5 ways open source software companies make money

Three key requirements for an open-source company to consider making money are broad adoption and primary credibility within the community. Once these prerequisites are met, five common business models emerge: support, hosting, restrictive licensing, open-core, and hybrid licensing. These models can be combined in various ways to form a revenue layer cake, and understanding them is essential for evaluating the long-term sustainability of an open-source software project behind which a company operates.