Should you consider open source mobile device management?

Benefits of open source MDM

For most organizations, cost savings is the primary reason to turn to open source MDM. Licensing on-premises software can be expensive and comes with an assortment of restrictions. To counter these costs and simplify operations, some organizations turn to MDM cloud services. However, these come with ongoing subscription fees that can add up to an even higher total cost of ownership.

The trend of subscription-based licensing for on-premises software has also started to work its way into the MDM market. Some products are now available with either perpetual or subscription pricing. It's unclear how long vendors will continue to offer perpetual licensing.

With open source MDM products, organizations don't have to jump through the legal licensing hoops that come with commercial products or sweat through the potential audits that follow. In fact, organizations can even commercialize open source products as long as they comply with the applicable open source license.

Open source MDM software offers greater flexibility, as organizations can customize and extend the code to meet their specific needs. This added level of control can also ensure adherence to strict security and compliance standards.

Many open source projects benefit from the outside developer community. Outside developers contribute code to the project, identify issues and provide innovative input at all phases of development. In addition, open source code tends to be standards-based and built with well-known programming languages. This makes it easier to integrate the platform with other systems, although this is never a guarantee.

Limitations of open source MDM

Open source MDM tools are not always as free as one would hope. The MDM code can require pricey expertise to customize, deploy, maintain or scale. The product might also be difficult to integrate with other tools and systems. It can take significant time and resources to migrate current operations to the open source platform. In some cases, a vendor might offer support for its product, but this generally comes with a hefty subscription fee.

Another challenge is that open source products are typically not as well documented as commercial products. The documentation that does exist might be inconsistent, incorrect or out of date. IT admins might be able to find the information they need through community forums or other online resources, particularly when the product has an active user base. Still, this can be a hit-or-miss proposition without any guarantees. When faced with a lack of concise information, IT teams often have to dedicate extra time and resources to the project.

IT decision-makers who are evaluating MDM options must also determine which types of devices the platforms can manage. Open source products usually support a limited number of device types. Most can handle either Apple devices or Android devices but not both. If an organization manages multiple device types, it might need to deploy multiple MDM platforms, adding even more to their deployment and maintenance overhead.

Most open source products don't provide the same level of functionality offered by commercial products. For example, a product might be lacking in features related to device enrollment or workflow automation. Admins should ensure that the product they pick includes all the functionality they might need. The platform should also be able to deliver the necessary performance, scalability and interoperability as well as meet security and compliance requirements. Customizing a product to meet these standards requires even more IT resources and technical expertise.

IT should avoid platforms that are not actively maintained. They can come with authentication issues, security holes or other timebombs that lurk beneath the surface. An inactive product might also have performance and compatibility issues, especially as next-generation technologies and new mobile devices emerge.

When IT teams are faced with an inactive product, they must troubleshoot, fix and test the entire codebase, often without any type of support. They also have to customize and test the platform to make sure it can meet performance and security needs while integrating with other systems.

The quality of an open source MDM product largely depends on the number of developers who contribute to the project and how extensively the platform is deployed. An open source project that has thousands of contributors and supports a large end-user community can be as stable, reliable and secure as a commercial product.

This is not the case with all open source projects, however. For this reason, many organizations prefer to stick with commercial MDM or enterprise mobility management products that come with technical support, service-level agreements and proper documentation. Vendors typically test their platforms in a variety of environments and under different conditions. Commercial products also tend to support multiple mobile OSes and offer more features than open source products.

Open source MDM options to consider

The MDM industry is no less dynamic than any other area of technology, and this is just as true for open source products. New platforms appear, some disappear and others evolve in unexpected ways. For example, Teclib's Flyve MDM platform appeared on many lists of top open source MDM products. However, Teclib announced in November 2023 that it was ceasing development of Flyve MDM and archived the project on GitHub.

Open source MDM tools are not always as free as one would hope.

Organizations still have a few options for open source MDM, although they usually don't support both Apple and Android devices. For example, Headwind MDM includes features such as remote support, device status control and group-based policy management. It also makes it easy to set up user profiles and enroll devices. However, it only supports Android devices.

On the flip side, there are products such as MicroMDM. This platform focuses exclusively on Apple products, both macOS and iOS. MicroMDM works as a web server, handling connections from Apple devices. The server provides an authenticated web API that enables other services to interact with enrolled devices. Still, MicroMDM is not a full-featured MDM product. Its main purpose is to facilitate device deployment and expose the Apple MDM features through the API, making them available to the other services.

Organizations can also choose from products such as Fleet or NanoMDM, both of which focus on the Apple ecosystem. Overall, the market is somewhat limited, and there are relatively few open source MDM products available, especially for Android.

Organizations can also look into the free editions of tools such as Miradore and ManageEngine Mobile Device Manager Plus. Miradore supports the Windows, Android, iOS and macOS platforms. There also isn't a limit on the number of devices IT can manage with it. However, the free edition is missing many of the advanced features that are available with the paid Miradore editions.

In contrast, ManageEngine's platform supports Android, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, macOS, Windows and Chrome OS devices, and it provides the same features as the Professional edition, which is a paid subscription. That said, the free edition has a limit of 25 devices, making it more viable for some small organizations.

Editor's note: This article was updated to reflect changes in the open source MDM market and to improve the reader experience.

Robert Sheldon is a freelance technology writer. He has written numerous books, articles and training materials on a wide range of topics, including big data, generative AI, 5D memory crystals, the dark web and the 11th dimension.