The developer who built it has gone
A freelancer moved on or an agency relationship ended. Nobody knows how to deploy it, where the credentials live, or which parts are safe to touch.
Application maintenance & support
Application Maintenance and Support for UK Teams
Keep the software your business runs on patched, current and working — fixes prioritised by impact, upgrades planned before they become emergencies, and engineers who know your codebase, working UK business hours.
- UK business hours, with out-of-hours cover by agreement
- A code audit before we take anything over
- Written updates on every fix and release
Why live software degrades
Software does not stay working on its own.
The code has not changed, yet things break: a browser update, an expired certificate, a payment provider retiring an API version, a library with a newly published vulnerability. Without someone watching, small problems wait until they are expensive.
What good maintenance looks like
Most of the value is in routine work that stops incidents happening at all:
- Security patches and dependency updates on a schedule
- Error tracking and uptime alerts that reach a person
- A staging environment and reversible deployments
- A prioritised backlog, not an inbox of urgent emails
- Upgrades planned well before end-of-life dates
Years of skipped updates
Framework and library versions past end of life, with known vulnerabilities that a pen test, an insurer or a customer’s security questionnaire will eventually find.
Customers find the bugs first
No error tracking, no uptime checks, no alerts. Failures surface as complaints, refunds or a quiet drop in sign-ups — days after they started.
Small fixes take weeks
Every change becomes a project: relearning the code, no staging environment, manual deployments and a nervous wait to see what else breaks.
What we cover
Maintenance and support, planned rather than reactive.
Web apps, mobile apps, APIs and internal tools — whether we built them or not. Support runs in UK business hours, pay-as-you-go or on a monthly retainer, and any cover outside those hours is agreed in writing up front.
Support retainers
A monthly allocation of engineering time with agreed priority levels and response targets, spent on fixes, updates and small improvements — with a written record of where it went.
See plans and pricing
Bug fixing and small changes
A prioritised backlog of fixes and improvements, each one code-reviewed, tested on staging and released with notes on exactly what changed.
See fixed-price fixes
Security patching
Dependency and platform updates on a schedule, vulnerability alerts triaged by real risk rather than raw count, and pen test or questionnaire findings closed out with evidence.
Learn more
Framework and version upgrades
React, Angular, Vue, Laravel, PHP, Node.js, .NET and mobile SDK upgrades planned in small steps, well before versions reach end of life.
Learn more
Monitoring and performance
Error tracking, uptime checks, log alerts and backup verification routed to people who can act, plus slow pages and heavy queries traced to their cause and fixed.
Learn more
Takeovers from other suppliers
A paid code and infrastructure audit, credentials and accounts moved into your name, and documentation written as we learn the system — then support from a known baseline.
Discuss this
How we work
How we take on and look after your software.
The seven stages we use for new builds, adapted for live software: an audit instead of a blank page, and a routine that keeps running long after the first month.
- 01
Discovery
We get access, build the application locally and on staging, and audit the code, dependencies, infrastructure, backups and credentials — so support starts from facts rather than assumptions.
An audit report with risks ranked by impact
- 02
Strategy
We agree what support covers: hours, priority levels and response targets, what counts as urgent, how requests reach us, and which risks from the audit to fix first.
A written support agreement and first priorities
- 03
UX & architecture
We document the architecture as it actually is, write runbooks for deployment and recovery, and add error tracking, uptime checks and alerts wherever they are missing.
Runbooks, architecture notes and working alerts
- 04
Development
Fixes and improvements flow through one prioritised backlog, every change is code-reviewed, and urgent issues jump the queue according to the priorities we agreed.
Fixes released through a controlled process
- 05
Testing
We add regression tests around the parts that break most often, so each fix stays fixed and each upgrade can be proven on staging before users see it.
A regression safety net that grows over time
- 06
Launch
Releases go out on a schedule you agree, with release notes, a rollback path and no Friday-afternoon surprises.
Predictable, reversible releases
- 07
Optimisation & support
Regular written updates on what we fixed, patched and upgraded, what is approaching end of life and what we recommend next — so budget conversations start from evidence.
A maintenance roadmap you can budget for
Technology
The stacks we maintain and support.
The technology most UK businesses actually run, including older versions — upgrading them is often part of the job.
Web front ends
React and Next.jsAngular and AngularJSVueWordPress
Backends
Node.jsPHP and LaravelPythonC# and .NETJava and Spring Boot
Mobile
React NativeFlutterSwiftKotlinIonic
Data
PostgreSQLMySQLRedisFirebase
Hosting
AWSVercelDocker and KubernetesNGINX
Operations
Error trackingUptime and log alertsAutomated dependency updatesGitHub Actions pipelines
If your application is built on something we do not know well, we will tell you during the audit rather than learn on your budget.
Use cases
When UK businesses call us in.
Support usually starts at one of these moments. The first step is the same for all of them: an audit, so we know exactly what we are looking after.
Taking over a codebase
The agency or freelancer has moved on. We recover access, document what exists, get deployments working again and take over support with the risks written down.
