> /v1/glossary/elv2 · LICENSE-MODEL
Elastic License v2(ELv2)
Elastic's source-available license that prohibits offering the software as a managed service.
Elastic License v2 (ELv2) is a source-available license created by Elastic in 2021 when they relicensed Elasticsearch and Kibana away from Apache 2.0. It allows source access, modification, redistribution, and commercial use — except for one carved-out restriction: you cannot provide the software as a managed service to third parties.
This is targeted directly at AWS, which had been offering "Amazon Elasticsearch Service" since 2015 without significantly contributing back. AWS responded by forking the last Apache 2.0 version into OpenSearch, which they continue to maintain.
ELv2 is not OSI-approved as open source. Elastic has been clear about this — they call ELv2 "source-available" rather than open source.
Other adopters: relatively few. Most companies that want similar protection have opted for BSL (HashiCorp), SSPL (MongoDB, Redis), or FSL (Sentry).
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