Convoy partnered with Omnistrate to turn their Open Core Webhook gateway into a feature complete multi-cloud SaaS solution in weeks
Our friends at another company told us it took them 2 years to build their control plane using Vanilla AWS APIs. Omnistrate enabled us to ship our Cloud platform in only two weeks, and after Omnistrate, we saw a 200% increase in active users. Subomi Oluwalana CEO, Convoy
Who/What is Convoy?
Convoy offers an Open Core solution built to handle publishing, ingesting and debugging webhook events. The Convoy solution is a highly scalable multi-tenant webhooks gateway, able to support multiple backend services, and it comes with key features like retries, rate limiting, circuit breaking, and dashboards.
What are Webhooks?
Webhooks are at the heart of most Modern Cloud Services. Webhooks streamline communication between applications, improve responsiveness, and enhance overall system efficiency.
In fact, most of us rely on webhooks within the everyday systems and applications that make modern life possible.
- Real-time Updates: Webhooks enable immediate communication between applications and services whenever specific events happen. This real-time aspect is crucial for applications that need to react quickly to changes or events.
- Efficiency: Unlike traditional polling mechanisms where an application periodically checks for updates, Webhooks eliminate the need for constant querying.
- Automation: They facilitate automation by triggering actions automatically based on events. For example, a Webhook can notify a chat application to send a message whenever a new order is placed on an e-commerce site.
- Integration: Webhooks are commonly used to integrate different systems or services. For instance, a CRM system can update customer records automatically when a payment is made through a payment gateway.
Convoy’s journey to Cloud
The Convoy team publishes a Community Edition of their software that is Free and open source. They also offer an Enterprise Edition that comes with things like Commercial Support, Advanced Role Based Access Controls, Audit Logs and more. However, both of these solutions are software based, and require the customer to install and manage the software on their system.
Convoy also wanted to offer their customers a Modern SaaS based Cloud solution. Allowing companies easy access to the technology without requiring them to set up and manage their own infrastructure. Lowering the barrier to entry and encouraging a broader adoption of both Convoy and Webhooks.
After a few false starts at building their own cloud service, Convoy turned to Omnistrate.
Who is Omnistrate?
Omnistrate provides an enterprise grade SaaS Control Plane, which dramatically accelerates an organization's ability to create and host a scalable cloud solution. This means nearly any Cloud Native Application can be transformed into an SaaS service and integrated with other cloud services in a matter of days.
For Contrast, when other major OSS projects built their cloud offerings (ex Confluent, Databricks, MongoDB), they spent years and millions of dollars in the process.
However, by leveraging Omnistrate, Convoy Cloud was launched with weeks of effort (not years.)
Our previous attempts at building a cloud platform were short-lived. Indeed, our Cloud on Omnistrate has been the most consistent and growing Cloud platform we’ve had. Subomi Oluwalana CEO, Convoy
How Omnistrate works
All SaaS offers consist of two realms of responsibility called “Planes”: The Control Plane & The App Plane
Omnistrate provided Convoy with an advanced multi-cloud control plane that handles tasks related to onboarding, authentication, management, operation, and analysis within their multi-tenant Convoy Cloud Offer. This allowed Convoy to focus their time on the Application side, to ensure an amazing customer experience.
Of note, while the control plane provides the least amount of market differentiation, for companies who choose to build their own, it often consumes the majority of their time and budget.
Why is SaaS important for Open Core Projects like Convoy?
Open-source projects like Convoy benefit from leveraging Software as a Service (SaaS) as a delivery model for several compelling reasons:
- Accessibility and Adoption: SaaS delivery makes the software easily accessible to users without requiring them to set up and manage their own infrastructure. This lowers the barrier to entry and encourages broader adoption, as users can simply sign up and start using the service.
- Scalability: SaaS platforms offer scalability benefits, allowing the service to handle varying workloads and user demands. For an open-source project like Convoy, this means accommodating a growing user base without the project team needing to manage infrastructure scaling themselves.
- Maintenance and Updates: SaaS providers handle maintenance, updates, and patches for the software, ensuring that users always have access to the latest features and security improvements. This relieves the burden on the open-source project maintainers, who can then focus more on developing new features and addressing community needs.
- Monetization: SaaS models can provide a revenue stream for the open-source project through subscription fees or usage-based pricing. This financial support can help sustain the project, fund development efforts, and ensure long-term viability.
- Integration and Ecosystem: SaaS platforms provide integrations with other services, enhancing interoperability and creating a richer ecosystem around the software. This can attract developers and businesses looking to extend the functionality of Convoy and integrate it with their existing tools and workflows.
- User Experience: SaaS delivery offers a smoother user experience, with intuitive interfaces, centralized support, and streamlined onboarding processes. This improves user satisfaction and retention, crucial for the success of any open-source project aiming to build a community of engaged users.
The End Result
By leveraging Omnistrate to bring Convoy Cloud to market, Convoy will reach a wider audience, simplify the deployment and management for users, generate revenue to support development efforts and enhance their Open Source Offer in many ways. All while expanding the already vibrant ecosystem around Convoy to even more applications and users.
These benefits will contribute to the project's growth, sustainability, and provide meaningful impact to the developer community for years to come.
To try Convoy Cloud yourself click here: https://cloud.getconvoy.io/signup
For more information about Omnistrate, visit Omnistrate's Website
About Omnistrate
Omnistrate empowers Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to build and manage their SaaS offerings in minutes instead of years. Our platform automates the entire SaaSification process, from supporting deployments to operating enterprise-grade SaaS solutions at scale. With Omnistrate, ISVs can accelerate their time-to-market and focus on innovation while we handle the complexities of SaaS management.