Short version. Can you use AGPL software commercially? Yes, and nothing in the licence restricts who may run it or for what. The condition is about source: if you modify the program and let people use it over a network, Section 13 says you must offer those users the source of your modified version; if you distribute copies, the source goes with them. Running it unmodified, as a service or otherwise, obliges you to nothing, and your own systems that call its API are unaffected.
AGPL has a reputation as the licence that infects everything it touches. That reputation costs good software adoption it should have had, and it comes from one clause that most people have never read. Here is what it does, what it does not, and when to buy your way out of it.
This is a working summary from people who publish under AGPL, not legal advice; each section is linked so your counsel can check it.
Can you use AGPL software commercially?
Yes, and the licence says so in as many words. Section 2 of the AGPL-3.0 “explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program”, and lets you make, run and propagate copies you do not convey “without conditions”. There is no field-of-use restriction and no clause about commercial use anywhere in the text.
Selling is allowed too. Section 4 lets you “charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey”, and charge for support or warranty. The FSF’s FAQ answers the same question for the GPL family: the right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software.
What AGPL controls is not whether you make money, but whether the people you serve can get the source of what they are using.
AGPL and SaaS: the one clause that makes it different
GPL says: distribute the software, and you must offer the source of your version.
The gap that opened in the 2000s was that running software as a service is not distribution. A company could take GPL code, modify it heavily, run it as a web application, and never distribute a byte. The FSF’s own FAQ confirms that under the GPL such a company does not have to release its modified sources.
AGPL-3.0 Section 13 closes that gap. If you modify the program, your modified version “must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network” an opportunity to receive its Corresponding Source, from a network server, at no charge. The FAQ states the SaaS case plainly: a company running a modified AGPL program on a web site must release the modified source code to that site’s users.
Two conditions, and both must hold: a modified version, and remote interaction with it. The FAQ reads the second as a program expressly designed to accept user requests and send responses over a network, such as a web application, not one that merely happens to be reached over SSH.
What does not trigger it
Most real commercial use does not. Specifically:
Running it unmodified. No changes, no Section 13 obligation, however commercially you use it. Deploy it for a fleet of ten thousand vehicles and charge for the service: as long as you have not modified the program, Section 13 has nothing to say.
Configuration. Section 0 defines modifying as adapting the work in a way that requires copyright permission. Environment variables, values entered in the admin screens, an uploaded logo and report colours are using the program, not adapting it. Editing its source files, including templates that ship in the source, is a modification.
Your own separate systems. Your ERP that calls the API is not part of the program. The FAQ’s test for whether two pieces of software are one program looks at how they communicate: pipes, sockets and command-line arguments normally mean separate programs, though communication that exchanges complex internal data structures could count as combining them. An ERP talking to a documented HTTP API is the ordinary case.
Modifying it for your own organisation. This one deserves precision rather than reassurance. Section 13 speaks of “all users”, and the text does not exempt employees by name. But the people entitled to the source are those users, which here means your own staff, so even the strictest reading gives nobody outside your organisation a right to anything. The FAQ treats an organisation making copies for itself as not distributing; handing copies to contractors for off-site use is distribution.
What does trigger it
Modifying it and offering it to third parties over a network. This is the SaaS and reselling case. You add an integration or change a screen, your customers log in over the internet, and those customers are entitled to the source of your modified version under AGPL.
Distributing copies, modified or not. Installing it on a customer’s servers, or shipping it inside a product, is conveying. Sections 4 to 6 then apply as they do under the GPL: the recipient gets the licence and the corresponding source, and may pass both on.
Note who is entitled: the users of your instance, or the recipients of your copies, not the world. The FAQ makes the same point for the GPL: there is no requirement to post modified source to the public, only to make it available to the program’s users. The practical difference is smaller than it sounds, because any one of those users may then publish it.
AGPL vs GPL for SaaS
| GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| Run unmodified as a hosted service | No obligation | No obligation |
| Run a modified version as a hosted service | No obligation | Offer source to network users (Section 13) |
| Distribute copies | Provide source | Provide source |
| Modify for internal use | No obligation | Source to your own users at most |
| Combine with the other licence | Permitted | Permitted (Section 13, second paragraph) |
The two licences are deliberately compatible: each explicitly permits linking with code under the other. For SaaS, the difference comes down to the second row.
