stack based on Google Ganeti, Archipelago and OpenStack APIs. A 1.0 version is still under development. Operating System: Linux Cloud Desktop 11. eyeOS Later versions of this cloud desktop solution are closed source, but you can still access the earlier open source versions through the link above. It's based on PHP and MySQL. Operating System: Linux 12. Oneye Oneye is based on the open source code from eyeOS. It allows users to set up a cloud desktop on their own servers and access it from any device through a browser. Operating System: Linux 13. ownCloud This mature cloud desktop project is now on version 8.0. Key features include federated sharing, favorites, metadata support, excellent search and more. Operating System: Windows, Linux Platform as a Service 14. Appcelerator Titanium The open source Titanium SDK allows developers to create cross-platform native, hybrid or mobile Web apps using JavaScript. Cloud-based services based on the SDK can be found at Appcelerator.com. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X, iOS, Android 15. AppScale Sponsored by Google, Ubuntu, Cloud Sherpas, Datastax, Canonical and Mirantis, AppScale allows users to set up their own platform as a service that runs Google App Engine apps while providing additional monitoring and backup tools. Many customers use it to set up hybrid cloud environments. Paid services are available. Operating System: Linux 16. Cloud Foundry This open source PaaS solution has a huge roster of corporate backers that includes Pivotal, Cisco, Accenture, EMC, HP, IBM, Intel, SAP, Rackspace, VMware and even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It has a very active development community with regular blog posts and training events. Operating System: Linux 17. OpenShift OpenShift is Red Hat's open source hybrid cloud computing platform. In addition to "Origin," the free community version, it also comes in paid online and enterprise versions. Operating System: Linux Cloud Development Tools 18. Cloud9 IDE Cloud9 is both a cloud-based Ubuntu desktop and a browser-based IDE. You can sign up to use a free or paid version of the service at the link above, or you can set up your own cloud-based IDE using the source code from GitHub. Operating System: OS Independent 19. Desein This Dell-sponsored project provides "a Java-based cloud abstraction layer" that makes it possible for developers to write an application once and then run it on any cloud computing service. It's pronounced "da z-eye-n." Operating System: Linux 20. Dirigible Owned by SAP, Dirigible is an integrated development environment as a service (IDEaaS) that promises to help developers "enjoy programming like never before." It's still in beta trials, and you can register to use it for free from the link above. The source code is on GitHub. Operating System: OS Independent 21. Falcon Falcon describes itself as a "very fast, minimalist Python framework for building cloud APIs and app backends." The website includes some impressive benchmark numbers. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X 22. PredictionIO This open source machine learning server promises to allow developers to "build and deploy machine intelligence in a fraction of the time." It's based on other projects like Apache Spark, Hbase and Spray. Enterprise support is available. Operating System: Linux 23. Roboconf This tool makes it easier to deploy applications to the cloud or other distributed computing environments. It supports many public cloud services, including AWS, Microsoft and Vmware, as well as most private cloud environments. Operating System: OS Independent Cloud Backup 24. Amanda The Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver, or Amanda, claims to be the "most popular open source backup and recovery software in the world." It is now owned by the well-known cloud backup service Carbonite and provides the underlying technology for the Carbonite service. Operating System: Windows 25. Bacula Bacula also claims the "most popular open source backup program" title. It's a network-based solution for larger organizations. A supported enterprise edition and "Bacula for the Cloud" are available throughBacula Systems. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X 26. Duplicati This backup client automatically stores backups on a cloud computing service. It works with AWS, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Rackspace and private clouds. AES-256 encryption is built-in, and archived files can also be signed with Gnu Privacy Guard. Operating System: Windows, Linux

Cloud Storage 27. Ceph Ceph offers both object and block storage, as well as a POSIX-compliant file system for distributed storage. The project is now managed by Red Hat, which sells Ceph-based products. Operating System: Linux 28. CloudStore CloudStore offers synchronization capabilities similar to Dropbox. It allows users to set up a personal cloud storage service on their own servers, and it is highly secure. (Note that this project is not related to the UK government initiative with the same name.) Operating System: Linux 29. Gluster Managed by Red Hat, Gluster is an open source, distributed filesystem designed to handle petabytes (or even brontobytes) of data. It boasts high scalability, performance and availability. Paid support and consulting are available through third-party partners. Operating System: Linux 30. Riak CS Riak is a distributed database with low latency, high availability, fault tolerance and high scalability. Riak CS is a cloud storage solution built on top of this database. It comes in both community and enterprise versions. Operating System: Linux, OS X 31. Seafile Seafile provides cloud storage with file syncing and team collaboration capabilities. There's a cloud-based version at Seacloud.cc, or you can host the open source or professional edition on your own Linux server. Operating System: OS Independent 32. Sheepdog Designed for simplicity, Sheepdog is another option for distributed object storage. It can scale to several hundred nodes. Operating System: OS Independent 33. Syncany This open source cloud storage and synchronization tool allows users to make backups and share files with others. All files are encrypted before uploading for privacy protection. