Starting with v0.1.0, PgDesigner is open source under the Apache License 2.0. Use it at work, in CI, for client projects — no license key, no seat count, no registration.
Why we changed the license
PgDesigner launched under PolyForm Noncommercial: free for personal use, a paid license for commercial use. In practice, that model worked against the people PgDesigner is built for:
- Companies couldn’t adopt it. A noncommercial license sends a developer tool to legal review, and most teams stop there. Yet most PostgreSQL schemas live at companies.
- CI was a grey zone.
pgdesigner lint and pgdesigner diff are meant to run on every pull request. Under a noncommercial license, every company pipeline needed a purchase decision first.
- It wasn’t open source. Package managers, Linux distributions, and many developers treat source-available licenses as proprietary.
- There was nothing to enforce anyway. PgDesigner never had license checks — every build had every feature. The license only added friction.
What changes
- Everything is free for any use, including commercial. No paid edition, no feature gates.
- All earlier releases are covered too. If you used a previous version, it’s now available under Apache-2.0 — nothing to do on your side.
- The registration prompt is gone. No “[unregistered]” in the title bar, no email field in the About dialog.
- Contributions are welcome. Pull requests are accepted under Apache-2.0 — sign off your commits with
git commit -s (Developer Certificate of Origin). No CLA.
- Same distribution. Homebrew, GitHub Releases (macOS builds are signed and notarized), and Docker images on GHCR.
The PgDesigner name and logo are not covered by the license — forks should use a different name.
How we fund development
Instead of selling licenses, we sell our time:
- Priority Support — $149/year per company. Private email, a response within 2 business days, your team’s bugs first in the queue, and help migrating models from MicroOLAP, DbSchema, Toad Data Modeler, or a live database.
- Enterprise Support — from $990/year. Response within 1 business day, a private chat channel, an onboarding call, and payment by invoice or PO.
- Sponsored development. Need an import format, a lint rule for your conventions, or a roadmap feature sooner? We’ll quote it, and it ships in the open-source release.
Community support stays free on GitHub Issues and Discussions.
Get started
brew tap vmkteam/tap
brew install pgdesigner
If PgDesigner is useful to you, a star on GitHub helps other PostgreSQL developers find it.