OW2 Consortium
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2007
- HeadquartersParis, France
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
OW2 Consortium firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- OW2 Consortium
- Legal name
- OW2 Consortium
- Website
- https://ow2.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2007
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
OW2 Consortium industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Open Source Middleware
- NAICS
- Business Associations (813910), Professional Organizations (81392), Business, Professional, Labor, Political, and Similar Organizations (8139)
- SIC
- Services-Membership Organizations (8600)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Open-Source & Developer Communities (BPAMABAM)
Keywords
Where OW2 Consortium is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Paris
- HQ country
- France
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
OW2 Consortium business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Corporate Membership Fees: Annual membership dues from corporate members based on company size: Large enterprises pay €10,000/year, Medium enterprises €5,000/year, Small enterprises €3,000/year, Micro enterprises €1,500/year, Academia €4,000/year, Laboratories €1,000/year. Corporate membership requires a 1-year commitment.
- Strategic Membership Fees: Annual membership dues of €50,000/year for strategic members who provide significant resources and commit to a minimum of 3 consecutive years. Strategic members must appoint one director, participate in initiatives, appoint contributors to projects, and provide representation in councils.
- Individual Membership: Free of charge for individuals, including the right to submit new OW2 projects and participate in governance elections.
- Donations: OW2 accepts donations from supporters to help grow the community and contribute to open source momentum. Donations are not eligible for tax deductions.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Individual Membership - Free |
| Subscription | Annual | Corporate Membership - Size-based pricing |
| Subscription | Multi-year contract | Strategic Membership - Premium tier |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
OW2 Consortium product offering
Product offeringCore offering
OW2 Consortium operates an open source software community that hosts and supports over 100 open source projects spanning application platforms, middleware, components, cloudware, and tools for distributed and cloud applications. The organization provides technical infrastructure (GitLab forge, Nexus, SonarQube), community governance services, quality assessment through its Market Readiness Levels (MRL) program, and marketing support to projects led by corporate, academic, and individual members.
Product overview
OW2 Consortium is a non-profit open source community organization (not a product company) that hosts over 100 open source projects across application platforms, middleware, cloudware, and development tools. The portfolio includes projects in all stages from Incubation through Mature to Archive, managed via a GitLab-based Forge infrastructure with associated services for code quality (SonarQube), artifact management (Nexus), collaboration (XWiki), mailing lists (Sympa), and analytics (Matomo). Projects benefit from the OW2 Market Readiness Levels (MRL) assessment program and participate in market-driven Initiatives (miniApp, OSS Good Governance, Open Science). OW2 also serves as a dissemination partner for European collaborative R&D projects and organizes the annual OW2con conference. Governance is led by a Board of Directors with Strategic, Corporate, and Individual member representation.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- OW2 Market Readiness Levels (MRL): A market readiness assessment program for open source projects, inspired by NASA's Technology Readiness Levels, evaluating projects from Research (MRL 1) to Market Leader (MRL 9).
- NGI Zero Commons Fund
- miniApp Initiative (MAI)
- OSS Good Governance Initiative (GGI)
Products and services
- OW2 Project Codebase OW2 hosts over 100 open source projects spanning application platforms, components, middleware, cloudware, and tools for the development, deployment, and management of distributed and cloud applications. Projects follow a lifecycle of Incubation, Mature, and Archive stages, assessed by the Technology Council and evaluated through the OW2 Market Readiness Levels (MRL) program.
- OW2 Infrastructure Services (Forge) OW2 provides a technical infrastructure platform based on GitLab with code repository management, continuous integration, version control, issue tracking, Maven artifact management (Nexus), code quality analysis (SonarQube), collaborative website development (XWiki), mailing list management (Sympa), LDAP user management (FusionDirectory), license scanning (ScanCode), and web analytics (Matomo).
- Market Readiness Levels (MRL) Assessment Program OW2's Market Readiness Levels (MRL) program assesses open source projects across technology, governance, quality, and delivery dimensions, providing a composite index from Level 1 (Research) to Level 9 (Market Leader) inspired by NASA Technology Readiness Levels. It facilitates adoption of open source projects by mainstream decision makers.
- Collaborative R&D Project Support OW2 provides community support, dissemination, and exploitation services to multinational open source collaborative R&D projects, acting as the reference platform for government-supported, open source-oriented projects. OW2 has participated in 14 European collaborative projects since 2010.
- OW2 Initiative Programs OW2 hosts market-driven Initiatives led by Strategic Members, including the miniApp Initiative (W3C MiniApp standards), the Open Source Good Governance Initiative (OSPO Blueprint), and the Open Science Initiative. Each Initiative facilitates technical integration between projects and business synergies for specific market needs.
- NGI Zero Commons Fund Support Services OW2 serves as a dissemination and community partner for the NGI Zero Commons Fund, a European funding initiative (up to €50,000 per project) that supports open source Internet commons projects. OW2 also provides associated business consulting through the NGI Zero Business Circle.
Quantifiable outcome
- OW2con'26 attracted more than 300 participants with increasingly international audience
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use OW2 Consortium
Customer profileNamed customers6 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
OW2 Consortium technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature5 records
OW2 Consortium partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
13 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- NLnet FoundationcoreNGI Zero Commons Fund coordinator. NLnet creates funding mechanisms for technology commons, distributing €21.6 million in R&D funding. OW2 provides community support and dissemination services to NGI beneficiaries, including business consulting through the Business Circle program with APELL.
- OSPO AlliancecoreJoint initiative with Eclipse Foundation, OpenForum Europe, and Foundation for Public Code to promote Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs). OW2's Good Governance Initiative powers this alliance, developing the OSS Good Governance Handbook and Resource Center.
