In the case of a need to develop a website or mobile application, both small and large businesses are less likely to hire full-time employees. Despite all the advantages, business owners fear that building their team will take too much time and resources. However, this is not always necessary.

At the same time, such work formats as freelancing and outsourcing have become popular as they allow companies to work with skilled professionals on flexible terms. At the same time, both formats have their advantages and disadvantages, which are discussed below.

What is outsourcing?

Outsourcing is the process of hiring a third-party contractor to complete specific tasks instead of making new divisions or hiring additional employees. For example, instead of hiring in-house developers to build a website, you can apply to a web development outsourcing company with a dedicated team, expertise, and feedback.

In other words, outsourcing companies provide their resources to the client for a certain period of time to achieve certain goals.

Advantages of outsourcing

The key advantage of outsourcing for all business owners is their cost optimization. The high demand for skilled professionals creates a hard-to withstand competition even for large companies. But working with an outsourcing company eliminates this need.

Outsourcing is a great opportunity to work with a team of experienced professionals from all over the world. Salary rates in other countries may be lower than those of your local specialists of the same level.

Outsourcing saves your time: by delegating the development process, the company does not need to search for and select the right employees to build a team. All this is up to the outsourcer. Thus, you don’t waste your time on interviews, test assignments, or improvement of employee skills.

Business owners with no background in software development find it difficult to work with the technical team in-house. For example, at the interview stage, it may be difficult to understand the real skill level of the candidate. And the lack of streamlined work processes and experience in their management will not allow achieving the desired result. At the same time, an outsourcing company works as a well-coordinated mechanism, whose which elements perform their function. More experienced specialists are engaged in setting and managing tasks within the team, where everyone performs their part of the work with maximum efficiency, relying on existing experience and continuous improvement of skills.

Expertise. Outsourcing companies often perform full-cycle development and provide services of professionals of various fields, including programming, design, content writing, etc. Thus, the final product will be created by a team of specialists of different fields, who have elaborated each stage of the product creation.

Support of the product is often part of the terms of cooperation. And if not, the company is always ready to provide support in case of any problems. For example, freelance developers try to finish a project as soon as possible to start right the next. Therefore, in the event of a sudden malfunction of the product, the freelancer will no longer find time for you.

Another advantage is the absence of risks. Companies are used to NDAs and any other contracts, based on the specifics of your project. They chary of their reputation, and thus try to avoid any situations that could sabotage the client’s business. For example, a company will never work with your competitors if it already works with you.

An impressive result. Freelance-developed websites rarely impress. The most convenient, attractive, and winning solutions are produced by teams of professionals, each of which brings a part of his experience and knowledge to achieve the best result. If you want something more than a website template, then hiring a freelancer is probably not for you.

Outsourcing features

Hiring an outsourcing team is cheaper than in-house employees, but more expensive than a freelancer.

Development takes more time. Each of the company’s members plays a separate role and often the team simply cannot move on until one of the divisions finishes their part of the process. This creates more development stages than a freelancer who does everything by himself. This often predetermines the difference in the quality of the work of a freelancer and an outsourcing company.

Mediated communication. When working with a company, the customer often communicates with the project manager only, who assigns tasks to other employees. Chances are the real work will be done by people you will never meet. Therefore, New Line Technologies always provides for direct communication between the client and each member of the team and hold regular stand up meetings with the involvement of the product owner/client.

What is freelancing?

A freelancer is a self-employed specialist who provides services and earns money on a project-by-project basis. Often, a freelancer can simultaneously work on several tasks, which are usually performed by different specialists in companies. This allows him not to fix on projects of a specific niche but to have more choice and opportunities for earning money.

The development of platforms such as Upwork has made it easy to find and hire the proper freelancers. The main advantage of the platform is secure payment and moderation. This payment model ensures you to save your money if the work is not done.

We will further take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of freelancing to be considered at the start of a project.

Advantages of freelancing

In most cases, hiring a freelancer for a project is cheaper than working with an outsourcing company. One freelancer often performs the work of several employees, therefore only one person needs to be paid, instead of the whole team. In addition, freelancers do not have office overheads, manager salaries and other expenses as companies have.

Lack of intermediaries simplifies the communication between the customer and the contractor. It is often easier for a freelancer to understand the tasks received first-hand, and the customer gets direct feedback faster, without the mediation of the PM.

Hiring a freelancer is the best for small tasks in a short period. For example, if you just need to make a few minor changes to the site, there is no point in looking for a whole team for this. A freelancer will do the job quickly, cheaply, and avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy.

Freelancing features

High work load. Qualified specialists often work on several projects simultaneously. Therefore, it is likely your freelancer will be busy the next time you need him. And if an unexpected problem arises and you urgently need help solving it, your freelancer will already be busy working on other projects and is unlikely to help you.

Privacy risk. As already mentioned, freelancers often take on many projects at the same time. This poses security risks for companies that share their confidential information. A freelancer may also work with you and your competitors at the same time, which creates a great risk for your business.

Low skills. Yes, one freelancer often works as an entire team of employees, however, one person just cannot know all nuts and bolts. Often these multitasking professionals have only a superficial knowledge of several areas. There are enough of them to get the job done, but at the best case, the result will be second-rate.

Outsourcing vs. Freelancing

Having considered the pros and cons of freelancing and outsourcing, we can summarize them below for clarity.

Which is better for website development?

Website design and development is a complex process. The more difficult the task you set for the developer, the more time and skills it will take. Before deciding who to hire as a contractor, you need to first identify your goals.

The scope of work directly depends on the scale. If you need a simple and user-friendly site without unnecessary elements, or even a business card site, a ready-made template with minimal developer adjustments will suit well for such purposes. Or if you want to quickly launch your website and minimize costs, the best option would be to hire a freelancer.

If you are planning a more comprehensive project that will need regular updates, support. and expansion, it is better to apply to an outsourcing company. As well as if you are counting on the result of a certain quality, rather than just a minimum viable product.

Which is better for apps development?

Unlike websites, there is quite many successful applications developed by freelancers. Therefore, you can get a slightly better result from a freelancer than in the case of a website. The reason is that developing an application is a little easier as it does not require optimization for multiple browsers, platforms, and operating systems.

If you want a simple application as quickly as possible, choose a freelancer. While hiring a team is better for creating something more complex and competitive.

Conclusion

Which is better: outsourcing or freelancing? Both options are great alternatives to hiring local talents. Both have significant advantages. Perhaps the main difference is an endless range of task a team of specialists can cope with, which is hard to say about a single freelancer. Before making a choice in favor of one or the other work format, evaluate the scale of your work, the desired result and the challenges you may be faced with during the process.

If you decide on outsourcing, NLT specialists will be happy to help. We have vast experience in various business areas, and we are also among the best Ukrainian and foreign web and mobile developers, according to Clutch. Contact us in any way convenient for you to take the first step towards developing a successful website or application. And be sure with the result.