Can you entrust maintenance to a company that did not build the software?
Yes. The first task is to recover the technical chain of control: Git repository, hosting or cloud, databases, domains, certificates, secrets, monitoring tools, third-party accounts, and deployment procedures. Critical access must be owned or recoverable by the client.
The company taking over the software then reviews the architecture, dependencies, and main risk areas. It checks that it can rebuild the application, access logs, restore data, and deploy without depending on the former developer.
The first objective is not to rewrite the software, but to reach a simple state: we understand how it works, how to intervene, and how to restore it when something goes wrong.
How should production software bugs be handled?
Requests should be qualified according to their impact. A visual defect, a degraded feature, and software that completely blocks operations should not enter the same queue with the same priority.
A simple process can follow: ticket → qualification → diagnosis → fix → testing → validation → deployment → closure. For a serious issue, the immediate fix can be followed by a root-cause review to prevent a similar defect from recurring.
An SLA, or Service Level Agreement, defines support windows and response times. Response time must be distinguished from resolution time: an incident’s severity may be clear immediately even when its technical diagnosis takes several hours.
How do you maintain software without interrupting users?
Maintenance should be supported by a reliable delivery process. A change should ideally be tested in a separate environment before production, then deployed through a reproducible procedure rather than improvised server changes.
CI/CD, or continuous integration and continuous delivery, can automate tests, application builds, and part of the deployment. Significant changes should also include a rollback mechanism when a new version causes a regression.
For critical applications, the strategy must also cover backups, restoration, monitoring, and service continuity. A backup that exists but has never been restored does not prove that it can bring operations back after an incident.
How should updates and security be managed in existing software?
Software can continue to work while gradually becoming riskier. Frameworks, libraries, Docker images, runtimes, and external APIs evolve, and some versions eventually stop receiving security fixes.
Maintenance therefore means tracking vulnerabilities, end-of-support versions, recurring errors, and genuinely critical dependencies. Available updates should not be applied blindly: a new version can itself introduce an incompatibility or regression.
Changes are prioritized according to risk. An exploitable vulnerability in a publicly exposed component does not have the same priority as a minor update to a library used only during development.
Software maintenance and DevOps: should they be managed together?
An incident visible to a user may come from code, but also from a database, an expired certificate, a deployment, a saturated server, or a blocked task queue.
Combining software maintenance and DevOps often reduces diagnosis time for mid-sized applications. One team can read logs, fix code, check infrastructure, and deploy the correction instead of transferring the incident between several providers.
A complex platform or one subject to demanding availability requirements may still justify a specialized operations team. The right model depends on the actual number of incidents, technologies, and expected service level.
How do you measure the quality of a software maintenance company?
The number of closed tickets is not enough. Good maintenance should primarily reduce the frequency of problems and make the application progressively easier to operate.
Useful indicators include average response time, resolution time, incident recurrence, availability, backlog age, deployment failure rate, and regular backup verification.
For stable software, the goal is not to use every contracted hour each month. Fewer interventions can instead show that preventive maintenance and previous fixes have made the product more reliable.
Should legacy software be maintained, modernized, or replaced?
Legacy software should not be rewritten only because its technology is no longer fashionable. If it remains secure, understood by the team, and compatible with business needs, maintaining it may be more rational economically.
Modernization becomes relevant when some layers are genuinely blocking: unsupported dependencies, missing tests for critical functions, inability to hire for the technology, fragile infrastructure, or excessive difficulty delivering every change.
The right decision can be progressive: stabilize first, isolate the riskiest components, modernize selected parts, and then decide whether a full rebuild is still necessary.
How much does a software maintenance company cost?
Cost first depends on actual workload: historical bug volume, software criticality, technologies, deployment frequency, infrastructure, and requested SLA level.
As a commercial benchmark, relatively stable software may be maintained with a capacity of a few days per month. At Koragence, a light setup may start around €1,500 to €2,500 excluding VAT per month, while maintenance including more DevOps, availability, or enhancements may range from €3,000 to €5,000 excluding VAT per month. Environments requiring extended coverage or significant on-call support are scoped separately.
An initial takeover is usually priced separately: reviewing the existing system, recovering access, documenting it, addressing immediate risks, and validating the first deployment. This keeps the one-off transition cost separate from the monthly package.
Should you outsource software maintenance or hire internally?
An internal team becomes relevant when maintenance and enhancements create enough regular work to sustain several skills over time. For three or four technical days per month, hiring a senior developer only for operations may cost far more than the actual need.
An external company can share development, cloud, database, and DevOps skills while adapting monthly capacity. It also provides escalation capacity when an incident exceptionally requires deeper expertise.
A hybrid model is useful when a product or technical lead remains in the company while the maintenance company handles fixes, operations, and selected specialist skills.
How does Koragence take over your software maintenance?
We start with a focused technical takeover covering code, architecture, access, data, infrastructure, deployments, backups, monitoring, and main risks. The elements needed for operations are documented before regular support begins.
We then define the maintenance scope and service level around the software’s actual use: monthly capacity, request criticality, SLA, any required DevOps, and the ticket process.
Maintenance then follows a simple, traceable cycle: request or alert → qualification → fix → testing → deployment → documentation. Significant new features remain separately scoped so the maintenance budget retains a clear purpose.
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