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X Containerization 34. Docker Although it's a fairly young technology, Docker's containerization is already getting a lot of attention from industry analysts and enterprises. It describes itself as "an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications." Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X 35. Linux Containers This group oversees three separate containerization-related projects: LXC, a set of tools for containerization; LXD, a descendant of LXC which provides a more intuitive user experience; CG Manager container group manager daemon and the LXCFS filesystem. Its stated goal is "to offer a distro- and vendor-neutral environment for the development of Linux container technologies. Operating System: Linux 36. OpenVZ While it's not nearly as well-known as Docker, OpenVZ also offers open source containerization technology. It provides the basis for a commercial product called Odin Virtuozzo. Operating System: Linux Virtualization/Hypervisors 37. KVM Short for Kernel-based Virtual Machine, KVM is a complete Linux virtualization solution for x86 hardware. It is part of the mainline Linux kernel. Operating System: Linux 38. Xen The Xen Project website describes it as an "open source hypervisor designed for clouds." It provides the foundation for some of the biggest clouds in the world, including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Operating System: OS Independent Big Data Tools 39. Hadoop Hadoop is so widely used that it has become more or less synonymous with big data. It's a collection of data processing tools that can be used in distributed computing environments, including cloud computing environments. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X Business Intelligence 40. Jaspersoft Jaspersoft offers award-winning open source business intelligence and analytics capabilities. In addition to the free community download, it comes in a variety of paid editions, and it is also available as a cloud computing service that runs on AWS with prices starting at less than $1 per hour. Operating System: OS Independent 41. Jedox With more than 100,000 users, Jedox (formerly known as Palo BI) is a very popular business intelligence platform. The base version is free and open source, and the organization also offers a premium on-premise version and a cloud version. Operating System: OS Independent Business Process Management 42. ProcessMaker Used by companies like Toyota, GTBank and Lenovo, ProcessMaker aims to simplify BPM and workflow automation. In addition to the free community edition and a paid on-premise enterprise edition, it also comes in a cloud version. Operating System: Windows, Linux, Android, iOS Content Management 43. Alfresco Alfresco offers enterprise-class content management, and the paid versions of the software also include business process management capabilities. It comes in an online version and a hybrid cloud version, as well as the free community version. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 44. SugarCRM Boasting millions of users, SugarCRM is a high-quality enterprise-ready CRM solution that rivals or exceeds the capabilities of proprietary solutions. The community version is available as a free download, or you can subscribe to the professional, enterprise or ultimate cloud-based versions, with prices starting at $40 per user per month. Operating System: Windows, Linux, OS X 45. vTiger Used by more than 100,000 businesses, vTiger promises to help companies "get organized, grow sales, improve marketing ROI and deliver delightful customer experiences." In addition to the free community version, it comes in three cloud versions—sales, support and ultimate—and other services are available as well. Prices start at $10 per user per month. Operating System: Windows, Linux, iOS, Android 46. Orange Leap Aimed at non-profits, Orange Leap offers constituent relationship management capabilities with an emphasis on fundraising. The link above will connect you with the paid, cloud-based version; the open source code can be found at GitHub. Operating System: Windows 47. SplendidCRM This CRM solution comes in three different versions—community, professional and enterprise—all of which can be deployed on-premise or used in the cloud. The latest versions add new features like a chat system, native mobile apps, data de-duplication, a report designer and integrations with third partner email marketing and automation solutions like HubSpot, ConstantContact and iContact. Operating System: Windows Document Management Systems (DMS) 48. OpenKM The KM in OpenKM stands for "knowledge management." It's a Web-based document management system with integrated collaboration capabilities and features like version control, file history, metadata, workflow and search. community, professional and cloud versions are available, and the organization also offers paid training. Operating System: OS Independent 49. LogicalDOC LogicalDOC aims to make deploying a DMS easy and affordable. It's available as a free download or as a cloud-based service with mobile clients available. Operating System: OS Independent