IT Glossary
What is software maintenance?
Continuous care of software after delivery: updates, fixes, monitoring and adaptation — because finished does not exist in software.
The most counterintuitive property of software is that it decays while standing still. Code delivered perfect today runs inside a world that refuses to hold still: browsers and phones update, the libraries it is built from receive security patches or get abandoned outright, integrated APIs change their contracts, legislation demands something new (e-Factura, Romania’s mandatory B2B e-invoicing system, rewrote the roadmap of a great many systems on its own), and volumes grow until what was comfortable at a hundred users wheezes at a thousand. Software maintenance is the name of that continuous care, with four established components: corrective, meaning repair of defects found in use; preventive, meaning updated dependencies and closed vulnerabilities, the invisible work that prevents visible incidents; adaptive, meaning keeping pace with operating systems, integrations and law; and evolutionary, the small continuous improvements that keep an application aligned with the business it serves. For budgeting, the industry reference is 15 to 20% of development cost per year — a number that looks large until you set it beside the alternative, because an unmaintained application accumulates vulnerabilities and technical debt in silence and then presents the whole invoice at the worst possible moment. Four clauses separate a serious contract from a decorative subscription: response times by severity, a clear boundary between included fixes and separately budgeted enhancements, proactive monitoring so the provider learns of trouble before you do, and verified backups with periodic reporting of what was actually done.
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Why it matters for your business
Incidents prevented or shortened
Monitoring and preventive updates catch problems early — and for the unavoidable ones, an SLA guarantees a response instead of hope.
Security kept current
Vulnerabilities in libraries and platforms are closed as they are published, rather than accumulating quietly until the breach arrives.
The value of the investment preserved
A maintained application stays modifiable and extensible for years; an abandoned one becomes legacy, with a resuscitation bill attached.
Frequently asked questions
What does maintenance normally cost, and why that much?
The reference figure is 15 to 20% of the development cost per year — for a twenty-thousand-euro application, roughly three to four hundred euros a month. That buys hours of updates and fixes, monitoring, backups and the availability of a team that already knows the system. It reads as expensive right up until the first incident resolved in two hours instead of two weeks spent finding somebody willing to look.
The application works fine — do we really need active maintenance?
Works fine describes the surface. Underneath, dependencies age and published vulnerabilities pile up; an application untouched for two years is very likely exploitable with automated tooling that scans the whole internet indiscriminately. There is a continuity risk on top: without a contract, the inevitable incident finds you as a stranger knocking on closed doors, in emergency mode and at emergency rates.
What is the difference between warranty and maintenance?
The warranty, typically three to twelve months after delivery, covers defects against the original specification free of charge — what was supposed to work and does not. Maintenance covers the life afterwards and the world in motion: updates, adaptations, monitoring, small evolutions. The first is an obligation of correct delivery, the second the service that keeps delivery correct over time, and it is contracted separately, ideally alongside the project itself.
Let’s talk about your project
Message us on WhatsApp or send an email — you talk directly to a developer.
office@northdan.com · +40 752 070 247