License
DBHelm is source-available, with a 4-year time-bomb to Apache 2.0.
TL;DR
- Use DBHelm internally to manage your own databases — for any team size, including production. Free.
- Read the source. Fork it. Modify it. Self-host it. Free.
- Embed DBHelm in your own product where database management is incidental. Free.
- Offer DBHelm itself (or a fork) as a paid database-management service to third parties — commercial license required.
- Every released version automatically becomes Apache 2.0 four years after release.
Two different licenses, don't confuse them. This page is the BSL — it governs source code and redistribution rights (you may read, fork, self-host and use DBHelm internally for free). Separately, some product features — DBHelm Platform (provisioning, backups, maintenance, automation, federation, migration, governance) — are unlocked with a paid license key. Connecting, querying, monitoring, advising and optimizing your databases is free. See pricing.
Why BSL?
We want DBHelm to be source-available so engineers can audit, fork, self-host, and trust it — without giving competitors the right to wrap our product, slap their branding on it, and resell it back to the community as a managed service. The Business Source License from MariaDB is the cleanest off-the-shelf license for that.
It's the same license used by Sentry, CockroachDB, Couchbase, MariaDB MaxScale, HashiCorp Terraform, and Grafana Labs. The 4-year change date guarantees that historical versions become unambiguously open source on a known schedule.
Parameters
| Licensor | DBHelm Studio |
| Licensed Work | DBHelm (this repository, all versions) |
| Change Date | 4 years after each version's first public release |
| Change License | Apache License, Version 2.0 |
Additional Use Grant
You may make use of DBHelm, provided that you may not use it for a Database Hosting Service. A "Database Hosting Service" is a commercial offering that allows third parties (other than your employees, contractors, or end-users of your own software products) to run, manage, or access databases through DBHelm, where the value of the offering derives, entirely or substantially, from DBHelm's functionality.
Commercial licensing
If your use case isn't covered by the Additional Use Grant — or you'd rather not wait 4 years for the change date — contact us at licensing@dbhelm.com. We're happy to talk about flat-fee, perpetual, and OEM-style licenses.
Full license text
The canonical Business Source License 1.1 text is reproduced verbatim with the parameters above. The full canonical version is published by MariaDB at mariadb.com/bsl11, and a copy ships with every DBHelm release as LICENSE.md.
No warranty
Disclaimer of warranty
To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Licensed Work is provided on an "AS IS" basis. Licensor hereby disclaims all warranties and conditions, express or implied, including (without limitation) warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and title.