Difference Between Software Maintenance and Support In Software Development

Have you ever wondered what is maintenance and support in software development? Or, do you want to build a web or mobile application and want to know its terms of support and maintenance?

You must have inquired about some software development firms. You may have received some quotations as well. But have you ever given serious attention to the offerings it mentions? Let’s give an example, some IT firms write software maintenance while others write support. They seem identical to each other, but in reality, they are different. You must know the difference between maintenance and support in software development as ignoring them can make your project suffer in the end.

Software maintenance involves keeping software updated and aligned with the current versions and patch updates. Support, on the other hand, consists of asking questions and getting answers relating to bug reports and their fixes. However, this brief intro can’t extinguish your curiosity; let’s assess the differences between software maintenance and support in the software development thread barely!

Software Maintenance And Support: Core Differentiators

When it comes to web or mobile application development, software maintenance is a proactive procedure that includes scheduled activities aimed at not only addressing potential issues but also conducting appropriate actions to troubleshoot them. In contrast to maintenance, software support is reactive in nature, which involves activities essential to tackle urgent issues that might hinder software operations and cause downtime. The majority of businesses tend to choose both—as it ensures continuous high performance, durability, scalability, robust security, and the like of software. Businesses need software support and IT service management (ITSM) to ensure the smooth functioning of software products and services.

What is Software Support?

After a brief introduction to software maintenance and support, now it’s time we moved further and expired both of them intensively. So, let’s do it!

In software support and maintenance, support refers to a process that involves fixing broken software or an error correction in a software product. A software support team doesn’t work in a team consistently–as you don’t even need it on a frequent basis. Software support is limited to fixing minor and major issues in software. A software support service provider tends to be liable for scanning the entire system, pointing out issues, and ensuring appropriate solutions to extinguish them comprehensively.

Consultation Services

A software support team, besides fixing bugs, can review an entire software system and provide paid consultancy. The team is likely to assess each of the features of your application and then create a report depending on what they have accumulated in the assessment. A software maintenance team is often the service provider, having infrastructure for maintenance and support. Hence, they suggest a better solution. When you have an independent team, they advise you on better alternatives.

Software Upgrade

Software upgradation mainly comes under software maintenance; hence, the services provider is responsible for providing complete software upgrades for your system. Now again, there’s aa difference between software upgrades and updates. You need to understand this term before you claim it. In case your software services provider refuses to offer it, a software support company, too, tends to provide software upgrades. So, in case you find your service provider not helping you with software upgrades, you can contact an IT support team and get your software upgraded with ease. They often have maintenance and support process setup to help clients with such needs.

Bug Fixing

Besides software upgrade and consulting services, software support services also include fixing minor as well as major bugs that need instant fixes. The team points out the causes liable to cause the issue and prepares a long-term plan to troubleshoot them. No matter if it’s to fix a simple issue or a complex one that affects the whole system, the team can conveniently deal with and fix all the issues in just a matter of a few hours. You should bear in mind that most IT support teams provide fixes on a temporary basis; you can’t count on them absolutely to troubleshoot issues.

Functionality Integration

Apart from all the above-mentioned solutions, a software support team may possess a knack for integrating additional features into an application. Besides, it may help you integrate third-party applications into your existing software system. After intensive probation of all of the areas where there’s a possibility for improvement, these developers make all possible improvements for your system.

A software support team can assist you in implementing new functionalities, migrating some modules into a new software system, and removing the very modules that are no longer usable. You need to create a support team to help you with the majors you need.

Innovative Technical Support

Next up, maintenance and support in software development consists of troubleshooting a variety of technical fixes in your existing application. These include fixing an outdated module, incompatibility with a third-party application, security-related issues, and the like. However, the software support includes all these services; it’s not limited to them but can expand the limit. Even after not having worked on creating software, the software service providers own know-how on almost all the software systems; hence, they can provide you with an extensive range of technical support for the same.

Cost of Software Support Services

Support cost for software will differ depending on the software type.

Support costs for standard application

$1,000 to $5,000

Support costs for complex application

$2,000 to $10,000

Support costs for Enterprise Grade Application

$5,000 to $20,000

How much you would be paying for software support can vary depending on a variety of factors. First, you need to understand the cost of custom software development as there are a variety of factors; for instance, the length of the team, the type of support, the developer’s expertise and experience, and the time you want developers to work on your project can vary the cost of software support services. Since software maintenance covers most of the aspects, you’re less likely to need software support to improve your application. In addition, you can save big bang on your bank wtih outsourced software maintenance and support services.

What’s Software Maintenance?

Software maintenance is a kind of procedure that includes a series of procedures aimed at enhancing the functions and the overall performance of an application. There can be many reasons for conducting software maintenance, including bug fixing, making tweaks, and the like to keep the software in alignment with the current business as well as the customer’s needs and objectives.

Furthermore, businesses conduct maintenance to improve the software and make sure it’s updated with the current requirement and the marketplace. A well-organized software maintenance plan and technique back the software to remain competitive and profitable for the company. So, if it’s really a time to build a custom software solution for your organization, then exploring the kind of software maintenance benefit your business and project in the long run.

Corrective Software Maintenance

Excellently created software or application doesn’t mean they would never come across any kind of trouble. No matter how efficiently software you create, there’s always space for improvement. That’s the moment software maintenance comes into play.

The first in this list, corrective software maintenance, is to address the faults and errors in your software system that are likely to affect the various parts of the system. These may include the code, logic, logo, and design of the software. Generally, software correction takes place as per a bug report created by the users, but with the help of corrective software maintenance, you spot them before they do. It results in enhancing brand reputation.

