Open Source

I'm going to be real with you. I'm a software developer, you probably are too. I love open source software so much. I'm typing this on an Ubuntu powered laptop using the Firefox web browser. Both pieces of software are open source, but honestly almost every piece of software we use is powered by open source in one form or another.

Beekeeper Studio is no different. A significant portion of Beekeeper Studio's source code is available on GitHub under the GPLv3 license (which helps keep all forks open source too).

As part of my commitment to open source I provide a community edition of Beekeeper Studio which is made up entirely of open source code. It has fewer features, but for a student or someone just getting started with databases, it is perfect.

You can download the community edition on our GitHub releases page.

Source availability of commercial components

I hope in the future to make all Beekeeper Studio code available publically on GitHub, with the commercial code being source available.

Beekeeper Studio started as an open source project

I owe the success of Beekeeper Studio to open source and the open source community. Initially the whole application was available under the GPL license.

As the project has grown, maintaining such a large project without any revenue became impossible, and so I made the decision to create a commercial fork.

I maintain a generous community edition because open source is very important to me, and I don't want to leave my free users in the lurch. If I could support myself with a fully open source, and free, application, I would, but unfortunately that is not possible.

All purchases of Beekeeper Studio support continued investment in the open source community edition.