Licensing

Carbon's source is public, but using it isn't unconditional. Two licenses govern the code, and which one applies depends on what you run and how you run it. This page is the map; the LICENSE file is the contract.

Editions

Self-hosting (the Docker + Caddy recipe or the AWS with SST recipe) runs the Community edition by default. A commercial license turns the same hardware into the Enterprise edition.

How to buy

Every path starts with one question: who runs Carbon? If we run it for you, that's Carbon Cloud. If you run it yourself, that's self-hosted, governed by the AGPL until a commercial license changes the terms.

Carbon Cloud — we run it

Carbon Cloud is the managed edition, operated for you at app.carbon.ms. There are two ways onto it.

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Self-signup is the short path. Accept the clickthrough terms of service, put a card on file, and you're running — no signature, no invoice. It comes in two month-to-month plans: Starter (a limited feature set) and Business (the full application). This is the same billing described in the Cloud plans sense: a subscription you manage yourself.

Enterprise Subscription is the signed, invoiced umbrella for larger deployments. It's an annual commitment — billed annually, semi-annually, or quarterly — over a one, three, or five-year term, with uncapped users and no mid-term overage. Every Enterprise Subscription carries Business-tier features in whatever environment it runs. Inside it, you make two independent choices.

Environment — where it runs.

• Commercial Cloud is the default multi-tenant cloud, hosted in the US or EU.
• GovCloud is a US GovCloud, ITAR-controlled environment.
• BYOC (bring your own cloud) runs in your own AWS account and on your data, operated by Carbon.

Service level — how much comes with the software.

• Standard is the software, run well: self-guided onboarding through the docs, Carbon Academy, and the Self-Serve Onboarding Hub, plus the same technical support as the Business plan. It does not include a dedicated implementation team, custom training, integrations, or custom builds.
• Flagship adds a forward-deployed engineer (FDE) inside the subscription, with no hour counting, along with implementation, guided onboarding, training, hypercare, and a written scope exhibit. The FDE can be fractional (shared), dedicated (full-time and remote, working only for you), or on-site at your facility.

Self-hosted — you run it

Clone Carbon from GitHub and run it on your own infrastructure. By default that's the Community edition, and how you're licensed depends on what you change and who you run it for.

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Community Edition is the open core under AGPLv3 — free, no agreement needed. Running unmodified Community Edition for your own business never requires a license. Two things come with that freedom: any modifications you make available to users over a network must be published under the AGPL, and the Enterprise code is excluded, so community mode ships without EE features, Carbon support, or an SLA.

A commercial license is required the moment any one of these is true:

• You keep a private fork or make private changes.
• You use anything under packages/ee or any .ee file.
• You host Carbon for anyone else, including an integrator running it for clients.
• You resell, white-label, or ship Carbon inside a product you sell.

The Carbon Commercial License Agreement covers all of that. It's self-hosted with full codebase access including Enterprise, over a one, three, or five-year term, and it replaces the AGPL copyleft so your modifications stay private. It takes two shapes for a company running Carbon for itself:

• Subscription — licensed per user, per year, and renewing.
• Perpetual — a one-time license you own outright, offered on a premium basis. A perpetual license can also be reached through a written rent-to-own path.

For partners who sell Carbon, the same commercial license covers three models:

• Reseller — you sell Carbon under Carbon's name.
• White-label — you sell it under your own brand and take first-line support, so your customers never see Carbon.
• OEM embedded — Carbon ships inside the machines you sell.

The AGPL obligation

AGPLv3 is a network copyleft license: modify Carbon, make it available to users over a network, and you must offer those users your complete modified source under the same license. Carbon's license goes one step further than stock AGPL.

You can't resell Carbon as a service

How the agreements fit together

A few rules span both paths, whichever way you buy:

• Software, not services. The license covers the software; implementation, data migrations, and custom builds ride inside your agreement or an attached statement of work.
• One agreement per side. You can hold one Cloud subscription and one self-hosted commercial license at once, but they're never blended into a single document.
• The bridge. An Enterprise Subscription can carry a written option to convert to a self-hosted commercial license later, so starting on Cloud doesn't lock you out of running it yourself.

When you need a commercial license

Get a commercial license, or just use Carbon Cloud, if you want to:

• Keep your modifications private instead of publishing them under AGPLv3.
• Use Enterprise features: the EE integrations and other Enterprise capabilities. See Integrations for the catalog.
• Run Carbon in production without open-sourcing your changes.
• Offer Carbon to others as a hosted service, a white-label product, or embedded in what you sell.

Cloud is the managed path; an Enterprise (commercial) license is the self-hosted path. Either one lifts the copyleft obligation and unlocks the full feature set.