Open Source
Made in the European Union under EUPL
History of Valtimo
Valtimo’s journey began in the summer of 2015. Ritense, the founding organization, initiated research into BPMN engines after working on several projects involving complex workflows. Recognizing the potential of BPMN (Business Process Modelling and Notation) to streamline business processes, we explored various engines, including jBPMN, Activiti, and AWS Workflow Manager.
On November 19, 2015, we deployed our first instance of Activiti successfully. Shortly thereafter, we transitioned to Camunda, which became our core BPMN engine on December 28, 2015. Since BPMN engines primarily operate as backend services rather than full-stack solutions, we built a lightweight framework around the engine to add more functionality. This framework was named the Business Process Platform (BBP).
Cycleon became our first customer, signing a contract on August 31, 2016, for a project based on BBP. Throughout 2017, other major clients such as bol.com and Reed Elsevier (now RELX) adopted the platform.
By mid-2017, we realized that “BBP” needed a more distinct and meaningful name. Initially, we considered “Artery” to symbolize how the system functions as the lifeblood of an organization, routing information efficiently. However, the name didn’t fully resonate. A colleague suggested “Valtimo,” the Finnish word for artery, which perfectly captured the platform’s core role in supporting the flow of organizational information.
Over the years, the development team expanded, the platform became more robust. Valtimo is now used across various sectors, including local government, chemical industries, retail, production, and publishing.
Open Source Milestone
In 2019, we collaborated with the Municipality of Haarlem, which was developing under the ‘Common Ground’ initiative. This program required an open-source workflow solution similar to Valtimo. Inspired by their vision, we saw an opportunity to make our four years of development and expertise available to a broader audience. During our annual company workation in October 2019, we committed to transition Valtimo to open source, despite uncertainties regarding monetization. By 2020, this shift was complete. Today, Valtimo gained traction across progressive (local) government institutions.
Governance
- Code Base Maintainer: Ritense, based in Amsterdam, has maintained the Valtimo code base since 2015.
- Our Commitment: We prioritize long-term success and trust over short-term profit. Learn more about our values at ritense.com.
Why Open Source?
The most important reason to choose open source is independence. While many people think the primary benefit is that it’s free, the reality is different. Open source reduces dependency on a single vendor.
If you need to switch implementation partners, you can do so without changing the software. And if Ritense were to stop supporting Valtimo, another organization will take over. While this transition will never be seamless, it is manageable.
Business Model
Developing and maintaining open source software is just as costly as closed-source software, if not more. Our business model consists of three pillars:
- Subscriptions: Valtimo and the GZAC edition are open source. While there are no licensing fees, maintaining and developing the platform requires ongoing investment. Subscriptions help fund these efforts, offering security guarantees, liability coverage, support, bug fixes, training, and influence over the product roadmap.
- SaaS Offering: Organizations can opt for a fully managed Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, where hosting, updates, and security are handled for them.
- Implementations & Consultancy: We offer professional services for implementation, customization, and consultancy to help organizations maximize the value of Valtimo.
Would you like to get started with Valtimo yourself? Download Valtimo from Github and visit our Developers page.
EUPL Licence
Valtimo is licensed under the European Union Public Licence. It’s considered a FOSS license. It is both a free software license and an open-source license, compliant with the principles of both the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Open Source Initiative (OSI). It is a strong copyleft license, meaning that derivative works must also be licensed under the EUPL or a compatible license.
