Meteroid 2.x: a new baseline for the open-source edition

[gaspb]

Hi everyone,

Meteroid 2 is out. Our goal for the open-source edition hasn't changed: a business should be able to run its billing end to end with it, compliant and secure, without arbitrary paywalls. Meteroid 2 is where we get there, and it also changes how the edition is built. Here's what changed, what moved, and what we commit to from here.

How the open-source edition is built now

Until 1.0, the open-source edition lived apart from the code we run in Cloud, and we didn't manage to keep it up with Cloud's pace: fixes landed late, features only reached Cloud, and the gap kept growing. So we changed how it's built.

Open source, Enterprise and Cloud are now three editions built from one codebase. This repository is that codebase without the proprietary modules, published automatically on every merge. In practice:

• The open-source edition gets every bug fix and security patch at the same time as Cloud.
• It has all the engine work we did while running Cloud in production.
• We moved into it several core features that were Cloud-only until now, because maintaining two versions of them made no sense.
• It's self-contained: everything it runs is in this repository, open source (AGPL for the app), with no closed or unlicensed components.
• We publish open-source images (ghcr.io/meteroid-oss/meteroid-oss-*), and the Helm chart in this repository is the one we deploy Cloud with.

What's new

• A rebuilt customer portal and hosted checkout, with purchase links
• Wallets: a ledger, grants with expiry, top-ups from the portal
• Native webhooks, with no dependency on Svix
• Invoicing in eight languages, B2C and tax-inclusive pricing, credit notes, refunds, e-invoicing (Factur-X and XRechnung) and payment reminders
• Mollie, and smarter payment retries
• Usage filters, deduplication at ingestion, feature configuration values and per-customer entitlements
• Two-factor authentication, per-action permissions, SSRF protection and rate limiting
• A redesigned app, with filters and saved views on every list

And much more: the release notes have the full list.

What moved to Enterprise

To build this baseline, 2.0 moved some features that the open-source edition had in some form up to 1.0.0-rc7 into the Enterprise edition.
This is a one-time reset to set the baseline: from 2.2.1 on, nothing more moves out of the open-source edition (see our commitment below).

• several organizations, several Production tenants and several invoicing entities;
• several signers and purchase orders on quotes;
• plan, add-on and seat changes from the legacy customer portal (the new portal shows the same screens read-only, in addition to a number of new additions, and customers can pay, top up, manage payment methods and cancel);
• the Reports preview page (the MRR and revenue charts were fixed and stay on the home page).

We know some of you may have relied on these. If that's you, tell us here or at hey@meteroid.com, and we'll work it out with you.

The official images and the Enterprise edition

The official 2.x images now run the Enterprise edition, free for companies under 50 employees and €2M in annual revenue. This lets us give small teams some of the features of our Enterprise modules at no cost, and brings self-hosting closer to what our Cloud self-serve plans offer. Larger companies need a commercial license for the Enterprise images.
The open-source AGPL images are also published with every release and have no such terms, so you can run a fully open-source stack whatever your size. Editions has the details.

Our commitment

• What goes where: the open-source edition covers end-to-end billing for a single business. Enterprise is for what larger companies need (our Intelligence platform, multiple entities and organisation security policies), and for some advanced pricing models that rely on our Enterprise modules, such as your own credit units and credit packs included in plans.
  Editions lists what each edition includes, and what the Enterprise images include for free.
• Nothing more moves out: from 2.2.1, the current release, a feature that ships in the open-source edition stays there. New features may land in either edition; existing ones won’t leave the open-source edition.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome here. Merged contributions ship in the next release of every edition; contributors sign a CLA.

Questions, concerns or pushback about the editions are welcome in this thread.

Gaspard, co-founder & CEO