Hi community, I am new to discourse, and I want to better understand the licensing model. For what I read online I see its open source, so we can host it in our own servers or hosting servers and have a forum setup. What I want to understand is if all the plugins will also be available for free on the Open Source version or if these are only available for paid customers on certain plans. Additionally, I want to understand if I can use Open Source discourse for setting up comercial services or products. Thanks a lot for your feedback

Hi @fer :wave: welcome to Discourse Meta :slight_smile: To answer your questions - [image] Fernando Scheps: if all the plugins will also be available for free on the Open Source version or if these are only available for paid customers on certain plans. You can use any plugins you choose if you are self-hosting, that is why we include a link to self-install plugins instructions on all of our plugin pages. Please note that we support only the standard install instructions for self-hosting. That isn’t to say other installs are not possible, but it likely won’t be as easy to get support here on Meta with non-standard installs. [image] Install plugins on a self-hosted site Self-Hosting warning This guide assumes that you have a self-hosted standard installation. We only support the standard method of install here, so these instructions assume you have a standard install. warning This guide only applies to self-hosted Discourse instances. If you are using a managed hosting service, the available plugins are controlled by your hosting provider. For example, on our hosting these specific plugins are available by hosting tier. information_source As of mid-2025, many p… [image] Fernando Scheps: I want to understand if I can use Open Source discourse for setting up comercial services or products. You can use it for whatever purpose you wish if you are self-hosting.

Are plugins free using the open-source, self-host option?

Product Support Self-hosting

fer (Fernando Scheps) March 10, 2024, 3:08pm 3

Thanks a lot!

Topic		Replies	Views
Seen lots of threads asking if Discourse is free when self hosted but nothing about the plugins Product Support	4	512	May 11, 2024
Few questions about the software (new comer) Self-hosting hosting	3	1184	April 14, 2021
Which features are available w/ the open source GitHub version? Product Support	1	244	May 5, 2024
Local installation with all features Self-hosting	2	774	August 2, 2019
Can I self-host this for free? Self-hosting hosting	3	21308	December 21, 2017

Are plugins free using the open-source, self-host option?

Related topics