Frappe Ecosystem
You will often hear the phrase, “Buying an ERP software is like getting into a marriage.” Hence, it’s extremely important that before you start referring ERPNext to your customers, you learn about the entire ecosystem of Frappe pretty well.
Frappe Products
Frappe is known for its products, especially ERPNext. That’s what we do really well, but so do hundreds of other product companies. What makes us unique is, all our products are 100% open-source.
What is Open Source?
Open source software is a software that is distributed with its source code, making it available for use, modification, and distribution with its original rights.
"Source code" is the part of software that most computer users don't ever see; it's the code computer programmers can manipulate to change how a piece of software—a "program" or "application"—works. Programmers who have access to a computer program's source code can improve that program by adding features to it or fixing parts that don't always work correctly.
Ref: opensource.com
Since 2008, Frappe has been constantly developing and maintaining Frappe Framework and ERPNext. From 2020, we started developing new products like Frappe Books, Frappe Insights, Frappe Helpdesk, and a lot more. All these new products are also 100% open-source. ERPNext being our flagship product is well understood and appreciated in general. Though most of the magic we see in ERPNext is through Frappe, it’s not as famous and understood as it should.
Frappe Framework is a tool which helps in rapid development of web applications. It’s written in Python and Java Script. It comes with lots of built-in features like DocType (form builder), permissions, print formats, workflows, which allows developers to build and ship web-based database applications much faster. Following are the applications which have been developed using Frappe Framework.
We are often asked this question, “If your products are open-source, how do you make money?” The simple and honest answer is, you just can’t make money on the open-source product itself. But you can offer a service around the product, and charge for the same. Frappe has two primary offerings which help us keep the show running, for the overall community.
Hosting of Frappe apps
Support / Product Warranty on the products developed and maintained by us.
We will dig deeper on both fronts in a while.
Community
It is important that we refer to Newton’s third law here - “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
As Frappe made its product open-source, there were ready-takers for it in the entire software ecosystem. Over the last one and half decades, the Frappe community has attracted close to 20,000 members. These members are using Frappe products or building their business by offering Frappe’s products and services around it. Here is our community forum where members exchange their ideas. If you are new in the community, it’s this step zero to connect with the community and engage in conversation which catches your fancy.
The benefit of having a platform like Frappe Framework and open source community, you have more and more community assets being built. We live in the era of Play Stores and App Stores. It only happens when one partner develops a platform and the community builds products using the platform. You have seen it happening with Android and iOS. Thanks to the framework and community, the same happened with the Frappe ecosystem as well. The Frappe community has its own app store, named FrappeCloud Marketplace. 
On the marketplace, you will find community members building apps which are:
Integrations with third-party applications
Industry-specific applications (like Hospitality management)
Statutory localization for specific industries
…. and a lot more.
Long-distance relationships are vulnerable. Isn’t it? Frappe ensures a community meetup at the annual Frappe Conference. Frappe has been organising it since 2014, in Mumbai. This is a great platform to discuss your vision, past experiences with the participants and demonstrate your contributions.
Frappe Partners
Offering the services around ERP solutions is all about establishing trust with the prospective customer. You can only establish trust if you can give confidence to a guy on the other side that you understand their problems, and are capable enough to provide a solution to fix them. You can do it to an extent by showing your experience and work already done. However, if you can have the OEMs validate your expertise, that is the ultimate way for you to build credibility in the eyes of prospective customers.
Also, if prospective customers work with a partner who understands their language and offers local support, it greatly increases the chances of success. This gives rise to Frappe’s partner ecosystem.
Frappe Partners are the community members who have a contract with Frappe Technologies PL, to collaborate on various projects and work for mutual benefit. Indeed there are commitments and benefits on both sides. Click here to learn more about them.
Currently, the Frappe created a global presence through local partners spread across 30+ countries.
To ensure the Frappe Partner’s community aligns together on the business model and processes, we also organise a separate Summit for the Frappe partners.
Partner Relationship Management (PRM)
There are a host of benefits offered to Frappe Partners, and one of them is the Partner Relationship Portal. This is a tool from which partners can do the following actions.
Partner listing on frappe.io
Tracking leads owned by partners and shared by Frappe
Accessing various resources shared by Frappe
Tracking credits and it’s consumption history
If you have to learn more about the PRM features, here is the link to its user manual. Once you sign an agreement with Frappe, certain members from the partner's team are given access to the PRM account. Do ensure to get this access through your Partner Manager.
In the interest of partner’s success, Frappe takes quite a lot of initiatives like Q&A sessions with our product teams, discussions on business strategy and sessions conducted by other Frappe partners. If you want to stay updated on these sessions, ensure you join the following platform which are specific to updates to Frapp Partners.
Telegram group for Active Frappe Partner (contact your partner manager to join)
Frappe Services
“If it's open-source, why do you charge for your services?” Have you encountered this question while discussing commercials with your prospective customers for ERPNext?
Before you answer with some anger, calm-down yourself. This will require a bit of “educating” to the guy on the other side. Try to explain the difference between free and open-source VS services on the product.
They can host, implement and customise ERPNext on their own without paying anything to Frappe. However, customers might need services around ERPNext, so that they can focus on their core competency, which is doing their own business.
The services around Frappe/ERPNext includes hosting, consulting, support and customization. In the interest of not stepping on the feet of partners, Frappe has drawn clear boundaries as to what OEM can bill to customers directly. Here is the broad segregation.
Services Offered By Frappe | Services Offered By Partners |
|---|---|
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Frappe Warranty
Since ERPNext and Frappe are open-source solutions, and have contributors for the community, it is still maintained by Frappe. It means, when it comes to fixing a specific bug or code optimization in the core product, it has to be reviewed, merged and released by Frappe. Hence, when you sign-up for Frappe’s Warranty support, it ensures your ERPNext instance is covered 360 degree by Frappe and Partner together.
Frappe Cloud
One of the most important characteristics of ERPNext and Frappe apps is that they are web-based. It means that it needs to be hosted on a server, so that users have seamless and cross-platform access to their ERPNext site.
We have seen a pattern where partners would skip Frappe and create a Frappe site on services like AWS and DO. It’s doable if you are managing 4-5 customers. However, when it comes to managing hosting for 10+ customers, ensuring the servers are up and running, the site is upgraded to the latest version and bug fixes, this whole deployment process becomes a huge bottleneck for the partner. That’s when FrappeCloud comes into the picture.
FrappeCloud (FC) is a deployment platform which handles multi-tenancy of Frappe Site and allows installation of multiple apps into sites.
The image above depicts multiple layers, where FrappeCloud is a base, handling complete deployment for Frappe Framework based sites. The first layer depicts the unique site of a customer, where multiple Frappe apps from various sources are picked and installed.
Trust me, FC is a lot more than I just explained above. It also allows you to manage multiple Benches, based on the versions of ERPNext and other applications. Here is the detailed documentation on services and plans offered by FrappeCloud. Highly recommended!
Frappe Certification
When we say that, “we don’t offer software licences, but only services around a product”, it actually means our “know-how on the products” is the value we are showcasing. If we are not experts in what Frappe Framework, ERPNext and Frappe Cloud offers out of the box, and what can be customised and how, you can not even do the same yet.
To ensure Frappe Partners and other individuals in the community also offer quality services in the Frappe Ecosystem, we have to ensure those representing brand Frappe are the product experts. There are no two opinions on this front.
Frappe runs multiple certification programs. Click to learn more about the certification program based on where you stand today.
Certification program for Frappe Partners
Certification program for the individual community or partner member
The list of certified partners and individuals is available on the website so that a prospective customer can find the most suitable partner to work with.