Modernization and rescue of legacy systems

The system runs, but the author has vanished, there's no documentation, and every change risks bringing the whole thing down. The business is held hostage by a single application and afraid to touch it. New contractors take one look and propose "rewriting everything from scratch" for a fortune and six months of downtime — because digging into someone else's code is slow and unprofitable for them, not for you. We do it differently: audit first, then an honest recommendation — and more often than not the system can be saved for less than a rewrite would cost.

Code and architecture audit: what's inside, where the risks are, what's holding together on a wing and a prayer. Refactoring of the critical sections without rewriting everything. Migration of data and processes to a current stack. Documentation recovery. Phased transition with no interruption to the business.

The first stage — the audit — gives you a map of the system and an honest verdict: fix or replace. The audit is part of the free analysis stage — as in every project we run under the "10% Path": the assessment, concept, and modernization plan are on us, so you understand the scope and the cost before you commit the main budget. You don't start paying until you've seen the plan and agreed to it. → how we work

We weigh cost of ownership, not emotion: what it costs to keep supporting the current system versus the cost of replacement and the risk of migration. If a rewrite doesn't pay off, we won't propose one. That's the difference between a contractor who profits from your fear and engineers who count your budget. The full decision framework, with a criteria table, is in the article "Fix the old system or rewrite it".

We work with any legacy: outdated language and framework versions, monoliths, forgotten stacks. We move you to a current foundation — Python, TypeScript, Go, modern databases — choosing the target stack for your task, not for fashion. Where needed, we bring in rare expertise for a specific old technology. (see the matrix: Services)

By the "10% Path": the audit and modernization plan are on us; the first working result (for example, a refactored critical module or a migrated section) is 10% of the agreed estimate; then staged payments. The cost is calculated individually and locked in before the main work begins. You can gauge your project's scope in the calculator.

This is the artifact of our process — every audit runs through it:

1. Source code — is all of it there, does it build, which version, who last touched it.
2. Architecture — monolith or modules, where the bottlenecks are, what breaks first under load.
3. Data — database structure, integrity, duplicates, what gets lost in migration.
4. Dependencies — outdated, unsupported libraries and platforms, vulnerabilities.
5. Documentation and knowledge — is there any description, or is it all "in the head" of the vanished author.
6. Integrations — what the system connects to, what breaks when you change it.
7. Security — access, password/data storage, open holes.
8. Cost of ownership — what support costs today and where it's heading.

Audit output: a map of the system + a verdict on each module (keep / refactor / replace) + a "fix vs. rewrite" calculation.

A ten-year-old accounting application, sources partly lost, the developer unreachable, the business afraid of updates. Here's how we usually handle it: audit → rebuild of the build process and documentation → refactoring of the critical modules → phased data migration with no downtime. The goal is to bring back control, not to start from zero.

• Do you always advise rewriting from scratch? No. Audit first, then an honest verdict. Refactoring is often cheaper than replacement — and we'll say so.
• What if the sources are lost? We rebuild the build process and documentation from what's there; we assess the risks during the audit.
• Will the business stop while you work? No — we transition in stages, with old and new running in parallel during migration.
• Who owns the result? The client, once the stage is paid for.