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Smile Open Source Solutions

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4.8/5 (7 reviews)
+33437235669 contact@smile.fr Visit Website

About Smile Open Source Solutions

With daring and beautiful projects, add a pinch of visionary culture, a good dose of innovation, sprinkle everything with a multidisciplinary technical expertise and you get Smile, the European leader in integration and outsourcing open source solutions. They offer their customers a flexibility to go along with the cooperation model that best meets their aims, resources, and timeline.

Last updated May 13, 2026

Services

Mobile App Development IoT App Development UI-UX Design E-commerce Development Cloud Solutions

Industries Served

Information Technology Legal Services Retail & E-commerce Media & Entertainment Telecommunications Events & Event Management

Smile Open Source Solutions Reviews

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Headless CMS that finally allowed our designers and developers to work in parallel

Victoria Haines / Chief Product Officer - Solaris Media Group
Verified
Feb 09, 2026

Project summary: The project had a board-facing delivery date tied to a strategic initiative. We needed a partner who would treat that date as their own, not ours.

The project brief was ambitious and we had received proposals ranging from two to five times our eventual budget from other vendors. This team came back with a proposal that was commercially realistic and technically credible — and then delivered against it. That alignment between proposal and outcome is not something I take for granted. I have been on the other side of it enough times to know it requires both honesty in the sales process and discipline in delivery. We experienced both.

PROS

Delivery timeline that proved achievable rather than optimistic, estimation accuracy that reflected real analysis rather than competitive bidding, scope discipline that prevented the feature creep we had experienced before

CONS

Time zone coordination required some deliberate overlap management from both sides in the first couple of sprints, after which we had an efficient async rhythm that worked for the whole project

5.0
Overall
4.5
Quality
5.0
Schedule
4.5
Cost
5.0
Communication
Project TypeCMS Development
IndustryEvents & Event Management
Project CostLess than $10,000
DurationMar 2025 – Dec 2025

Questions & Answers

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
As Chief Product Officer at Solaris Media Group I oversee technology investment and delivery across our Events & Event Management operations in Los Angeles, USA. We are a commercially focused business and our technology choices are always evaluated in terms of their direct contribution to business outcomes rather than technical elegance alone.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
We had a defined product vision for our next phase of growth in the Events & Event Management market but lacked the engineering depth internally to execute it. The CMS Development requirements in particular required specialist experience that we could not realistically recruit for on the timeline our business plan required.
What services did the company provide for your project?
The scope covered the full CMS Development lifecycle: discovery and requirements definition, solution architecture, iterative development across twelve sprints, integration testing, performance validation, production deployment, and a structured four-week hypercare period. They also provided system documentation and a knowledge transfer programme for our internal team.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
The quality of the questions they asked during the briefing process was the first indicator. Vendors who ask precise questions in the sales phase tend to apply the same rigour during delivery. That hypothesis proved accurate. The technical proposal was substantive, the team structure was senior throughout, and the pricing was transparent.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Comprehensively. The discovery phase they ran was more thorough than anything we had experienced with previous vendors. They challenged requirements that were vague or contradictory, proposed alternatives where our initial thinking was limiting, and produced a functional specification that our internal stakeholders agreed was the clearest articulation of the product they had seen written down.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Communication was proactive, timely, and appropriately calibrated. Technical updates for the engineering audience, executive summaries for the steering group, risk flags with proposed mitigations rather than just problem statements. The fortnightly sprint reviews gave our stakeholders visibility without requiring them to attend every working session.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
Yes. I had privately built a contingency expectation into my planning given the project complexity and the number of integrations involved. None of that contingency was needed. The delivery landed on the agreed date and the final invoice matched the approved budget to within a fraction of a percent. That outcome is rarer than the industry acknowledges.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
The ROI case we presented to our board was conservative by design. Current performance against the financial model suggests we will hit the projected payback point in under twelve months against an eighteen-month target. The operational efficiency gains in particular have exceeded the model, in part because the quality of the data the new platform generates supports decisions that the previous system could not.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The post-launch behaviour. Some vendors consider go-live to be the end of their professional obligation. This team treated it as the transition to a different kind of engagement. The hypercare period was substantive, the documentation was thorough and genuinely useful, and they checked in proactively at the thirty-day and ninety-day marks to review production metrics with us.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Yes. I would add the context that this is not the cheapest option in the market and they are selective about the engagements they take on. If your primary criterion is price, there are alternatives. If you want a technology partner who can be trusted with a complex CMS Development programme in the Events & Event Management space and will deliver against a serious brief, this is the team.

