Software Recovery & Modernisation
Your software project isn't beyond saving.
Whether your project has stalled, your original developer has moved on, or your platform is crumbling under technical debt, we can step in, assess the situation, and get things back on track.
Software Projects Fail for Many Reasons
It's more common than most businesses realise. A critical project stalls because the developer left. A platform that worked fine three years ago is now slow, fragile, and impossible to update. An outsourced build was delivered half-finished with no documentation.
The good news? In most cases, the situation is recoverable. With the right assessment and a clear plan, we can either revive what you have or chart a smarter path forward without starting from scratch.
Signs Your Software Needs Recovery
If any of these sound familiar, it's time to talk to someone who can help.
Key Developer Left
Your lead developer or entire team has moved on, and nobody remaining understands the codebase well enough to maintain or extend it safely.
Frequent Outages or Bugs
Your system crashes regularly, performance has degraded, or every fix seems to break something else. The codebase has become too fragile to touch.
Stalled Development
Progress has ground to a halt. Whether it's vendor disputes, scope creep, or technical roadblocks, the project isn't moving and deadlines keep slipping.
No Documentation
There's no meaningful documentation, no deployment guides, and tribal knowledge has walked out the door. You're left with a black box.
Security Concerns
You suspect the system has vulnerabilities: outdated dependencies, no security audits, or practices that wouldn't pass a compliance review.
Can't Scale
Your platform worked for 100 users but now serves 10,000. Performance is suffering and the architecture wasn't designed for growth.
How We Help
We don't just jump in and start rewriting. Our approach is methodical: understand first, then act.
Assess & Audit
We perform an independent technical audit of your existing software, covering code quality, architecture, security posture, infrastructure, and documentation. You get an honest, jargon-free report on where things stand.
No sales pitch. Just a clear picture of what's working, what's not, and what your realistic options are, including whether it makes sense to recover or rebuild.
Plan & Prioritise
Armed with the audit findings, we present two or three options, each with projected costs, timelines, and trade-offs. We help you make an informed decision, not a pressured one.
Sometimes the right move is stabilising what you have. Other times it's a phased migration to a modern stack. We'll be upfront about what makes sense for your budget and goals.
Recover & Deliver
Once you've chosen a path, our team gets to work. Whether that's patching critical issues, taking over ongoing development, or rebuilding key components, we deliver with the same rigour as our greenfield projects.
You get regular updates, full transparency on progress, and a codebase that's documented, tested, and maintainable going forward.
Recovery Services We Offer
Independent Code Audit
A thorough review of your codebase, architecture, dependencies, and infrastructure. We identify risks, technical debt, and security issues, then explain them in plain language.
Project Takeover
When your original developer or agency can't continue, we assume full responsibility for the project. We handle the knowledge transfer, stabilise the system, and resume delivery.
Legacy Modernisation
Migrate aging systems to modern frameworks and cloud infrastructure. We preserve your business logic and data while giving you a platform that's faster, safer, and easier to maintain.
Team Augmentation
Missing a key role like an architect, senior developer, tester, or project manager? We fill the gaps in your team so your project doesn't stall because of a single-point-of-failure.
Security Remediation
Identify and fix vulnerabilities before they become incidents. We patch insecure code, update dependencies, implement proper authentication, and harden your infrastructure.
Ongoing Support
Once we've stabilised your system, we can provide ongoing maintenance and support so you're never left in the same position again. Bug fixes, updates, and monitoring included.
Why Businesses Choose Digitize for Recovery
Taking over someone else's software is genuinely hard. It requires patience, deep technical skill, and the honesty to tell a client when rebuilding is cheaper than repairing. We've been doing this for over a decade.
Our team has recovered projects built in Ruby on Rails, C#/.NET, Python, PHP, JavaScript, and legacy platforms like DataFlex. We've seen codebases with zero tests, zero documentation, and zero version control, and turned them into maintainable, reliable systems.
Honest Assessment
We'll tell you if recovery isn't worth the investment. No padding hours or inflating scope.
Multi-Stack Experience
Ruby, C#, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Go. We're not limited to a single ecosystem.
Adelaide-Based Team
Local support, same timezone, and face-to-face meetings when you need them.
Long-Term Partnerships
We don't just fix and forget. Many of our recovery clients have been with us for 5+ years.
Full Transparency
Regular updates, documented decisions, and no surprises on invoices.
What to Expect
Initial Conversation
Tell us what's happened and where things stand. We'll ask the right questions to understand the scope and urgency of the situation.
Technical Audit
We review the codebase, infrastructure, and documentation. You receive a detailed report with findings, risk assessment, and recommended actions.
Options & Planning
We present clear options with estimated costs and timelines. You choose the path that fits your budget and business priorities.
Execution & Handover
We deliver the recovery work with full documentation. Whether you take it in-house or stay with us, the system is in a healthy, maintainable state.
Frequently Asked Questions
We look at the overall architecture, code quality, test coverage, dependency health, and how well the system aligns with your current business needs. If the cost of recovery exceeds 60-70% of a rebuild, we'll typically recommend starting fresh, but with a migration strategy that preserves your data and business logic.
Yes, this is one of our most common recovery scenarios. We handle the knowledge transfer process, review the existing codebase, document what we find, and establish a development workflow. We've taken over projects built in Ruby on Rails, C#/.NET, Python, PHP, JavaScript, and more.
We've dealt with this many times. Our team reverse-engineers the system, documents the architecture and business logic, sets up proper version control, and creates the missing documentation. It takes longer than a documented handover, but the end result is the same: a system we understand thoroughly.
The initial audit usually takes one to two weeks depending on system complexity. From there, timelines vary significantly. A critical stabilisation might take days, while a full modernisation of a large legacy system could be a multi-month engagement. We'll give you realistic timelines after the audit.
Absolutely. Our team has experience across a wide range of stacks including Ruby on Rails, C#/.NET, Python, PHP, JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, and legacy platforms like DataFlex. If it's a language or framework we're less familiar with, we'll tell you upfront rather than learn on your dime.
That's up to you. Some clients bring development back in-house once the system is stable and documented. Others choose to stay with us for ongoing maintenance and feature development. Either way, you'll have a clean, documented codebase that any competent team can work with.
Software Project in Trouble?
Get an honest assessment from a team that's recovered dozens of stalled, abandoned, and failing projects. No obligation, no pressure.