MigraDiff / Licensing

MigraDiff. Honest licensing.

MIT licensed. Free to download and test. Commercial usage requires a special usage license.

MIT License

Free Forever

Community & Evaluation — individuals, open source projects, teams evaluating

Built by a CISSP-certified engineer with 8 years in critical healthcare infrastructure.

Evaluating for a commercial deployment? Use the MIT version free, no time limit. Purchase when you're ready to ship to production.

Why Licensed Open Source Protects Your Database Operations

ROI vs. Operational Cost. A botched schema migration causes hours of downtime ($10k–$500k+ in lost revenue/productivity), data corruption cleanup, and emergency engineering hours. MigraDiff prevents these incidents outright and saves significant engineer time annually on migration reviews and troubleshooting. One avoided migration failure pays for years of licensing.

Legal & Compliance Protection. Licensed open source for database tools provides audit trail documentation for schema changes (required for SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR), legal liability clarity on who's responsible if data integrity issues occur, compliance documentation for regulatory audits, data governance evidence critical for financial and healthcare industries, and defensibility if a migration causes customer data issues.

Why Legal & Compliance Teams Prefer Licensed Open Source for Databases. Data integrity is non-negotiable — you need vendor accountability, not volunteer maintenance. An explicit legal agreement protects the company if migrations fail. It demonstrates enterprise-grade diligence to auditors and regulators. Insurance and liability coverage often requires documented, licensed tools rather than free community projects. And it reduces supply chain risk on mission-critical infrastructure.

Additional Business Benefits. Email support included — critical for production database issues. Vendor accountability means you can escalate issues, not wait for GitHub volunteers. Enterprise reliability with SLA guarantees for business-critical migrations. Confidence in complex migrations across multi-schema, high-traffic databases. And proper risk management that insurance and regulatory bodies trust from licensed vendors.

MIT or Business License?

MIT License (Free)

Who: Individuals, non-profits, students, open source projects, evaluation

Cost: Free

Features: All features included, unlimited use

Time Limit: None — use forever

Support: Community (GitHub issues)

Examples:

  • Solo founder working alone
  • Non-profit organization
  • University research project
  • Open source maintainer
  • Teams evaluating for production
Download (MIT)

Simple Rule: Evaluate freely, no time limit. A Business License is required when your team ships to production. Questions? Just ask.

Common questions.

Do I need a license if I'm a solo founder?+

No. Solo founders without employees can use MigraDiff under the free MIT license forever. This includes indie hackers, one-person SaaS businesses, and bootstrapped founders.

What if I'm using it for open source?+

Open source projects always use the free MIT license, even if they're backed by companies. The license applies to the *project*, not the organization.

Can I run everything locally?+

Yes. There are no hosted services, no SaaS, no cloud lock-in. Everything runs on your infrastructure with your credentials. You own your data completely.

Does the license restrict code access?+

No. All MigraDiff code stays open source under MIT. The Business License is a *legal agreement*, not a technical restriction. No code gatekeeping, no features disabled.

What counts as "employees"?+

Anyone on your payroll or W2/contractor. If you're paying people to work for your company (including yourself on a salary), you have employees. Solo founders without employees don't.

What about startups with VC funding?+

If you have employees (even two founders with a hire), you need a Business License. We recommend the Small Team license as a starting point.

Is there a free trial?+

Yes—the entire MIT License is a free trial. Use MigraDiff fully for free. When you add employees or cross the commercial threshold, upgrade to a Business License.

What if I'm not sure which tier I need?+

No problem. Contact us with your situation and we'll help you pick the right license. No judgment, just fairness.

Questions?

Not sure which license you need? Need a custom arrangement? Let's talk.

Email: licensing@lateos.ai

Or reach out on GitHub