Licensing
Open Website Builder uses a source-available license designed to keep the project free for individuals, independent creatives, and open-source work while requiring larger commercial users to support its development.
Free use
You can use Open Website Builder for free when:
- you use it for a personal, educational, or noncommercial website;
- you are an individual or sole proprietor building your own website as a content creator, photographer, artist, designer, writer, musician, or other independent creative;
- your website promotes or earns income from your own independent creative work; or
- you use it in a public open-source project released under an OSI-approved open-source license.
For example, a photographer can publish a portfolio and sell their own prints, or a content creator can publish articles and sponsorship information, without buying a commercial license.
Commercial license required
You need a commercial license when:
- a company or organization with two or more employees uses Open Website Builder for professional or internal business purposes;
- an agency, consultant, developer, or hosting provider uses it for paid client work; or
- Open Website Builder is included in a paid product or service.
Contractors performing substantially the same role as employees count toward the employee threshold. A one-person business using OWB for its owner's own creative practice remains covered by free use.
Examples
| Use | License |
|---|---|
| Personal blog or family website | Free |
| Independent photographer's portfolio and print shop | Free |
| Solo content creator's monetized website | Free |
| Public project under an OSI-approved license | Free |
| Company website maintained by a multi-employee team | Commercial |
| Agency website built for a paying client | Commercial |
| Hosted website-builder service offered to customers | Commercial |
Acceptable use
Neither the free license nor a commercial license permits using Open Website Builder for illegal, harmful, malicious, or exploitative content or services. This includes credible threats or facilitation of violence, abuse, harassment, hate or unlawful discrimination, sexual exploitation of minors, human trafficking, malware, fraud, phishing, and unlawful privacy invasion.
Clearly distasteful, grossly offensive, or otherwise undesirable uses are also prohibited when a reasonable person would expect them to cause substantial harm to people, communities, or the reputation of Open Website Builder. This is not intended to prohibit legitimate artistic, journalistic, educational, documentary, or research work merely because it addresses controversial or difficult subjects.
Source available, not OSI open source
The source code is available to inspect and modify, and open-source projects may use it for free. However, because the license restricts some commercial uses, Open Website Builder itself is source available, not open source under the Open Source Initiative definition.
The full license controls if this guide and the license differ. To request a commercial license, contact the maintainer through the Open Website Builder repository.