License FAQ

What counts as “production use”?

Production use means using Ella Core to carry live traffic or provide network connectivity for real operational purposes — that is, operating it as a working mobile network, or part of one. Any other use is free.

Free — no license needed

• Trying out, evaluating, or benchmarking Ella Core.
• Developing or testing your own product against Ella Core.
• Research, experimentation, coursework, and teaching.
• Developing, testing, or experimenting with Ella Core at home (a home lab or hobby).

Requires a Production license

• Operating Ella Core as a live mobile network for an organization of any kind — commercial, government, military, public-sector, educational, healthcare, or nonprofit (for example, an enterprise running its own private network).
• Offering, hosting, deploying, integrating, or reselling Ella Core, or network services based on it, to others (for example, a systems integrator running networks for enterprise customers, or a managed or hosted service).
• Embedding Ella Core in a hardware product or appliance and selling those systems to others (OEM or embedded use).

See pricing or contact us to get a Production license.

What does a Production license cover?

Ella Core is licensed per instance — a single running copy of Ella Core (one Ella Core service). You need one license for every running instance in production.

High-availability and redundant setups are licensed per running instance: a three-node HA cluster is three instances and needs three licenses.

What happens after four years?

Each released version of Ella Core becomes available under the Apache License, Version 2.0 four years after it is published (the Change Date). After that date, these restrictions no longer apply to that version.

Is Ella Core open source?

Ella Core is source-available: the full source is public, and you can read, modify, and build on it.