Gameplay feel that matched the design intent precisely — a harder achievement than most realise

Aarav Mehta / Chief Data Officer - Zenith FinServ Ltd
Verified
Jan 12, 2026

Project summary: Rapid growth had created a skills gap on the platform engineering side of our business. We needed an experienced partner to close that gap while our internal team scaled, without compromising quality or timeline.

The technical quality of the final deliverable is the easiest thing to point to. The automated test coverage is thorough, the deployment pipeline is reliable, the documentation is genuinely useful rather than ceremonially produced. But the metric I keep returning to is the number of post-launch conversations we have not had to have. No incident calls at two in the morning. No emergency patches. No retrospective discussions about what went wrong. The absence of those events is the evidence I would show to someone considering this vendor.

PROS

Clear and consistent communication adapted appropriately for both technical and non-technical stakeholders, shared tooling that gave our team real-time visibility, reliable sprint delivery throughout

CONS

Their insistence on a detailed functional specification before development began felt like friction at the time. In retrospect, it was the reason the development phase ran without the ambiguity that has derailed similar projects for us previously

5.0
Overall
5.0
Quality
5.0
Schedule
5.0
Cost
4.5
Communication
Project TypeGame Development
IndustryInformation Technology
Project Cost$150,000 to $499,999
DurationAug 2025 – Nov 2025

Questions & Answers

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
I lead technology at Zenith FinServ Ltd, a growth-stage Information Technology business based in Bangalore, India. As Chief Data Officer my remit spans product engineering, platform operations, and strategic vendor partnerships. We had reached an inflection point where our internal capacity was not sufficient to execute our roadmap at the pace our market required.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
We had a defined product vision for our next phase of growth in the Information Technology market but lacked the engineering depth internally to execute it. The Game Development requirements in particular required specialist experience that we could not realistically recruit for on the timeline our business plan required.
What services did the company provide for your project?
End-to-end Game Development delivery with particular depth in the integration and data migration components, which were the highest-risk elements of the programme. They supplemented this with a dedicated QA resource throughout development and a documented runbook for our operations team at handover.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
We had a failed engagement behind us and were more rigorous in our selection process as a result. We asked detailed questions about how they managed scope change, how they handled estimation, and how they communicated problems. The answers were specific, evidenced, and consistent across the team members we spoke to. That gave us confidence that the process was real rather than rehearsed.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Extremely well, in part because they had relevant Information Technology experience that reduced the context-setting overhead significantly. They understood the domain vocabulary, asked the right questions, and translated business requirements into technical specifications with a fidelity that meant the development phase had very few clarification cycles.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Communication was proactive, timely, and appropriately calibrated. Technical updates for the engineering audience, executive summaries for the steering group, risk flags with proposed mitigations rather than just problem statements. The fortnightly sprint reviews gave our stakeholders visibility without requiring them to attend every working session.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
Yes to both. There was a single sprint where a dependency on a third-party API introduced a one-week delay. The team identified it three weeks in advance, presented two mitigation options, and we agreed on an approach that recovered the schedule within the same sprint cycle. That level of foresight is what separates good project management from reactive problem management.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
The ROI case we presented to our board was conservative by design. Current performance against the financial model suggests we will hit the projected payback point in under twelve months against an eighteen-month target. The operational efficiency gains in particular have exceeded the model, in part because the quality of the data the new platform generates supports decisions that the previous system could not.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The post-launch behaviour. Some vendors consider go-live to be the end of their professional obligation. This team treated it as the transition to a different kind of engagement. The hypercare period was substantive, the documentation was thorough and genuinely useful, and they checked in proactively at the thirty-day and ninety-day marks to review production metrics with us.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Yes, without reservation. I have already made two direct referrals within my Information Technology network — in both cases to peers facing Game Development challenges similar to ours. I gave those referrals with confidence because I knew the experience I described was reproducible, not the result of exceptional circumstances on our engagement.

