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There is no universal winner. A European public authority should select open-source or proprietary software service by service, using the same tests for functionality, total lifecycle cost, cybersecurity, interoperability, operational capacity, supplier resilience and long-term maintenance. The European Commission’s 2020–2023 strategy expressed a useful decision rule: “Open-source solutions will be preferred when equivalent in functionalities, total cost and cybersecurity.” That is a Commission strategy principle, not an EU law requiring open source for every purchase.
Open source can increase control, reuse and negotiating freedom, but it does not guarantee low cost, security or a capable maintainer. Proprietary software can provide accountable support and a mature product roadmap, but a licence contract does not automatically provide portability or continuity. The practical choice is between specific offers, contracts, architectures and operating models over the service’s entire life.
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What the comparison actually means
“Open source” describes software whose licence gives users defined rights to inspect, use, modify and redistribute the code. Those rights do not eliminate costs: an authority may still pay for implementation, hosting, integration, training, security work, support and upgrades. “Proprietary” software is controlled by a vendor or other rights holder and is normally supplied under licence terms that restrict access to source code, modification or redistribution. Proprietary products may be delivered as cloud services, installed packages or managed platforms.
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Questions that belong in every evaluation
- Does the solution meet mandatory service, accessibility, integration, data-protection and performance requirements?
- What will the authority spend across acquisition, migration, integration, hosting, staffing, training, support, upgrades, security response and exit?
- Who is responsible for finding vulnerabilities, issuing fixes and responding to incidents?
- Can data and workloads move between providers or components using documented standards?
- Can the authority operate, modify or replace the system if a supplier, project or funding stream changes?
- Can another public body reuse the work without creating legal, technical or security problems?
What European policy says—and what it does not
The Commission’s Open Source Software Strategy for 2020–2023 placed the preference for open source inside an equivalence test: open-source solutions should be preferred when they are equivalent in functionality, total cost and cybersecurity. The wording matters. It supports a structured comparison; it does not say that an open-source bid wins despite failing a mandatory requirement, and it does not create a blanket open-source procurement mandate for every European authority.
The current EU Open Source Strategy continues to treat openness as part of a wider effort to build open digital ecosystems and reduce dependence on non-EU technology. It identifies public administrations as potential anchor users and contributors, and highlights procurement guidance, open-source-friendly tendering, reusable public digital assets, stronger Open Source Programme Offices and the inclusion of openness and sovereignty in digital investment decisions.
The strategy also records limits that a serious business case must address: long-term funding can be difficult, projects may be hard to maintain or scale, industrial deployment can face barriers and procurement access can be limited. These are not arguments against open source; they are reasons to examine governance, funding and support rather than treating a licence as a complete operating model.
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The Interoperable Europe Portal’s June 2026 account of the EU Tech Sovereignty Package links procurement guidance with tender-evaluation criteria and long-term maintenance. It describes the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act as introducing an open-source-first principle for public-authority procurement of cloud and AI software. The proposal is limited to that stated cloud and AI context and remains a proposal; it should not be presented as an enacted general rule for all software purchases.
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How to compare the two models
| Evaluation axis | Open-source offer: evidence to seek | Proprietary offer: evidence to seek |
|---|---|---|
| Functional fit | Requirements mapping, maintained releases and demonstrations using the authority’s data and workflows. | Requirements mapping, product edition and roadmap, demonstrations and documented limits or customisation needs. |
| Total cost of ownership | Implementation, internal skills, paid support, hosting, integration, upgrades, security work and exit costs, with assumptions stated. | Subscription or licence fees, implementation, integration, hosting, support tiers, usage growth, upgrades, customisation and exit costs. |
| Cybersecurity | Vulnerability disclosure and patch process, dependency inventory, release cadence, security stewardship and support commitments. | Secure-development evidence, vulnerability handling, patch service levels, dependency management, audit rights and incident commitments. |
| Interoperability | Standards conformance, tested APIs, formats, documentation and proof that extensions do not create proprietary dependencies. | Standards conformance, API and export terms, format documentation, portability tests and limits imposed by the licence or service. |
| Control and lock-in | Rights to modify and redistribute, maintainer diversity, accessible documentation, data portability and a funded exit plan. | Contractual access to data and interfaces, escrow or continuity provisions where relevant, switching assistance and transparent exit fees. |
| Maintenance and capacity | Named maintainers, project governance, funding, release support, internal staffing and a route for upstream fixes. | Named supplier support, service levels, product roadmap, financial and operational continuity, and obligations after contract changes. |
| Reuse and collaboration | Licence compatibility, documentation, contribution rules, security review and a governance process for shared improvements. | Rights to share configurations or components, licence restrictions, and whether the supplier permits public-sector collaboration. |
Is open-source software cheaper for government?