Adaptive Software Maintenance

Software is prone to a variety of factors when it comes to performance. Adaptive software maintenance comes into play when the software environment changes. At times, an operating system upgrade may not support the previous version of the software, or a tiny change in the product policy might be the cause of interruption of a particular software. Furthermore, even a third-party integration or a tool or hardware, too, can influence software performance.

If the newly changed hardware isn’t compatible with the existing application, the software may not work appropriately. Through an adaptive software maintenance approach, developers aim to make changes to the software and bring it in alignment with the changes so that the system keeps performing regardless of changes in the operating system, hardware, business policy, and the like.

Perfective Software Maintenance

Next up, we have Perfective software maintenance that is conducted after product delivery. Perfective software maintenance is aimed at conducting an assessment and making sure if the software aligns with the user’s requirements and your business objectives. If the system lacks it, they do all that they can to improve how the software performs. Once an application gets released in the marketplace, you receive suggestions from users for improvements like adding new features, making changes in how the system performs, and enhancing its overall performance and functionalities.

Moreover, users may want to incorporate additional features and functionalities intending to meet their individual goals. That’s why the Perfective software maintenance model is designed for. Perfective maintenance includes adding new features and removing those existing modules that no longer satisfy the user’s purposes. The ultimate goal of it is to keep the software competitive even after it’s been years since the app’s launch.

Preventive Software Maintenance

You need to maintain software, whether you feel the need of it or not. The software runs on a multitude of operating systems; hence, even a tiny change in the operating system is likely to make a huge difference in how the software functions. For example, you may not be able to make use of all the features or might face tough times when using some of the functionalities of the software. That’s the time the preventive maintenance model comes into play. As its name suggests, it consists of maintenance steps effective to keep your software running.

With preventive software maintenance, you can make changes to the software and make it more adaptable so that it can be scalable to work for a longer period of time. It consists of optimizing code and adapting documentation as required. The preliminary focus of preventive software maintenance is to keep the performance deterioration of your system at arm’s length so that the software remains durable and ensures better ROI.

Cost of Software Maintenance Services

Support cost for software will differ depending on the software type.

Support costs for standard application

$2,000 to $5,000

Support costs for complex application

$3,000 to $15,000

Support costs for Eterprise Grade Application

$10,000 to $30,000

The requirements for software maintenance can vary from project to project; hence, it’s tough to predict an upfront cost for the same. Primarily, what hourly charges do you pay to your tech partner? You can easily segregate the costs once you know how much it costs to hire a full-stack developer. Regular software maintenance is likely to cost you up to 50% of the upfront cost of a product’s installation. The price for software maintenance can go up to $2,000 a month and sometimes more than that based on the type and level of maintenance you require. Besides, the time limitation of the service, complexities, and so on, too can be liable to skyrocket the software maintenance cost.

Maintenance vs Support: What Is The Difference Between Support And Maintenance?

Now that we have assessed software maintenance and support let’s come to our key discussion point —difference between support and maintenance. In this section, we shall discuss maintenance vs support in a broader perspective.

Scope

The software support has limitations in terms of scope. You need software support when specific requirements arise. When there’s any serious issue in the software, you may need to hire a software support service provider to fix it. The service provider fixes software that fails to perform the way it should, no matter whether it’s a tiny technical default or a major software bug. There may be a time when the software support provider gets incompetent to resolve the issues- as they didn’t have the app developed. So, in that case, they may refer you to the software vendor or a specialized IT professional.

Unlike software support, software maintenance comes with a complete solution for almost all kinds of fixes in the app. A software maintenance provider might need to supervise different functionalities of the applications, ranging from preventive maintenance to adaptive maintenance and the like. Software maintenance has a wide scope compared to support, hence, covers extensive troubleshooting activities for software.

Cost

Unlike other sectors, software development, is different, wherein a service provider can’t be free once a system is deployed but has to provide continuous assistance to keep the software running flawlessly for a long time. For software to keep running uninterruptedly, you need to keep implementing additional features, removing irrelevant functions, fixing errors, and the like. For these, you need to bear paying some cost.

As they tend to be responsible for a limited number of improvements and problem fixes, the software support service charges a reasonable rate. However, it’s less; there may be some companies quoting you a higher price for their services. Software maintenance services, on the other hand, will charge you a fee every month irrespective of how many times you need help and the way they help you.

Types of Clients

A software support provider is a group of IT professionals that work intending to fix a wide range of issues and software glitches. The team provides support for the software created on their own, along with the applications built by other service providers. As the company provides services not only for the software created on its own but also for those built by other software developers, there may be different clients with different requirements.

In contrast to software support, a software maintenance service involves only providing services for the software that is built on your own. This service is specific to a single industry. For instance, a software service provider may have appropriate experience in designing and developing recruiting software solutions but may have a lack of know-how in a point-of-sale system. Since they are specific to a certain field, these service providers are more likely to handle software in a better way compared to others.

Final Thoughts!

That’s all about the differences between IT support and maintenance services. Since software maintenance and support come together, people tend to get confused while separating them from each other. Factoring in this very factor, we conducted an in-depth assessment on this very topic so that you get it clear.

Codzgarage is a leading software development company in India and the USA with core expertise in custom software development, including software migration and modernization. We help you with your issues: first, we help build custom applications from scratch or migrate your legacy system to a modern platform. Second, we help with software consultancy services if you are stuck with any issues related to software development. Connect with us as we have a solution, irrespective of your business problems.