Open source meets the real world
Umbraco is available under two different licensing schemes to meet your needs; an open source version that is completely free, and a commercial version that includes a license fee.
The open source version
The free open source version is the complete umbraco product, with no limitations on functionality or use. You are free to use umbraco for your clients, your blog, your mom’s website and just about any other commercial or non-commercial project you can think of.
At the same time, you are free to download the source code, see what makes the cogs turn, and even tweak it. Of course we would appreciate if you send in bugfixes, come to one of our courses or just help out in the forum - but that is completely up to you.
The commercial version
The commercial version of umbraco allows two things that the free version doesn't:
Re-distribution with 3rd party applications, and rebranding the user interface.
If you want to use umbraco as the foundation of a web-application or you wish to sell umbraco under a different name, brand, or as part of larger application then the commercial version is for you. Saying it another way, if you plan on removing the umbraco logos or want to resell umbraco as part of larger application, you need the commercial version.
We love the fact that many very large companies run their highly commercial websites on the free version of umbraco. We’re committed to open source and even offer professional support packages for those using the open source version of umbraco. But we also know that there might be cases where open source is a no go.
With umbraco you we support both worlds.