Sometimes, but the licence price is only one line in a lifecycle model. The Commission reported in 2021 that a study’s case studies found public-sector procurement of open-source software instead of proprietary software could reduce total cost of ownership, avoid vendor lock-in and increase digital autonomy. Those are study findings, not a guarantee for an individual authority.
The same 2021 Commission announcement estimated that companies located in the EU invested around €1 billion in open-source software in 2018 and associated that investment with an estimated positive impact of €65 billion to €95 billion on the European economy. These figures concern estimates for 2018, not a current annual measurement and not a forecast of savings for one service.
Build a comparable lifecycle-cost model
- Define the service life. State the years over which the authority expects to operate the service and the assumptions about user volume, transactions, storage, integrations and availability.
- List one-time costs. Include discovery, procurement, architecture, implementation, migration, data cleansing, integration, accessibility remediation, testing, training and change management.
- List recurring costs. Include hosting, licences or subscriptions, support, monitoring, backups, security testing, vulnerability remediation, upgrades, staff, documentation and governance.
- Model change. Price mandatory regulatory changes, new interfaces, scaling, major-version upgrades, replacement of dependencies and likely contract amendments.
- Model exit. Include data export, format conversion, parallel running, replacement implementation, contract termination, knowledge transfer and decommissioning.
- Run sensitivities. Test higher demand, delayed migration, a security incident, loss of a key maintainer, currency or price changes and an earlier-than-planned replacement.
- Publish assumptions with the evaluation. A lower total is meaningful only when bidders were assessed against the same service life, volumes and required outcomes.
An apparently free codebase can be expensive if the authority lacks engineering skills or must fund major integration. A commercial subscription can be economical when it includes reliable operations and upgrades, or costly when data extraction, customisation and switching are restricted. Ask each bidder to identify which costs are included, which are optional and which remain the authority’s responsibility.
Is open-source software more secure?
Neither licence model proves security. Public code can make review, independent testing and rapid collaboration easier, but it can also contain vulnerable dependencies, an inactive maintainer community or an unclear process for coordinated disclosure. Proprietary code is not automatically safer because it is closed; its security depends on development practices, testing, patching, transparency and the supplier’s ability to respond.
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Requirements for both models
- Require a software and dependency inventory, including transitive dependencies and version status.
- Assess secure development, code review, testing, vulnerability disclosure and remediation processes.
- Set severity-based patch timelines, emergency contact routes and evidence requirements for fixes.
- Define responsibilities for the authority, integrator, hosting provider and software maintainer in an incident.
- Require security monitoring, logging, backup recovery and tested continuity procedures.
- Use independent assessment or penetration testing appropriate to the service’s threat model.
- Check purchased components and managed services rather than assuming a supplier’s licence model answers the security question.
The Commission’s digital strategy calls for vulnerability scanning, security by design and checks for purchased software. Treat those as procurement and architecture controls. “The source is available” is not a substitute for an active maintenance process, documented dependencies and measurable response commitments.
Interoperability, portability and avoiding lock-in
Open interfaces and portable data can reduce dependence on one supplier, but open source alone does not guarantee either. A project may expose an incomplete API, use a specialised data format or rely on a single integrator. A proprietary product may implement widely used standards and provide tested export tools, while another may make migration difficult through contractual or technical restrictions.
Test portability before signing
- Specify the data entities, metadata, audit records, files and configuration that must be exportable.
- Require documented formats and APIs, including authentication, rate limits, versioning and error behaviour.
- Run a sample export into an independent test environment and verify completeness, integrity and usability.
- Ask the bidder to demonstrate importing the exported data into a replacement or neutral tool where feasible.
- Record migration time, specialist dependencies, format conversion and any supplier assistance needed.
- Put export rights, assistance, costs, response times and deletion obligations in the contract.