Support for a new product
The build is finished and the pace of new features slows. A retainer covers fixes, updates and small features without keeping a full team on.
Clearing pen test findings
A penetration test, an insurer or an enterprise customer has produced a list of issues. We fix them, evidence the fixes and keep dependencies current afterwards.
Planned framework upgrades
A framework, runtime or mobile SDK is reaching end of life. We plan the upgrade in steps and ship it without freezing feature work.
Stability for busy periods
Ahead of Black Friday, enrolment week or a tax deadline, we load-test the critical journeys, fix the weak points and agree cover for the busy weeks.
Keeping the lights on
Your developers focus on the roadmap while we handle patching, upgrades and bug fixes on the systems they no longer have time for.
Relevant work
Products we have designed and built.
A selection of client projects related to this work. Each case study covers the brief, the approach and the stack.
All case studiesHospitality · SaaS
Teppe
Restaurant operations platform: QR ordering, kitchen displays and loyalty.
ReactNode.jsStripeFirebase
Read the case studyHealthcare · Web
Tekish Health
Telemedicine web platform: booking, video consultations and patient records.
Next.jsWebRTCFHIRAWS
Read the case studyFinance · Mobile
Equity Bank
Digital banking app: accounts, bill payments, loans and investments.
React NativeNode.jsPostgreSQLAWS
Read the case studyWhy Techsleight
What working with us is actually like.
No inflated numbers — just how we run projects, and what you can hold us to.
Product engineering, not ticket-taking
We ask what the software is for before we estimate it — and we will tell you when something should not be built, or should be bought instead.
AI where it earns its place
LLM features, retrieval and automation built with evaluation, guardrails and cost controls, and plain software where that is the better answer.
Full-stack under one roof
Design, frontend, backend, mobile, cloud and QA in one team, so nothing falls between suppliers.
UK-focused delivery
UK business hours, estimates in pounds, and a contract with a UK company. Our engineers are based in the UK and India.
Flexible engagement
A fixed-scope project, dedicated developers or a monthly retainer — and you can move between them as the work changes.
You own everything
Code, IP, cloud accounts and documentation are yours from day one. We sign an NDA before discovery if you need one.
Support after launch
We stay on for fixes, upgrades and new features, or hand over cleanly to your in-house team with the documentation to match.
FAQs
Questions we get asked.
Straight answers on scope, cost, timelines and how we work. If yours is not here, ask us directly.
What does an application support retainer include?
An agreed amount of engineering time each month for bug fixes, security patches, dependency updates, monitoring and small improvements, with priority levels and response targets written into the agreement. You get written updates showing where the time went and what we recommend next.
What are your support hours?
Support runs in UK business hours. Out-of-hours or weekend cover — for a launch, a peak trading period or a critical system — can be arranged by agreement, with the details written into the contract. We do not run a 24/7 support desk, and we will not pretend to.
Can you support an application another company built?
Yes. We start with a paid code and infrastructure audit: get it running, review the code and dependencies, check backups and security, and move credentials and accounts into your name. You get an honest report on its condition before committing to ongoing support.
How much does application maintenance cost?
It depends on the size and condition of the application and the level of cover you need. Ad-hoc work runs on flexible hours from £20 an hour; ongoing support is agreed as a monthly retainer after the initial audit, so the price reflects what the system actually needs.
How quickly will you respond to an urgent issue?
Response targets are agreed per priority level in your support agreement, based on how critical the system is to your business. Within UK business hours, urgent issues jump the queue; outside them, response depends on the cover you have arranged with us.
Do you monitor our application for us?
We set up or take over error tracking, uptime checks, log alerts and backup checks, and route alerts to the right people. Alerts are reviewed and tuned regularly, because an alert that everyone has learned to ignore is worse than no alert at all.
Our application is on an old, unsupported version. Is that a problem?
It is common, and it is manageable. We patch what can be patched now, isolate what cannot, and plan the upgrade in steps — sometimes one major version at a time — so the application keeps running throughout. Bigger modernisations are scoped as a separate project.
Can you work alongside our in-house developers?
Yes. We can take patching, upgrades and support tickets off your team’s plate, work in your repositories and ticketing tools, and follow your code review and release process rather than imposing our own.
Can you fix one specific problem without a retainer?
Yes. For one well-defined issue — a slow page, a broken integration, failing payments — we can quote a fixed price for the fix instead. Our fixed-price fixes pages cover the most common problems and what each one includes.
Do we get everything back if we move support elsewhere?
Yes. Code, credentials, infrastructure accounts and the documentation we write all belong to you. If you move support in-house or to another supplier, we hand over properly, including a walkthrough with the new team.
Start a project
Need someone to look after your application?
Tell us what the application does, what it runs on and what is worrying you. We will suggest a first step — usually a short audit — and what ongoing support would look like.
What happens next
- 1A senior engineer reads your brief within one working day, and replies with questions or a first view.
- 2A 30-minute call to understand the goal, constraints and what good looks like — no sales script.
- 3A written proposal with scope, milestones, team and a GBP estimate you can take to your board.
Techsleight Labs is a trading name of Krapton IT Consultancy.
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