An important aspect of Zabbix is its open source nature. Zabbix is a true open source solution—it's not open core, and it doesn't have an Enterprise version or some proprietary plugins. Such approaches could be labeled as fake open source. All components of Zabbix are completely open source; there are no closed or hidden components.

Besides being open source, a lot of Zabbix development happens out in the open, too. That makes it easy to closely follow the development and to get community support. But each open source project is different in how it is run and what guidelines it has, so let's look at what you can expect to find from this aspect of Zabbix:

• Community support can be a great way to solve a problem, by chatting on the IRC channel, looking at the Wiki, discussing it on the official forum, or using the open bug tracker.
• Following the development more closely by getting the latest source code can enable you to try out fixes for problems as soon as possible, provide early feedback, and get more familiar with the internals of Zabbix.
• For product development, support contracts, or other services, commercial support might be handy.

The development of Zabbix happens out in the open, but external contributions are usually not accepted, except in one area—translations. Contributors to all the translations Zabbix has are welcome, and we will also find out how to get involved in that area.