Open source web GIS cost: the real budget

The software is free, the service is not

Open source GIS software can be downloaded and used without a paid license, whatever the number of users. That is a major difference from proprietary products billed per user or per credit. If you are comparing with those, also read ArcGIS Online alternatives.

But installed software is not a running service. To keep your maps online, fast and secure, you need a server, someone to administer it, updates, backups and support. These costs exist whether you handle them in house or hand them to a provider: only their form changes.

One last cost often escapes budgets: the cost of downtime. A public map offline for a week, a database lost for lack of a backup or an unpatched vulnerability costs far more than a subscription. This risk can be reduced, but it never disappears entirely: it has to be counted, whatever option you choose. A simple way to do so is to ask what one day without the service would cost your organization, in lost work, delayed decisions or public complaints, and to weigh that figure against the price of prevention.

The cost lines of an open source web GIS

The most underestimated line is staff time. The server shows up every month on a visible invoice; administration hours get lost in the schedule of a GIS analyst who should be doing something else.

Estimating the cost of your open source web GIS in six steps

A sound budget does not start from a server price found online, but from a precise description of what the GIS must do. This method fits in a spreadsheet and works for an in-house project as well as for comparing offers.

1. List the uses: number of published maps, public or restricted, number of users who view and who edit, field collection or not, OGC services to provide to partners.
2. Estimate the volumes: size of vector data, size of imagery, expected growth over three years. Imagery often weighs more than everything else combined.
3. Choose the components: Lizmap and QGIS Server for maps, PostGIS for shared data, GeoServer if partners expect standard OGC services, QField and its sync service for the field.
4. Cost each line over twelve months: server, installation, administration, updates, backups, support. Count hours at the real cost of the person doing them, overhead included.
5. Add one-off costs: user training, migration of existing data, branding in your organization's colors.
6. Compare at least two scenarios, for example an in-house install and a hosted plan, over the same period and with the same uses.

The second year matters as much as the first. Installation is paid once; administration, updates and backups come back every month. A project that looks cheap at launch can become the most expensive one over three years.

What each component costs to run

An open source web GIS is not one piece of software but an assembly. Each building block has its own needs, and their sum makes up the running cost.

Not everyone needs all of these components. A town publishing three maps needs neither GeoServer nor field collection. Dropping an unnecessary building block is often the first saving, before even discussing the server price.

The memory figures for GeoServer and LizPack Field quoted here come from the LizPack Entreprise system requirements.

What LizPack plans cost

LizPack is an open source geospatial infrastructure: it does not sell licenses for this open source software, and you pay for hosting, maintenance, monitoring and support. Here are the plans as shown on the pricing page.

Prices recorded on 11/10/2026 on the LizPack website. They may change: the pricing page and the customer area always show the current price.

Three profiles, three budgets

The cost of an open source web GIS depends less on the software than on your situation. Three common cases show how the reasoning changes.

• A small town or nonprofit with a few public maps. No IT staff, a part-time GIS analyst. Here staff time outweighs everything: every hour spent on a server is taken away from making maps. A LizPack Map instance on Basic or Pro, possibly with GeoServer Cloud free up to 200 MB, covers the need for a monthly amount known in advance.
• A consultancy with field data collection. Several client projects, field surveys, data moving between QGIS, the database and the map. The hidden cost is moving files back and forth. A LizPack Map Pro subscription, a dedicated PostGIS database and LizPack Field move surveys without exports; the budget follows the number of instances and database volume.
• A public agency with sensitive data. An IT department exists, so does the infrastructure, and the data must not leave. The server adds little cost, but administration tooling, directory integration and backups take work. LizPack Entreprise, by quote, provides that tooling on your own servers.

In all three cases the right method is the same: cost out every line for a year, including staff hours, then compare. The result depends on your team far more than on the list price of the software, which stays at zero.

The most common budgeting mistakes

The same mistakes come up from one project to the next. Knowing them before you estimate avoids budget top-ups during the year.

• Counting the server, forgetting the hours. This is the most common mistake: the server invoice is visible, the time spent administering it is not.
• Forgetting updates. An install that is never updated eventually stops accepting projects from newer QGIS Desktop versions, or exposes a known vulnerability. Updating is a recurring cost, not an option.
• Underestimating imagery. A few orthophotos are enough to multiply storage volume, and therefore the price of disks and backups.
• Backing up without testing restores. A backup that has never been restored may turn out to be unusable the day you need it. Testing time belongs in the budget.
• Sizing for today. A server chosen as tight as possible becomes too small with the first large project; plan for three years of growth.
• Forgetting training. A GIS that users cannot use costs money without delivering value. A few hours of onboarding often make the difference.

These mistakes are not specific to open source: they affect any web GIS. But with free software, it is more tempting to believe the project costs nothing.

Exit costs and reversibility

An honest budget also includes what switching solutions would cost. This is where open source keeps a clear advantage: your projects are standard QGIS projects, your databases standard PostgreSQL databases, your services standard OGC services.

• Projects can be loaded as is into any Lizmap, on your own server or with another host.
• Databases are exported with the usual PostgreSQL tools and reloaded elsewhere.
• Service addresses change, and that is the main work of a migration: notifying partners who consume your WMS or WFS feeds.
• Accounts and permissions must be recreated in the new environment, unless they come from a directory you keep.

With LizPack, when a LizPack Map subscription expires, the instance stops but its projects, files and database are kept for 60 days, which leaves time to retrieve them or renew. Ask any provider for the same information: how long your data is kept, and in what form you can get it back.

Including an open source web GIS in a public tender

For public agencies, the cost of a GIS often goes through a public tender. Open source has a natural place there, provided the need is written in terms of functions and services, not product names.

• Describe the expected service: web map publishing from QGIS projects, WMS and WFS services, a spatial database, backups, availability, support. These requirements open the tender to open source and proprietary solutions alike.
• Separate license from service: with open source software there is no license to buy; the tender covers hosting, installation, maintenance and training.
• Require reversibility: open formats, return of data at the end of the contract, retention period after the service ends.
• Plan the duration: a multi-year contract spreads installation over several years and lets you compare offers on total cost.
• Ask for unit prices: per instance, per GB of database, per updated component. A clear unit price avoids amendments as the project grows.

These clauses protect the buyer whichever provider wins. They also make it possible to compare, on equal terms, an install on your own servers, such as LizPack Entreprise, and a hosted plan.

Comparing fairly

Installing and running your GIS in house makes sense if you have a system administrator available, if several applications already share your infrastructure, or if your data must stay on your premises. The marginal cost of one more service is then low.

It is less attractive for a small team whose only server would be the GIS server: every incident and every update falls on the same person. The details of that choice are in host Lizmap or install it yourself.

To compare, add up a year of server costs, installation and administration hours, backups and support, then set that total against the price of a hosted plan. If you only need a database, see also hosted PostGIS: which service to choose; to publish OGC layers, hosting GeoServer online.

If your data must stay within your infrastructure, the math changes: the server is yours, but the administration tooling can be provided. That is what LizPack Entreprise does, described in hosting your GIS on your own servers. And to understand exactly what the service covers, read what LizPack does.

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