Business Models

Tiki is a free source software project and community. You don't have to pay anything to anyone to use Tiki or to participate to the project. Tiki, as a project, doesn't offer any commercial services. However, many members of the community do so. While Consultants are available for hire, Tiki is "Community Open Source" vs "Commercial open source".

Here are some examples of services.

Tiki Services

Hosting

While you can run Tiki on your personal computer (Windows, MacOSX or Linux), chances are, you want it to be accessible on the Internet. Thus, you need to pick a web host.

Standard shared hosting

Tiki is designed to run on typical shared hosting (PHP/MySQL). You are responsible to install and upgrade Tiki. Many of them even offer to help you with this via the 1-click installers.

Your webhost probably offers a Mail server and a webmail client. You can also access these emails via Tiki's webmail or groupmail.

This covers the needs of the vast majority.

Advanced hosting

If your site has quite a bit of volume or otherwise, some special needs, you may want to get a VPS or dedicated hosting. In addition to being responsible to install & upgrade Tiki, you are also typically responsible for the general system maintenance. (upgrade PHP, MySQL, etc).

In this case, you may want to hire a sysadmin to handle this and to optimize the server to make use of the advanced features like:

While Tiki is easy to host, there are various open source projects (with which Tiki interacts) that require a more advanced setup.

http://bigbluebutton.org/ Chat/Voice/video/Screen sharing
http://mapserver.org/ Maps
http://kaltura.org/ Video Management
http://status.net Status updates/micro-blogging (distributed)
http://www.latex-project.org/ for PluginEquation
IMAP mail server, which can be accessed by Tiki webmail

See the https://wikisuite.org/ project.

Server farm

From the point of view of a Hosting company, Tiki offers several benefits. Please see:
https://tiki.org/SWOT#Easy_Hosting_SaaS_Hosted_solutions_Wikifarm_D_

Support, configuration & training

The Tiki community tries to make the admin interface as easy as possible to use. There is extensive documentation and a getting started guide. However, as with any powerful tool, there is a learning curve. You may want to hire someone who has extensive experience with Tiki to point you in the right direction.

Installation & upgrades

You could do it yourself. But since this is something you'll only do once, you may want someone to do it for you or walk you through it.

Initial configuration and setup

Typically, there is a long discussion about

what the project is about
what Tiki can do

Then, Tiki is setup to the corresponding needs. If you are doing something which could be useful for others, please consider making a Profile

Ongoing support

As your project grows, there will be times where you are wondering

Is this a bug? or did I just misconfigure?
How should I deal with situation X

Design

Tiki has quite a few bundled themes. However, many want to have their Tiki "skinned"

http://themes.tiki.org
Nice sites

Setup related services

While Tiki is the Open Source Web Application with the most built-in features, it also offers easy Interaction with various web services. Ex.: Google AdWords

You may want to get some help to pick the services, create accounts, and setup within Tiki.

Programming

Tiki is free software. You get a lot for nothing 😊. However, when you want feature enhancements or bug fixes, you may want to get some help.

As part of the model, Tiki has major releases twice per year. Make sure you or your developers contributes back! This is the nice thing to do and it avoids that you have to maintain your customizations at each release.

How to get commit access

Data migration & integration
If you start from scratch, you will likely find that Tiki has everything you need. However, in some cases, you may have to deal with legacy data or systems. So you'll need some custom code (glueware) between Tiki and your legacy systems. You could also want some data migration. You may also require some help to configure External Authentication

Content or community-related services
While not directly related to Tiki, you may also get some help to write, edit or translate content. You may also require help from people that have experience in community management.

Commercial extensions / plugins

As of 2010-04, no one is offering commercial Tiki code for download. The LGPL is no way prevents this, and thus, it's possible that some will offer them in the future.

Tiki-based solutions

A clearly-defined project

An RFO or RFT for a Web project is sent out. They usually don't impose a technology. So web shops can prepare a bid with Tiki as the technology.

Vertical markets

Some community members can specialize in using & configuring Tiki as a Vertical market software

To power a Web project or online service

So you have a Web project? A social networking site? A community? A WikiFarm? By using Tiki, your development speed will be much faster.

Make sure you or your developers contributes back! This is the nice thing to do and it avoids that you have to maintain your customization at each release.

You want to offer Tiki services?

Make it known!

Make your website describing your services
- Clearly indicate that you offer Tiki services
Join the various Social Networks
Add yourself on the following sites.

On these last three sites, because you are with a large number of consultants in all kinds of industries, make sure, in your description to use at least the following keywords : Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware and TikiWiki