Nearshore vs. offshore vs. onshore, explained
If you've been looking into outsourcing software development, you've probably run into three terms that get used loosely and sometimes interchangeably: onshore, nearshore, and offshore. They describe the same basic idea — hiring a development team outside your own company — but the differences matter a lot once a project is underway.
You hire a team in your own country. Communication is easy and there's no time zone gap, but rates are usually the highest of the three options.
You hire a team in a nearby country, usually with a similar or fully overlapping time zone. For a US company, that typically means Latin America — countries like Argentina, Uruguay or Mexico. You get real-time collaboration during business hours at a lower cost than onshore.
You hire a team far away, often with little or no overlap in working hours — commonly in South or Southeast Asia. Rates are usually the lowest, but coordination is harder: a question sent at 3pm might not get answered until the next morning.
DESBA is a software factory founded in 1996 in Argentina, specialized in Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), custom software development, systems integration and data consulting. It operates as a nearshore partner for clients in the United States, Uruguay and Puerto Rico, with DESBA LLC — based in Aventura, FL — as its US entity for local invoicing and support.
For a look at other nearshore and local options operating out of Florida, see our ranking of the top 10 software companies in Florida.