The Commission’s digital strategy supports interoperability by design, systematic interoperability assessment and cross-border data flows. Apply those principles to the actual service: test the standards and interfaces required by neighbouring administrations, national systems and EU-level exchanges instead of awarding points for an “open” label.
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A public authority must be able to keep a service secure and available when personnel, suppliers or funding change. For an open-source project, ask who reviews code, releases security fixes, manages the roadmap, funds infrastructure and accepts contributions. A popular project can still be unsuitable if its relevant version is unmaintained or if no organisation accepts operational responsibility.
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For proprietary software, examine the supplier’s support organisation, product roadmap, financial and technical continuity, subcontractors and obligations when the product is retired or acquired. A service-level agreement should identify response and restoration targets, maintenance windows, escalation routes and remedies, not merely promise “support.”
Capacity checks
- Identify the skills the authority must retain: architecture, operations, security, data engineering, accessibility and procurement management.
- Separate optional expertise from single points of failure; document at least two routes for critical knowledge.
- Require current technical and operational documentation, runbooks and administrator training.
- Confirm who can approve and deploy security updates, and how emergency changes are tested.
- Budget a named maintenance function, whether delivered internally, by a consortium, by a supplier or through a managed service.
- Review funding and governance for shared projects so that a temporary grant is not mistaken for a permanent support model.
Reuse, licensing and cross-border collaboration
Sharing a proven component can avoid duplicated public spending and improve consistency across administrations. Before reusing code, verify licence compatibility, documentation quality, data-protection responsibilities, security status and the governance process for accepting changes. Reuse is valuable only when another authority can deploy, maintain and adapt the component within its own legal and operational environment.
The Commission’s strategy encourages sharing and reuse. For certain Commission code-publication situations, it identifies the European Union Public Licence as preferred. That preference does not automatically determine the licence for every national, regional or municipal project; obtain legal advice on the actual code, dependencies and intended distribution.
A procurement workflow that works for either model
- Describe outcomes first. Write service, accessibility, performance, security, data-governance and interoperability requirements before naming a technology or licence.
- Classify constraints. Mark mandatory requirements, scored preferences, regulatory obligations, critical data and unacceptable operational risks.
- Invite comparable evidence. Require every bidder to provide a requirements matrix, architecture, lifecycle-cost assumptions, security controls, support model, roadmap and exit plan.
- Evaluate a working scenario. Use the same realistic workflow, integration and accessibility checks for open and proprietary offers.
- Score lifecycle risk. Assess maintainer resilience, dependency concentration, staffing, portability, incident response and the consequences of supplier failure.
- Negotiate enforceable terms. Cover data ownership, export, documentation, updates, vulnerabilities, audit, subcontracting, continuity, termination and transition assistance.
- Pilot and test. Validate performance, security, interoperability, operations and migration with representative data before committing to full rollout.
- Govern after award. Track cost, availability, vulnerabilities, update age, standards conformance, supplier performance and exit readiness throughout the service life.
Common mistakes and their fixes
“Open source means no cost.”
Fix: compare the full lifecycle, including staff, integration, hosting, support, upgrades and exit.
“Public code is automatically secure.”
Fix: demand vulnerability management, dependency visibility, patch commitments and independent assurance.
“A proprietary contract guarantees continuity.”
Fix: require roadmap, service levels, portability, transition assistance and arrangements for product or supplier failure.
“An open licence prevents lock-in.”
Fix: test interfaces, formats, documentation, skills availability and the practical ability to move away from a dominant integrator.
“One EU policy applies identically everywhere.”
Fix: distinguish Commission strategies and proposed EU measures from enacted national procurement law, and obtain country-specific legal advice for the tender.
Decision rule for public authorities
Choose the open-source offer when it meets the mandatory functional and service requirements, has a credible funded maintenance and security model, and is equivalent or better on lifecycle cost, cybersecurity and operational risk. Choose the proprietary offer when it provides the stronger evidenced fit or support model, while preserving portability, security obligations and a realistic exit route. If neither offer meets the requirements, change the procurement or architecture rather than forcing a licence-based verdict.
The most defensible award record shows how each option performed against the same requirements and assumptions. It explains the trade-offs, records uncertainty, and assigns an owner for every ongoing security, maintenance and interoperability obligation.
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