What is offshore software development?
Put simply, offshore software development implies transferring work to a third-party service provider. In other words, an interested party entrusts implementing a part of the project (or the whole project) to a competent software service provider or a person. There is a vast of tech-related services that can be outsourced. Mobile app development, web development, UI/UX design etc.
If you want to delegate the whole project to a third-party, you should rather look for a full-cycle software development company than a freelancer. That's because the freelancer may have a good expertise in one or several related areas (e.g. programming). While to create, let's say a mobile app, you need at least one skilled designer, QA engineer, and software developer.
Talking about offshore software development company, you should be ready that its headquarter may be placed somewhere in Eastern Europe or Asia. These are the most popular outsourcing destinations with the lowest pricing on the market and qualified workforce.
If you don't want to cooperate with a firm situated so far away, you may consider a variant of onshore and nearshore outsourcing. Let's consider them in more details:
Offshore software development implies that the headquarter of a company you cooperate with is placed somewhere far away from your native country. As a rule, there is a significant time zone difference.
Nearshore outsourcing means that the company is pretty close to your native country. Respectively, the time zone difference is insignificant or absent at all.
Onshore outsourcing implies that the company you work with is placed within your native country.
This way, the outsourcing model depends largely on the location of you and company you partner with. If you're from the US and you outsource, let's say, to Ukraine -- it means you use offshore software development services as the time zone can differ significantly. In case you're from Sweden -- it's nearshore outsourcing as the time difference is just one hour and these two countries are close to each other (flight time is about 2 hours).
