Open source property management software removes the licence fee and replaces it with obligations. For an operator with technical capacity and a reason to control their own data, that is a good trade. For most landlords it is not, and the reason is not the software quality. It is that a hosted product absorbs four recurring jobs that an open source deployment hands back to you, and three of them are compliance jobs rather than technical ones.
Hosting, backups and the restore you have never tested
Somebody has to run the server, patch it, back it up and prove the backup restores. The last part is the one that gets skipped, and an untested backup is a belief rather than a control. Price a managed host and an hour a month of somebody's attention before calling this free, and schedule one restore test a year that you actually perform.
Payments are the hard part to self-host
Taking rent means handling payment credentials and mandates, which carries obligations around authorisation records, data handling and dispute response. Hosted products carry that burden and price it in. An open source deployment typically integrates a payment provider, which is sensible, but the authorisation evidence and the reconciliation remain yours to design and keep.
Upgrades are a decision, not an event
With a hosted product, the vendor changes the software and you find out. With your own deployment, an upgrade is a project with a test and a rollback plan, and the version you are on quietly becomes old. Security fixes make this non-optional. Decide who owns that calendar before the first tenancy goes on the system.
When it is genuinely the right answer
An operator with in-house technical staff, a requirement to keep data in a specific place, or a workflow no commercial product supports. Also a large operator for whom per-unit pricing has become the largest line in the technology budget. In those cases the obligations above are ones you already carry for other systems, and the licence saving is real.
Questions people ask about open source property management software
Is open source less secure?
Not inherently. It is less secure when it is unpatched, which is a staffing question rather than a licensing one.
Can I still take card payments?
Yes, through a payment provider. What you keep is the obligation to hold authorisation evidence and to reconcile, which a hosted product would have done.
What is the realistic minimum commitment?
A managed host, a person who owns upgrades, and a tested restore. Below that it is a hobby deployment holding real tenancies.