When AGPL commercial use needs a commercial licence
Once the trigger is clear, the cases are easy to identify.
1. You resell or host it for customers, with modifications. The integration work you consider your competitive advantage is exactly what Section 13 would have you hand over. A commercial licence removes the disclosure obligation. This is the common case, and it is the whole white-label discussion.
2. Procurement or security policy forbids AGPL outright. Plenty of large organisations maintain a licence blocklist with AGPL on it, applied without reference to whether the trigger conditions could ever occur. Arguing with a policy is a bad use of a quarter; buying the alternative licence is a purchase order.
3. You need warranty and indemnity. AGPL disclaims warranty in Section 15 and limits liability in Section 16, as most open-source licences do. If your contract with your customer requires you to stand behind the software, you need somebody standing behind it for you. A licence that includes warranty, indemnity and a support agreement is the mechanism.
4. You are being acquired, or raising. Due diligence asks what your stack is licensed under and what obligations attach. “AGPL, and here is our commercial licence” is a two-line answer. “AGPL, and we believe we do not trigger Section 13” is a diligence thread.
Why publish under AGPL at all
A fair question from someone deciding whether to depend on us.
It answers the question the whole product is about. “Self-hosted, and your data is yours” is a claim; a licence that guarantees you receive the source and may modify it is that claim in enforceable form. A proprietary self-hosted licence would leave you dependent on us in exactly the way the product says you should not be dependent on a vendor.
And it makes the commercial licence honest. It is not paying for access to something otherwise hidden; the software is there either way. It is paying to be released from an obligation, and to receive commitments the free licence explicitly disclaims.
Frequently asked
Can I use AGPL-3.0 software commercially?
Yes. Section 2 affirms unlimited permission to run the unmodified program, and nothing in the licence restricts commercial use. The obligations start when you modify it and serve it over a network (Section 13), or when you distribute copies (Sections 4 to 6).
Does AGPL apply to SaaS?
Yes; that is what it was written for. If you run a modified AGPL program as a hosted service, Section 13 requires you to offer its users the source of your version. If you run it unmodified, there is nothing to offer beyond what is already published.
Can I sell AGPL software?
Yes. Section 4 lets you charge any price for copies you convey, and charge for support or warranty. What you cannot do is sell it on narrower terms: the buyer receives the AGPL and the source, may redistribute both, and Section 10 forbids charging a royalty for exercising those rights.
AGPL vs GPL for SaaS: what is the difference?
The GPL never triggers on network use, so a modified GPL program can run as a service with no obligation. The AGPL adds Section 13, which requires you to offer the source of a modified version to its network users. On distribution, the two are the same.
Do I have to open-source my whole application?
No, and this is the misconception that does the most damage. Your ERP, your billing and your internal tools that talk to the program over HTTP are separate programs. AGPL reaches the covered program and anything combined with it into a single work, not everything that speaks to it.
If we modify it internally, do we have to publish?
No. At most, your own users, which is to say your staff, are entitled to the source of the modified version. Nobody outside the organisation acquires a right to it.
What counts as a modification?
Changing the program’s source, in the Section 0 sense of adapting it in a way that requires copyright permission. Configuration, uploaded branding, data and separately deployed adjacent services are not modifications.
Who enforces this?
The copyright holder, which for Routly is the publisher. The licence is built around putting things right rather than punishment: under Section 8, a first-time violator who cures within 30 days of being notified has the licence reinstated permanently. That is not a reason to be casual about it if you are reselling.
Can the licence be revoked?
Not while you comply. Section 2 grants the rights for the term of copyright and calls them “irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met”. Breaching the licence terminates it under Section 8, with the reinstatement route above. That is a large part of why a self-hosted deployment under it is safer than one under a proprietary licence the vendor can end.
Is AGPL OSI-approved?
Yes. The Open Source Initiative approved AGPL-3.0 in March 2008. It is an open-source licence, not a source-available one, a distinction worth making if your policy treats the two differently.
Where that leaves you
If you run it as shipped, or modify it for yourself, AGPL asks nothing of you. If you modify it and serve it to customers over a network, it asks for those modifications. If that is your business, the commercial licence exists and is quoted per case, and it comes with the warranty and indemnity the free licence explicitly does not.
The licence text is not long. If you are about to build a business on it, read Section 13 yourself rather than taking anyone’s summary, including this one.
