From: Dan Brown Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2025 14:01:20 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Finished off 2024 blogpost X-Git-Url: http://source.bookstackapp.com/website/commitdiff_plain/d3edc27fe9f00b0fadc9bd0d2da41d212221fff8 Finished off 2024 blogpost --- diff --git a/content/blog/2025/bookstack-in-2024.md b/content/blog/2025/bookstack-in-2024.md index bea024c..4402ab2 100644 --- a/content/blog/2025/bookstack-in-2024.md +++ b/content/blog/2025/bookstack-in-2024.md @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ image = "/images/blog-cover-images/cc-by-sa-4/eagle-giles-laurent.jpg" author = "Dan Brown" slug = "bookstack-in-2024" draft = false -date = 2025-01-02T12:35:00Z +date = 2025-01-06T14:02:00Z +++ As we cross over yet another year boundary we look back at the progress, maintenance @@ -30,8 +30,8 @@ a sizeable stable base of funding. Surprisingly, donations via Ko-Fi are down a 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 +Our main source of revenue 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 have 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. @@ -47,11 +47,11 @@ provide the project for free to anyone that finds it valuable, with no paywalls 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 +This is something I started when initially accepting donations but, for the most part, I put further growth of this 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 +over our dependencies to 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. @@ -88,17 +88,55 @@ and refinement take precedence over flashy new features. ### Website Usage & Audience Reach -TODO +Looking at our [website analytics for the year](https://analytics.bookstackapp.com/bookstackapp.com?period=custom&keybindHint=X&from=2024-01-01&to=2024-12-31&comparison=previous_period) (which we track via self-hosted [Plausible CE](https://github.com/plausible/community-edition/)) visits & views have increased further by about 10 to 20 percent: + +![Line chart showing website visitors over the year, compared to 2023, with the 2024 line tracking just above the 2023 line](/images/2025/01/2024-site-analytics.png) + +This is a similar increase to last year, and makes sense since I've again done almost no additional promotional work, outside of talking about +BookStack [on a couple of podcasts](/blog/project-update-september-24/#talking-on-podcasts). +It's good though to see this steady growth remain despite fewer releases & new features this year, which has provided fewer opportunities for +social posts, interaction and sharing. ### Project Maintainership -TODO +Over the last few months I've been thinking more about how we can scale project maintenance. +This has been particularly on my mind as I've added large chunks to the codebase this year, mostly via the new +WYSIWYG editor and the added ZIP import/export format. + +I don't want to chase growth for the sake of growth, and scale out the project to as big as possible, +but I do want to ensure we remain in a healthy state in regards to being sustainable and not over-encumbered +with maintenance work alone. Also, as time goes on and more people rely on the project, it can be more important +that there's other people involved so that the [bus factor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor) is less +of a concern. + +Therefore I'm starting to think about how I can more actively engage other longer-term maintainers to help out with +particular parts of the platform. The growing funding unlocks some extra options here, in potentially being able to +pay others, but I just need to evaluate and understand the potential complications and requirements of going down that route. ### Going into 2025 -TODO +As mentioned above, this year I'll be thinking about methods of potentially getting other maintainers involved. + +With the new WYSIWYG editor added in 2024, that should hopefully mature quickly in 2025 to become the +default option, and I'm excited about how we then evolve that core element with the extra control +we have over the codebase. + +In July we'll hit the 10 year anniversary for BookStack which is quite the milestone. +For this it'd be nice to refresh the project website which, despite many subtle changes, has remained +much the same since the original release. It'd also be great to release a meaty new feature for +that event, but we'd have to see how things pan out. + +### A Big Thanks + +I mentioned it above, but I want to re-iterate a big thanks to all those that have donated, sponsored, or purchased official support from the project. +These contributions have really helped ensure we're sustainable in a healthy, free and open manner. + +Also, thanks to all those that contribute in any non-monetary ways. Whether that's contributing code, +contributing translations, providing input/feedback/comments via issues or Discord, or even just +sharing & talking about the project on social channels such as Reddit; all this helps so much. -- Decade of BookStack +A special thanks to those who spend their time to help out others within our communities. +Tim, randi65535, Script, B1t5murf, ibanez450, root-node and thedoctor0814 are examples that come to mind, although I'm sure there's many others that I've missed! --- diff --git a/static/images/2025/01/2024-site-analytics.png b/static/images/2025/01/2024-site-analytics.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26f03e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/images/2025/01/2024-site-analytics.png @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1 +oid sha256:f0820ee762ad3dea47fa0c51279344c2c60a59f815b92b177608dad5478a281a +size 72682