OpenFin announced the launch of OpenFin Community Edition, giving application developers free access to its operating layer for financial desktop web applications. In addition, OpenFin has open sourced its core technology, in a project called Hadouken, under an Apache 2.0 license.
OpenFins enterprise-grade, paid offering powers applications licensed on over 125,000 desktops, including applications from 35 of the world’s largest banks and trading platforms. OpenFin Community Edition provides a free commercial license for applications that don’t require enterprise features and support. Separately, the new open source project will enable direct contribution to the operating layer from firms both inside and outside the financial industry.
Firms who have announced they will be supporting the open source project include Microsoft, NodeSource, Barclays, Citadel, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, NEX Group, TP ICAP and Trading Technologies.
Jonathan Carter, program manager at Microsoft said: By building on the open web stack, Hadouken easily fits into the ecosystem we have created around Visual Studio Code. We are looking forward to our continued collaboration with OpenFin and expanding our developer tooling for Hadouken in Typescript and Visual Studio Code.
“Node.js is the fastest-growing open source project on Earth. By adopting Node, organizations can drastically cut infrastructure costs and improve time-to-market,” said Joe McCann, CEO at NodeSource. “OpenFin brings an enterprise-level security model to Node on the financial desktop. We are excited to be participating in Hadouken and helping drive Node adoption forward across the financial industry.” NodeSource provides commercial Node.js products with security and reliability enhancements to meet the needs of the enterprise.
Our new Community Edition provides a better alternative for firms who use open source projects primarily because they are free, said Mazy Dar, CEO and co-founder of OpenFin. By also open sourcing, were providing transparency in our architecture, reducing lock-in and enabling direct contribution from the developer community. Both initiatives are part of our commitment to openness and interoperability.
OpenFin Community Edition provides instant deployment, security sandboxing and native desktop experience including windowing, notifications and secure system access. OpenFin Enterprise Edition, which is a paid license, further includes:
? Enterprise support with an SLA and feature prioritization ? Negotiated contracts with IP indemnity, reps and warranties ? On-prem OpenFin hosting and license management ? Control of OpenFin upgrade process and support for older versions ? Language adapters for .NET, Java and Flash ? Plug-ins for Excel and other common financial desktop applications
