Warner Music Group has signed up to use a new open source platform for its artist websites.

Acquia’s ‘Enterprise Drupal Gardens’ has been created to allow firms to centrally create and manage large numbers of content-rich, social websites.

The platform, dubbed ‘OpenSaas’, allows clients to access and build their websites through a common web browser – without being ‘locked in’ to a proprietary ‘software as a service’ (SaaS) model.

A wide range of artists websites are already on the platform, including Cody Simpson, T.I., B.o.B, Portugal. The Man, Stevie Nicks, Iron & Wine, Surfer Blood, JaneDear girls and Gloriana.

Websites for Jason Derulo, Waka Flocka Flame, Shinedown, Paramore, Wiz Khalifa and Trey Songz are among those due to be on the platform in the coming weeks.

“We’re committed to providing our artists with the best possible service and helping them achieve their potential, both creatively and commercially. A key part of that mission is producing content-rich, social web destinations, which foster the connection between artists and fans,” said Paul Sinclair, SVP, Digital Media, Atlantic Records.

“By partnering with Acquia and the Drupal community, we can drive technical innovation, more quickly, efficiently and expertly than any single organisation could. At the same time, we have more freedom to focus our resources behind what we do best: developing long-term artist careers.”

“It used to be that you had to choose between open source and SaaS,” said Ryan Garner, VP of Direct-to-Consumer services as Warner Music.

“If you wanted open source, you had to install, configure, customize, host, scale, secure, enhance, and upgrade everything yourself or pay large sums of money to someone else to do it for you.

“If you wanted SaaS, you had to risk lock-in or lost investments and costly migrations should you ever want or need to switch partners. With OpenSaaS and Enterprise Drupal Gardens, we have proven these choices false, and it’s been liberating.”