Engineers Build Open-Source Answers to Expensive SaaS

A coalition of laid-off engineers is systematically building open-source alternatives to expensive cloud software, starting with identity services and customer relationship management. The OccupySaaS movement uses a clean-room approach—developing entirely from public specifications and open standards—combined with AI-assisted coding to move quickly. Two completed projects showcase the concept: ZeroAuthy replaces Auth0’s authentication API, while SalesCompel mirrors Salesforce’s CRM interface. Both are released under permissive licenses and designed to self-host.

The core complaint targets cloud platforms that extract recurring revenue through proprietary lock-in, restricted data exports, and constant price increases. To ensure legitimacy and compatibility, the projects maintain strict separation between documentation specialists and engineers, publish source provenance, and validate that existing client code works unmodified against their servers. All work happens in public repositories without proprietary leaks or decompilation.

Beyond identity and CRM, the movement plans to tackle documentation platforms, issue trackers, feature flag services, monitoring tools, and help desk software—essentially the entire calendar of monthly recurring charges most companies face. Contributors submit proposals and implementations openly, treating the initiative as a decentralized response to converging industry pressures: massive layoffs combined with sustained or rising SaaS subscription costs.