I'm living the dream of running a company supplying open source software for kiosks and signage. Though we need to be competitive outside the merits of open source. How does Webconverger the product compare to its competitors?

Microsoft's monopoly on PCs

Webconverger supplies the complete stack. Webconverger has no software dependencies. Our competitors such as KioWare and SiteKiosk require Windows.

A Windows license can cost 100USD or more alone, however unfortunately for us, the price is bundled in the price of a PC and most people don't see it.

So I wish I could add the cost of Windows (~100USD) plus the cost of licencing a competitor's software (~100USD) and compare that to Webconverger's base 100USD a year. Though as I mentioned before, most system integrators are not going to notice the Windows license as its very hard to get that money back.

Ignoring the expense of Windows makes it difficult for us to undercut KioWare & SiteKiosk directly on price, although we do have more to offer.

Webconverger is cheaper if you count the real cost of Windows computing.

Ease of install

You can boot Webconverger and configure it with our new service in about 10 minutes, or less if you already have a Paypal account. (Re-)Installing Windows can take hours.

We can even help you go faster here if you give us a bulk CSV of your machine identifiers.

Webconverger saves you time.

Performance

Customers have said Windows plus competitors' software are resource hogs and this is no surprise to us. Webconverger runs far more efficiently on PCs. We've heard of customers not rolling out new HTML5 enabled sites because their Windows kiosk software was holding them back. Now they are using Webconverger and they are free to improve their customer experiences using the latest Firefox technologies.

Webconverger delivers the Web better on PCs.

No Windows BSODs and proven stability

It's difficult to empirically prove that Linux powered Webconverger is more stable than Windows plus competitors' software, though bear in mind that our software stack is minimized to provide a great browsing experience on PCs. Windows plus competitors' software is far bigger and complex stack for bugs to bite.

Our software is proven to be mission critical. Webconverger runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week in the city of London.

Webconverger is reliable.

Open source software security

Indeed there is a debate raging on the merits of Open source software security . Windows' fine grained security features leveraged by our competitors is undeniably good. And we must be careful to acknowledge that if an attacker has unchecked physical access to the machine, it can be "cracked". For example by resetting the BIOS settings by removing the battery. Nonetheless Webconverger is competitive.

Our security policy invites security experts for review and our design is such that to facilitate security in layers. Our "live version" is particularly good and received acclaim and our in development "install version" will introduce checks to verify the signed git tags.

Our current upgrade process is straightforward (re-image the USB stick) however installed instances (from version 15.0) make it even easier with git based upgrades which happen automatically in the background. Zero maintenance for you and an up to date secure experience for the user.

Webconverger is security concious.

5 reasons to support Webconverger

Please download Webconverger to give your users better access to the Web, whilst saving you time, money and giving you piece of mind that Webconverger is both opensource and competitive.