Company Info

Founded 1991
Employees 1000+
Hourly Rate $100 - $149
Client Rating 4.8/5 (7 reviews)

Rating Breakdown

Quality
4.9
Schedule
4.8
Cost
4.7
Communication
4.6

FAQs

What makes Smile Open Source Solutions worth considering over other options?
What tends to set Smile Open Source Solutions apart usually comes down to some mix of technical depth, relevant industry experience, how clients describe working with them, their development approach, communication habits, and whether they can actually deliver something that scales. Founded in 1991, the company has built a track record of delivering projects across various industries.
Roughly how long does a project with Smile Open Source Solutions take start to finish?
It depends heavily on scope. A lean MVP might be a matter of weeks, while a full enterprise system or a larger digital transformation project can stretch into months once you factor in development, testing, and deployment. With a team of 1000+ professionals, Smile Open Source Solutions can scale resources based on project urgency.
What's actually in Smile Open Source Solutions's technical toolkit?
The exact stack shifts by project, but Smile Open Source Solutions commonly works across things like React, Angular, Vue.js, Node.js, Python, .NET, Java, PHP, Flutter, React Native, native iOS and Android, and cloud platforms like AWS and Azure. For context, its listed capabilities span Cloud Solutions, E-commerce Development, IoT App Development, Mobile App Development and UI-UX Design, and it has been operating since 1991.
What happens with Smile Open Source Solutions after the project actually launches?
Like most established software teams, Smile Open Source Solutions typically sticks around post-launch for ongoing maintenance — bug fixes, performance tuning, security patching, new feature work, and general technical support. For context, it has served clients in France, and its average project cost is reported at $25000+.
Would Smile Open Source Solutions be a good fit for an early-stage startup?
Generally, yes — companies like Smile Open Source Solutions tend to work well with startups because of what they typically offer: MVP builds, product strategy input, architecture that can scale later, and dedicated teams that keep costs manageable while still moving fast. For context, it has experience across industries such as Information Technology, Telecommunications, Events & Event Management, Retail & E-commerce, Legal Services and Media & Entertainment, and it reports a team size of 1000+ professionals.
Is Smile Open Source Solutions more of an offshore setup or a local team?
That depends on where Smile Open Source Solutions is based and who they primarily serve — some firms like this operate fully offshore, some are local-first, and plenty run a hybrid model that mixes both. For context, its listed capabilities span Cloud Solutions, E-commerce Development, IoT App Development, Mobile App Development and UI-UX Design, and its average project cost is reported at $25000+.
Can Smile Open Source Solutions take on an old, outdated system rather than starting from scratch?
Modernizing legacy software is usually within scope for a firm like Smile Open Source Solutions — re-platforming, refactoring old code, and moving things onto current frameworks or cloud infrastructure without necessarily rebuilding everything from zero. For context, it has experience across industries such as Information Technology, Telecommunications, Events & Event Management, Retail & E-commerce, Legal Services and Media & Entertainment, and its typical hourly rate is around $100 - $149.
What should I actually be looking at when comparing a company like Smile Open Source Solutions to others?
When you're weighing up a software partner such as Smile Open Source Solutions, it's worth looking past the pitch and checking the portfolio, what past clients say, relevant industry background, technical range, how they communicate, pricing structure, project management style, and what support looks like after launch. For context, it has served clients in France, and its average project cost is reported at $25000+.
Can I just hire developers from Smile Open Source Solutions to sit alongside my own team?
Usually, yes — a dedicated developer arrangement is a common option with firms like Smile Open Source Solutions, where you get engineers working exclusively on your project as an extension of your in-house team rather than as a separate outsourced unit. For context, it has served clients in France, and its typical hourly rate is around $100 - $149.

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