Grown from twenty years of practice.
From a hobby alongside university to a Digital Manufactory.
We build software for small businesses that reflects experience and dedication. How it all started – and why we work differently from most.
From Hobby to a Software Craft Business
OpitzWorks began in 2005 as a hobby project alongside studies in Business Informatics and Political Science. Small commissions, first experiments, learning the craft from the ground up. No grand vision – just curiosity and the joy of building things that work.
In parallel, we ran our own event venue for many years. That time continues to shape how we think: anyone who has managed a business themselves – with staff, invoices, authorities, a packed calendar and tight margins – understands the concerns of small businesses not from a textbook, but firsthand. Before that: a banking apprenticeship and years as a financial advisor, a world where diligence, risk and trust matter. That explains why clean accounting, data protection and reliability are not tedious obligations for us, but a matter of course.
Why Data Sovereignty Matters to Us
Edward Snowden's revelations were the trigger for us to seriously think about digital dependency. It became clear to us how vulnerable you are when the most important tools are in someone else's hands. This didn't remain an abstract thought: it was followed by involvement in Freifunk and open-source projects – and the decision to adopt a technology stack built on openness and long-lasting standards. We are not doomsayers, but practitioners: we soberly identify real dependencies and build a pragmatic alternative.
The Turning Point
In 2017, our first major online success was born – a platform that gained a large user base with almost no marketing and has been running stably and nearly maintenance-free ever since. The lesson shaped us: well-crafted software that solves a real problem sustains itself.
When the events industry came to an overnight standstill, what had been a side project became a question of survival. We focused entirely on OpitzWorks – and it was precisely during this phase that the company became what it is today. A solo project grew into a team. The pressure of that time forged bonds and brought clarity: we build software that makes people more independent and resilient – because we ourselves have experienced what it means when foundations collapse from one day to the next.
In 2026, our event venue will be wound down after 21 years – not out of necessity, but simply because there is too much to do at OpitzWorks. After more than two decades on the events front, we are focusing entirely on the Digital Manufactory. The story of the venue lives on at its own farewell page.
What Digital Manufactory Means to Us
We like things that show they were made by someone with experience and dedication – a well-built piece of furniture, a proper tool, something that lasts. We transfer this attitude to software. An inspiration is Japanese craft culture: bringing one thing to precision rather than just getting it done quickly.
We see too much bad software – half-finished betas, big promises, with everything held together with tape and WD-40 underneath. We deliberately set something against this: software that is finished when it comes to you, and that will still be running in ten years.
We build for the people who do the real work and are regularly overlooked by the software industry. And we deliberately stay small enough to stay good: reachable, careful, with names instead of tickets. This is a choice, not a compromise.
How One of Our Products Was Born
Archive was born because we ourselves were drowning in paperwork. Tax office, city administration, the entire incoming post from day-to-day operations – half a working day per week went on sorting and forwarding.
At some point we ordered a network scanner and a small NAS and built ourselves a system that took over the work. Half a day became twenty minutes per week. We showed it to two business acquaintances – not to sell it, but because we thought it was great. The two reactions were identical: "How much, and when can I have it?"
That's how software comes about with us: from a real problem, built for our own use – and good enough that others want it too.
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