It's Your Choice: Open Source or Commercial HPC Software - Six Points to Consider When Weighing the Pros and Cons

Open-source software celebrates principles such as open exchange, collaborative participation, transparency, and meritocracy. At their best, open-source projects are agile, well-supported, and responsive to changing user requirements. Customers benefit from high-quality, freely available software. Altair is a major supporter of open-source software and collaboration with efforts that include Altair Exchange, OpenPBS, and OpenRadioss.

But open source also carries risks. For active, well-supported projects, open-source software can be of high value, but not every project fits these categories. Open-source projects can also carry significant risks to the business including projects that may whither and die, excessive project forking, lack of documentation, and quality concerns. The trick is to balance the risks and rewards and make an informed decision about where best to deploy open-source software.