Which open-source licenses let you sell a product?

MIT, BSD-2-Clause, BSD-3-Clause, BSD-3-Clause-Clear, BSD-4-Clause, ISC and 15 more

• Sell a closed-source app: ✓ Yes
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ✓ Yes
• Keep your changes private: ✓ Yes

Permissive: keep the copyright notice and license text; otherwise do what you want. (BSD-4-Clause also requires an advertising credit.)

Apache-2.0, ECL-2.0

• Sell a closed-source app: ✓ Yes
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ✓ Yes
• Keep your changes private: ✓ Yes

Permissive with a patent grant: keep LICENSE and NOTICE files and mark files you changed.

MPL-2.0, LGPL-2.1, LGPL-3.0, EPL-2.0, EPL-1.0, CDDL-1.0 and 3 more

• Sell a closed-source app: ⚠ Conditions
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ✓ Yes
• Keep your changes private: ⚠ Conditions

Weak copyleft: if you distribute it, changes to these files (or this library) must be shared; your own code can stay closed. Hosting without distributing triggers nothing.

EUPL-1.1, EUPL-1.2, OSL-3.0

• Sell a closed-source app: ⚠ Conditions
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ⚠ Conditions
• Keep your changes private: ⚠ Conditions

Copyleft with network-use clauses: providing it as a service can count as distribution, so share your changes to it.

GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0

• Sell a closed-source app: ✗ No
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ✓ Yes
• Keep your changes private: ⚠ Conditions

Strong copyleft: if you distribute software containing it, your whole program must be GPL. Running it only on your server (SaaS) does not trigger this - but GPL JavaScript sent to users' browsers is distribution.

AGPL-3.0

• Sell a closed-source app: ✗ No
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ⚠ Conditions
• Keep your changes private: ⚠ Conditions

Network copyleft: you can host it (even for money), but users who interact with it must be offered your full modified source. Closed-source SaaS is not allowed; private changes are fine only if nobody outside uses them.

SSPL-1.0, Commons-Clause, PolyForm-Noncommercial-1.0.0, CC-BY-NC-4.0, CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0, CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

• Sell a closed-source app: ✗ No
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ✗ No
• Keep your changes private: ⚠ Conditions

Source-available / non-commercial, not open source: commercial or competing hosted use is restricted or needs a paid license from the author.

BUSL-1.1, Elastic-2.0, FSL-1.1

• Sell a closed-source app: ⚠ Conditions
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ✗ No
• Keep your changes private: ⚠ Conditions

Source-available: offering it as a hosted/managed service that competes with the author is forbidden. Other uses may be allowed - BUSL repos often add an 'Additional Use Grant'; read it. Converts to open source after a few years (BUSL/FSL).

CC-BY-4.0

• Sell a closed-source app: ⚠ Conditions
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ⚠ Conditions
• Keep your changes private: ✓ Yes

Creative Commons is meant for content, not code: credit the author. Fine for docs/data, awkward for software.

CC-BY-SA-4.0

• Sell a closed-source app: ✗ No
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ⚠ Conditions
• Keep your changes private: ⚠ Conditions

Share-alike content license: adaptations you distribute must use the same license. Meant for content, not code.

CC-BY-ND-4.0

• Sell a closed-source app: ✗ No
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ✗ No
• Keep your changes private: ✗ No

No-derivatives: you may share it unchanged with credit, nothing else.

OFL-1.1, ODbL-1.0, GFDL-1.3, GFDL-1.2

• Sell a closed-source app: ⚠ Conditions
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ⚠ Conditions
• Keep your changes private: ⚠ Conditions

A font / database / documentation license, not a software license: usually fine to use and bundle (fonts can't be sold on their own; ODbL derived databases must stay open). Read it for your case.

• Sell a closed-source app: ✗ No
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ✗ No
• Keep your changes private: ✗ No

No license = all rights reserved. You may read it, but not copy, modify or host it without the author's permission.

NOASSERTION, other

• Sell a closed-source app: ? Unclear
• Paid hosted service (SaaS): ? Unclear
• Keep your changes private: ? Unclear

GitHub couldn't identify this license (custom text, or several licenses like 'MIT OR Apache-2.0'). Read the LICENSE file yourself - custom licenses often add non-commercial or no-hosting clauses.

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