Answer a few questions to find the right open-source license, then generate the full license text and a README template with a badge — all in your browser.
Check whether code under one license can be combined into a project under another. Independent of the questionnaire below — the two tools ask different questions, but both now cover the same 11 licenses.
Verdicts are drawn from the FSF GNU license list, choosealicense.com/appendix, and each license's own compatibility clause (LGPL-2.1 §3, LGPL-3.0 §3, MPL-2.0 Exhibit B, AGPL-3.0 §13). "Conditional" means the outcome depends on specifics — a linking mechanism, an "-or-later" version grant — spelled out in the reason column, not a yes/no.
Not legal advice — reference only. Licenses get revised and this table can drift from the latest wording; for anything that matters, read the current license text or consult a lawyer.
Every direction for all 11 licenses. Compatibility is directional: Apache-2.0 code can be taken into a GPL-3.0 work, but GPL-3.0 code cannot be relicensed as Apache-2.0, so a pair gets a different verdict each way.
Provides: {{ selectedFeatures.join(', ') || 'no conditions at all' }}
Every license in the dropdown permits commercial use. If you need to prohibit it, none of these open-source licenses fits that requirement.
Network use with source disclosure is AGPL-3.0's whole point — the recommendation above switched to it; pick GPLv3 instead if you want copyleft without the network clause.
MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD-2-Clause and BSD-3-Clause are permissive: anyone can use, modify and even relicense your code inside closed-source products; Apache-2.0 additionally grants an explicit patent license and asks that changes be marked. GPLv3, GPL-2.0, LGPL-2.1, LGPL-3.0 and MPL-2.0 are copyleft to varying degrees, from MPL's per-file requirement to GPL's whole-program requirement, which protects user freedom but restricts proprietary reuse. AGPL-3.0 extends GPLv3's copyleft to cover network use. Unlicense waives copyright entirely and dedicates the code to the public domain, with no conditions of any kind.
The Unlicense dedicates the work to the public domain — no name or year is written into the text.
The questionnaire maps your answers to the closest of four common licenses (MIT, Apache-2.0, GPLv3, AGPL-3.0 for the network-use case) via a small feature matrix (commercial use, copyleft, patent grant, liability disclaimer), but the dropdown offers 11 licenses in total — always override the recommendation and pick any of them directly; the generated text always matches whichever license is selected.
License text comes from each license's own official template (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD-2-Clause, BSD-3-Clause, MPL-2.0, LGPL-2.1, LGPL-3.0, GPLv2, GPLv3, AGPL-3.0, Unlicense) with only the copyright holder and year substituted in where that license defines such a field; nothing else is altered, so the output stays a faithful, unmodified copy of each license.
Everything is generated locally in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The copyright holder name and README fields are saved in this browser's local storage so they carry over next time — clear it to remove them.
