From: Dan Brown Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2025 18:06:44 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Started writing out 2024 blogpost X-Git-Url: http://source.bookstackapp.com/website/commitdiff_plain/c5a1e410cba3e1aaf55b1cab9402e938ddde4c64 Started writing out 2024 blogpost --- diff --git a/content/blog/2025/bookstack-in-2024.md b/content/blog/2025/bookstack-in-2024.md index e7491c7..bea024c 100644 --- a/content/blog/2025/bookstack-in-2024.md +++ b/content/blog/2025/bookstack-in-2024.md @@ -9,22 +9,82 @@ draft = false date = 2025-01-02T12:35:00Z +++ -TODO +As we cross over yet another year boundary we look back at the progress, maintenance +and funding of the project for 2024 with a view of potential plans in 2025: {{}} ### Project Funding -TODO +I'm happy to say funding of the project has continued to grow in 2024. +In [our 2023 post](/blog/bookstack-in-2023/) I mentioned general revenue +(excluding taxes, costs etc...) has risen from £15k in 2022 to about £25.8k +in 2023. In 2024 revenue totalled about £45.5k, so a significant revenue increase +throughout the year! Here's the breakdown: + + +![Chart showing a monthly breakdown of revenue, split between KoFi, Support services and GitHub Sponsors](/images/2025/01/2024-finances.png) +Revenue from GitHub sponsors has grown to a monthly average of about £1.4k, providing +a sizeable stable base of funding. Surprisingly, donations via Ko-Fi are down a bit on average, +but are much more consistent compared to last year which reflects the increase of sponsorships +and monthly donations via this method, yet fewer large one-off donations. + +Our main source of revenue though is from our [support services](https://www.bookstackapp.com/support/), which have over doubled +in average revenue compared to 2023, and for the first time has provided income across +every month of the year! A number of "Enterprise Support Plan" sales have really helped boost this, +along with a base of new and renewing "Professional Support Plan" customers. + +Overall this means, even after business costs and taxes, I'm now more than covering my living costs with a little extra to spare +and I can now comfortably look at giving back more or thinking about project growth plans, both of which +I talk about more later on in this post. + +Once again, a **massive thanks** to all those that have donated to or sponsored the project, as well as those +that have purchased our support services. I am so grateful to be able to focus on open source work full time, and +provide the project for free to anyone that finds it valuable, with no paywalls or barriers. ### Sharing of Funds -TODO +Now that there's some breathing room in the funding, I can now look to increase the financial support that gets +forwarded on to the projects & services BookStack depends upon. +This is something I started when initially accepting donations, but I put further growth of this mostly on pause in late 2021 when leaving my job +to focus on BookStack full time. + +After sorting my taxes a few months back (to ensure I still had some income left after paying the government) I started going back +over our dependencies and cover those where donations are accepted, as well as increasing donations to many previously set-up sponsorships +via GitHub. My monthly GitHub sponsors bill has increased from $90 in September, to $226 in December. +Upon this, I've increased a few larger one-off donations to projects/people that don't accept donations via GitHub. + +The change in forwarded funding represents us "catching up" with this scheme to ensure our dependencies are covered, but I plan +to still continue this and scale it up with revenue, increasing existing donations and adding new projects where needed. ### New Features & Enhancements -TODO +Throughout 2024 we've published 4 feature releases, and 14 patch versions. +The below list summarizes many of the most significant additions and changes made during these releases: + +- New WYSIWYG editor (alpha) +- Portable ZIP import/export format +- WYSWIYG comment editor +- Video attachment stream support +- Commands-based PDF export option +- Browser opensearch support +- Licenses view +- Updated framework to Laravel 10 +- Welsh language support +- Audit log API Endpoints + +Looking over these, my personal favourite has to be the portable ZIP import/export format +[added in the last release](/blog/bookstack-release-v24-12/#new-importable-export-format), +just due to the possibilities it can open up in regards to content portability and developer use. + +Compared to previous years, this list really isn't as long, but a big reason for this is down to the +diverted effort in dealing with the [licensing change to our core WYSIWYG editor](https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack/issues/4908). +It's disappointing to see fewer big new features across 2024, but I'm trying to view it in the more positive light, that +we're going into 2025 with a new core editor which we have a lot more control over to suit our future needs better. + +There's also the factor that as these years pass BookStack is becoming a more mature platform where stability +and refinement take precedence over flashy new features. ### Website Usage & Audience Reach @@ -38,6 +98,8 @@ TODO TODO +- Decade of BookStack + --- Header Image Credits:  Photo by Giles Laurent (CC-BY-4) - Image Modified \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/static/images/2025/01/2024-finances.png b/static/images/2025/01/2024-finances.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b59ddc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/images/2025/01/2024-finances.png @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1 +oid sha256:9d1cb3d99a4386ee38b8d417069fd8d7972b997fa4a02ea13430df5c2e727075 +size 39618