- Eclipse FoundationcoreCo-founder of OSPO Alliance for open source governance. Collaborates with OW2 on developing corporate-wide open source policies and promoting digital sovereignty in Europe.
- OpenForum EuropecorePartner in OSPO Alliance, working to improve competitiveness and sustainability of the European open source ecosystem through good governance initiatives.
- Foundation for Public CodecoreCo-founder of OSPO Alliance, contributing to open source good governance framework development for public organizations.
- Huawei EuropecoreChair of OW2 MiniApp Initiative focused on nurturing MiniApp ecosystem in Europe. Leading global ICT solutions provider driving W3C MiniApp standards adoption.
- W3CcoreOW2 MiniApp Initiative feeds into emerging W3C MiniApp standards and acts as dissemination channel for Web technology-based light applications standards.
- NGI-SearchminorCurrent collaborative project: Next Generation Internet Discovery and Search. OW2 provides dissemination and community support services.
- CROSSMINERminorCompleted collaborative project: IDE-integrated cross project knowledge mining for open-source software development. Contributed to OW2's quality assessment methodology.
- STAMPminorCompleted collaborative project: Software Testing AMPlification for DevOps. Provided automatic test generation techniques through OW2 infrastructure.
- RISCOSSminorCompleted collaborative project: Managing Risk and Costs in Open Source Software Adoption. Contributed to OSCAR quality program methodology.
- Orange GroupcoreLead of OSS Good Governance Initiative. World's third-largest mobile operator and leading broadband provider in Europe, providing significant open source contributions through Orange Labs R&D for over 10 years.
- APELLcoreAssociation Professionnelle Européenne du Logiciel Libre. Partner in NGI Zero Business Circle, providing business consulting and mentorship to NGI beneficiaries alongside OW2.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves8 records
Expansion highlights5 records
OW2 Consortium competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Eclipse Foundation: Europe-headquartered (Brussels/London) open source foundation hosting middleware, IoT, and enterprise Java projects. Co-founder with OW2 of the OSPO Alliance and the most direct peer in scope, scale, and corporate membership model.
- Apache Software Foundation: US-based open source foundation hosting 350+ community-driven projects with a similar member-funded governance model. Directly comparable as a foundational, community-governed alternative for hosting enterprise-relevant open source projects.
- Foundation for Public Code: Amsterdam-based non-profit stewarding open source code for public organizations. Co-founder with OW2 of the OSPO Alliance; closely aligned on digital sovereignty and public-sector OSS governance missions.
- OpenForum Europe: Brussels-based non-profit advocating for open source adoption in EU policy. Co-founder of OSPO Alliance with OW2; strong overlap on European digital sovereignty agenda and policy-facing OSS governance work.
Broad incumbents
- Linux Foundation: Largest open source umbrella organization operating globally across thousands of projects with massive corporate sponsorship. Comparable as the dominant incumbent in the same foundational/membership-based OSS space where OW2 competes for Strategic-level sponsorships.
- Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF): Linux Foundation sub-foundation focused on cloud native and middleware tooling (Kubernetes ecosystem). Highly comparable as a competing destination for enterprise OSS sponsorship and project incubation in areas OW2's middleware/cloudware projects also target.
- Open Source Initiative (OSI): Long-standing global steward of the Open Source Definition and affiliated standards. Adjacent to OW2 in promoting open source adoption and reviewing licensing, though operating at a more advocacy/standards layer rather than hosting projects directly.
- Free Software Foundation (FSF): US non-profit promoting free software movement since 1985. Comparable as a long-standing, membership-funded non-profit open source advocacy organization with a different philosophical framing (copyleft vs OW2's neutral, corporate-friendly governance model).
Emerging players
- NLnet Foundation: Dutch non-profit coordinating NGI Zero Commons Fund with €21.6M in R&D funding. A key strategic partner of OW2's and an adjacent emerging player in the European open source funding ecosystem that OW2 helps disseminate.
- APELL (Association Professionnelle Européenne du Logiciel Libre): French-based European professional association for free and open source software. Partner with OW2 in the NGI Zero Business Circle; a smaller, regionally focused peer providing business consulting and mentorship to OSS projects.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
OW2 Consortium social profiles
Digital presenceOW2 Consortium financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
OW2 Consortium leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles6 records
OW2 Consortium funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
OW2 Consortium M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about OW2 Consortium
What does OW2 Consortium do?
OW2 Consortium operates an open source software community that hosts and supports over 100 open source projects spanning application platforms, middleware, components, cloudware, and tools for distributed and cloud applications. The organization provides technical infrastructure (GitLab forge, Nexus, SonarQube), community governance services, quality assessment through its Market Readiness Levels (MRL) program, and marketing support to projects led by corporate, academic, and individual members.
Is OW2 Consortium a public or private company?
OW2 Consortium is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was OW2 Consortium founded?
OW2 Consortium was founded in 2007. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is OW2 Consortium based?
OW2 Consortium is headquartered in Paris, France, in the Europe region.
How does OW2 Consortium make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Corporate Membership Fees are the primary driver. The others are strategic Membership Fees, individual Membership and donations.
Who are OW2 Consortium's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Eclipse Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, Foundation for Public Code and OpenForum Europe. Broad incumbents are Linux Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), Open Source Initiative (OSI) and Free Software Foundation (FSF). Emerging players are NLnet Foundation and APELL (Association Professionnelle Européenne du Logiciel Libre).
Does OW2 Consortium have an API?
No public API is recorded for OW2 Consortium.
What industry is OW2 Consortium in?
OW2 Consortium's product category is Open Source Middleware. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAMABAM, Open-Source & Developer Communities. Its NAICS code is 813910 and its SIC code is 8600.