This document highlights the basic licensing information for the Countly Community Edition, and benefits and accesses that the Enterprise Edition license provides. To know more about what constitutes a data point in Countly, please read this document.
What is the Community Edition of Countly?
Countly Community Edition is our open-source, self-hosted, non-commercial version of the Countly mobile analytics and web analytics platform. It comes with its own licensing terms, separate from that of Countly Enterprise Edition.
What are the licensing terms for Countly Community Edition?
Countly is released under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License (also known as AGPLv3) with a modified Section 7. The AGPLv3 is the most advanced copyleft license for software, specifically designed to ensure cooperation with the community also in the case of network-based software interactions.
Can we use Countly Community Edition for internal use in our organization?
Regardless of the type of organization (commercial, non-commercial, educational institute, government etc.), you can freely use Countly Community Edition for your own and internal purposes. You can install Countly Community Edition on your internet or intranet servers. You can track your own apps, whether paid or not.
However, you cannot use Countly Community Edition for commercial or non-commercial purposes, to provide Countly as a service to your customers and/or companies you work with. In order to track your customers' apps and provide them with Countly dashboard access, you have to purchase a Countly Enterprise Edition license.
Can we modify Countly Community Edition source code?
Yes, you can modify Countly Community Edition source code provided that you comply with GNU AGPL v3 license. That means, your modifications should be opened and published under the same license publicly. The easiest way for this is to fork our repo on Github and make modifications on your repo directly. We always welcome pull requests back so we can incorporate your changes to Countly Community Edition.
Can I remove Countly logo or branding and add my own?
According to Section 7(e) of AGPL v3 that Countly includes, you cannot remove any Countly logo or branding. No other brands, trade names, trademarks, or service marks may be used for derivative products as specified in AGPL v3 section 7(e). All names, links and logos of Countly must be kept as in original distribution without any changes in all software screens (including startup screen, dashboard, software header etc.). Therefore, there are enforcing restrictions on your ability to modify, change or remove Countly name and logo from our software when used in a commercial environment.
Such restrictions don't exist if you purchase the Countly Enterprise Edition license.
AGPL is not suitable for our purpose. Are there any other licensing models?
Countly Enterprise Edition has a commercial licensing which is suitable for commercial use. Commercial license will allow you to remove the restrictions of Open Source license, including restrictions on the trademarks. With a Countly commercial license, Countly is fully re-brandable and the entire interface can be white labeled. Contact our sales team for more information about commercial licensing and pricing information.
I want to resell Countly and provide value for my ecosystem; how can I do that?
Countly offers its customers top-notch, proven technology solving mobile business challenges, through a global network of leading software vendors, resellers, distributors, and system integrators. To resell Countly and other collaboration interested, please see this link for our partnership program.
When I download Countly, do I get all the source code?
Yes, all the source code is provided unencrypted. You are allowed to make modifications to use Countly in your own organization, for your own applications (paid or not). If you want to resell or rebrand Countly, give services using Countly, or bundle Countly in your own services, you should purchase Countly Enterprise Edition license.
What's the licensing term for SDKs (client libraries)?
iOS and Android SDKs have a very permissive MIT license. It basically allows reuse within proprietary software, provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms. Community SDKs have their own licensing terms, most of them being MIT.