ZeroTier’s software is open source and free to use for most purposes including personal use, internal use within a business or academic institution, and evaluation for uses that require commercial licensing.
See the license terms section below for more information about which use cases do require a commercial license.
Network Controller Hosting
Creating and administrating a virtual network with ZeroTier requires a network controller. ZeroTier provides hosted network controllers with a friendly web interface, permission management, and an API via our my.zerotier.com service. This is free for most users, does not require a credit card, and is the best way to get familiar with ZeroTier.
If you don’t want to use our service and have some IT expertise you can run your own network controller. A small $5 USD per month cloud node can easily run a network controller for several thousand network members.
License Terms
ZeroTier software is licensed under the ZeroTier BSL, a license based on the Business Source License (BSL) version 1.1 developed by MariaDB. This license has been adopted by other commercial open source projects such as CockroachDB as an alternative to the more cumbersome and less clear GPL dual-licensing model.
The BSL works by allowing source code access and free use for all but a list of specific restricted use cases that may be defined on a per-licensed-work basis. For these use cases a separate commercial license is required. The BSL also carries an expiration date (“change date”) after which the licensed work reverts to a more permissive license of the author’s choice (Apache License 2.0 in our case). Each major release can carry an updated change date, allowing the author to extend the BSL’s coverage into the future for new releases. The existence of a change date means that should the original project’s author(s) abandon the project it will eventually fall into a more permissive open source license and can be taken over by the community.
Most uses of ZeroTier are free. We require a commercial license if you want to incorporate ZeroTier into a closed-source product, offer a for-profit service that competes with our own SaaS offerings at my.zerotier.com, or use the software in certain government or military roles.
To help you understand our licensing scheme, this table provides examples of uses that do and do not require a commercial license.
| Free | Commercial License Needed |
| Use ZeroTier to connect personal devices | Build ZeroTier into a proprietary device that contains non-open-source software |
| Play LAN games with your friends | Run your own for-profit service similar to our own my.zerotier.com (“SaaS-ification”) |
| Use ZeroTier internally as a VPN, SD-WAN, or multi-cloud / hybrid cloud networking solution | Deploy ZeroTier in an active duty military or intelligence setting |
| Link or embed ZeroTier in a free and open source application | Link or embed ZeroTier software in a closed source application |
| Package ZeroTier (labeled as such) and distribute it for free in an app store or other software repository | Re-brand or “white label” ZeroTier and distribute it with your own application or service |
| Request that your users install ZeroTier (by name) so they can use it to access a service (free or paid) | |
| Use ZeroTier to connect and collaborate with other companies or outside contractors |
Commercial Licensing
Our standard commercial license pricing structure is below. We are open to variations in terms or discounts for early stage startups, independent software publishers, very large customers, customers with special certification or integration assistance needs, or customers that will find it difficult or impossible to correctly estimate the number of licensed devices.
Base Rate: $750/month (USD) or $8400/year if billed yearly
Per-Endpoint License Cost (Recurring)
| 1-100 | Included in Base Rate |
| 101-1000 | $1/device/month (USD) |
| 1001-10000 | $0.50/device/month (USD) |
| 10001+ | $0.25/device/month (USD) |
| Unknown / Impossible to Audit | Contact Us |
An endpoint is any instance of the ZeroTier network virtualization engine such as a single mobile device, desktop, laptop, virtual machine, container, or running application instance.
A commercial license also includes unlimited use of my.zerotier.com and direct team chat support via a private channel in our messaging system for fast elevated priority support and assistance.
Enterprise Support and Consulting
We offer enterprise support and consulting to select customers, typically to help on-board them for new commercial uses of ZeroTier. Contact us if you would like to discuss.