Licensing
Two licences, one piece of software
Wraft is dual licensed. AGPLv3 covers everyone, costs nothing, and is all most companies ever need. A commercial licence exists for the case AGPL genuinely cannot serve: shipping Wraft inside something you sell.
AGPLv3 · Commercial · Identical build under both
Before the comparison
The commercial licence does not unlock anything
It is the same build. Every feature, every limit, every line — identical under both. What a commercial licence changes is what you are obliged to do, what we warrant, and who answers when it breaks.
Plenty of open-source companies use the free licence as a demo of the paid one. If we ever do that, this paragraph will have quietly disappeared, and you should hold us to it.
The two licences
Pick the one your situation requires
Most readers of this page need the first. The second exists so that the companies who genuinely cannot use it are not shut out.
AGPLv3
RecommendedThe whole platform, complete, on your own infrastructure. Most companies never need anything else — including large ones running Wraft for thousands of internal users.
- Every feature, no user or document limits
- Run it internally, forever, at any scale
- Modify it, fork it, audit every line
- Documents you generate are yours outright
- Community support on GitHub and Discord
No account, no licence key, no sales call.
Commercial
The same software under different terms, for companies that cannot accept copyleft — because they ship Wraft inside a product, or because their legal function will not approve AGPL at any price.
- Identical software — nothing extra is unlocked
- Embed and redistribute without copyleft reaching your code
- Keep your own modifications private
- Written warranty and IP indemnity
- Support terms and a named escalation path
We will tell you if you do not need this. It happens often.
Which one applies
Find your situation
Six cases that cover almost everyone. If yours is not here, describe it and we will tell you which licence you need — including when the answer is neither.
Side by side
Rights and obligations, not features
A feature matrix would be a shorter table with nothing in it, because the software is the same. These are the things that genuinely differ.
A plain reading of AGPLv3, not legal advice. Your counsel should read the licence — it is short, and linked above.
Wraft as a document engine
When Wraft is a component of your product rather than your tool
This is where the licence question stops being theoretical. Four shapes it usually takes — the first three point to a commercial licence, the fourth almost never does.
Document generation inside your SaaS
Your customers press Export and get a properly typeset contract, invoice or policy. Wraft is the engine behind it and never appears in their interface.
A vertical product built on top
Legal tech, HR tech, an ERP add-on. You own the domain logic and the customer relationship; Wraft handles templates, rendering, versioning and signature underneath.
Shipped to customers on their own hardware
You install your product inside a client's environment — a bank, a hospital, a government department. That is redistribution, and it is where licence questions arrive first.
An internal platform other teams build on
One document service for the whole company, with teams calling it over the API. Internal use, so AGPLv3 covers it — this is the case people most often think they need to buy for.
What AGPL actually asks
Four things worth knowing before your counsel reads it
AGPLv3 has a reputation heavier than its text. These are the parts that decide whether it affects you.
It is triggered by giving Wraft to others, not by using it
Distribution and network service are the triggers. A company running Wraft for its own staff — ten people or ten thousand — never reaches them.
Section 13 is the part that distinguishes AGPL from GPL
If you modify Wraft and let people interact with it over a network, those users can ask for the corresponding source of your modified version. Unmodified, there is nothing additional to provide.
It reaches your code, never your content
The documents Wraft produces are your work product, not derivative works of the software. No licence term touches them, and no clause claims any right over them.
Separate programs are separate
An application that calls Wraft over REST is not a derivative work of it, on the same reasoning that lets a program call any networked service without inheriting its licence.
Procurement
What a commercial agreement covers
Terms are set per engagement rather than published, because they depend on what you are shipping and where. What is on the table is consistent.
- Perpetual licence to the versions you take. It survives us, and it does not lapse if you stop renewing support.
- Redistribution and embedding rights scoped to your product, so copyleft does not reach your code or your customers'.
- Warranty and IP indemnity — the two things the open licence expressly disclaims, and usually the reason procurement asks for this at all.
- Support with response times and a named escalation path, rather than an issue tracker and goodwill.
- Deployment help where you need it — air-gapped installations, regulated environments, migration from whatever you are on.
- A source escrow arrangement if you want one, though the AGPLv3 release already makes it close to redundant.
Buyer questions