Evolving Our Open Source Commitment: Unleash is Moving to AGPLv3

Our mission at Unleash has always been to make life easy for developers. Over the years, we have invested countless hours into ensuring Unleash remains the most robust, scalable, and secure FeatureOps platform in the world. As our ecosystem grows, so must our strategy for protecting the open-source community we’ve built together, while continuing to invest in the future of our product.

Today, we are announcing a change to our licensing model for the Unleash core repository.

We are transitioning the source code of Unleash Open-Source from the Apache 2.0 license to the GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPLv3).

We know license changes can raise questions, so we want to be incredibly clear about what this means, what is changing, and what is not changing.

What is Changing?

Starting from the v8.0.0 release of Unleash, the source code in our primary GitHub repository will be licensed under AGPLv3. In addition, the unleash-server npm package will also transition to AGPLv3. 

Why AGPLv3?

The Apache 2.0 license is highly permissive. While it served us well in our early days, it allows organizations to modify Unleash and operate it as a service without contributing those changes back to the community.

AGPLv3 ensures that organizations that modify Unleash and make those versions available to users over a network must also share their modifications under the same license. In practice, this is particularly important for hosted SaaS offerings, where changes could otherwise remain private indefinitely.

What is NOT Changing?

If you are an Unleash Enterprise customer or use Unleash Cloud, this change has zero impact on your deployment, your terms of service, or your legal obligations.

To minimize friction for our users and customers, we have carefully structured this transition so that standard deployments, SDK integrations, and enterprise versions remain completely unaffected.

1. Unleash Enterprise: Continues under Commercial License

This change only impacts the Unleash open-source repository. The Unleash Enterprise Distribution, which includes our advanced security features, change requests, release plans, impact metrics, safeguards, and dedicated support, continues to be governed by our standard commercial enterprise license.

2. Official Docker Open-Source Images: Continues under Apache 2.0

We understand that many enterprises have strict internal policies regarding AGPLv3 software in their environments. To ensure you can continue to run Unleash without friction, the official Unleash open-source Docker images will continue to be distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. Nothing changes as long as you consume Unleash as a pre-built container without modifying the underlying source code. 

3. Unleash SDKs: Remain unchanged

None of the official Unleash SDKs, the libraries you embed directly into your applications, are affected by this license change. They will remain under their current permissive licenses, ensuring your proprietary application code is never impacted. 

Quick Reference: How This Affects You

Your Use Case	License Impact	What You Need to Do
Using official Unleash Docker Images	Apache 2.0	Nothing. Continue running it exactly as you do today.
Embedding Unleash SDKs into your apps	Unchanged	Nothing. Your application code remains completely safe.
Unleash Cloud / Enterprise Customers / Unleash Enterprise docker image	Commercial License	Nothing. You are fully covered by your existing terms.
Modifying Unleash code to offer a public or commercial SaaS	AGPLv3	You must make the source code available to all your users, or contact us for a commercial license.

Keeping Open-Source Sustainable

At its core, this move is about long-term sustainability. By protecting our core product from exploitative commercial forks, we ensure that Unleash remains an independent, heavily funded project capable of delivering world-class FeatureOps for years to come.

We are incredibly grateful for your continued support, contributions, and trust. If you have any questions or want to chat about this transition, please join us in our Slack community or reach out to our team directly.