License
TurboLLM is source-available under the Functional Source License 1.1 with an Apache-2.0 future grant — SPDX identifier FSL-1.1-ALv2. It's free for the ways most people actually use it, with a single restriction aimed at competitors.
Summary
The Functional Source License (FSL) keeps the source open and readable while protecting the project from being repackaged as a competing product. In practice, that means you can use TurboLLM freely for almost everything except shipping a rival product built on it.
FSL-1.1-ALv2 — Functional Source License 1.1 with an Apache-2.0 future grant.
What you can do
These uses are permitted, free of charge:
Personal use
Run TurboLLM on your own machine for your own projects, hobbies, and experiments.
Internal business use
Use it inside your company for internal tooling and workflows.
Education
Use it for teaching, coursework, and learning.
Research
Use it in academic and non-academic research.
The one restriction
The only thing the license restricts is using TurboLLM to build or ship a competing product. Everything else in the "What you can do" list above stays free.
You may not use TurboLLM to make a product that competes with TurboLLM. That's the single boundary the FSL draws.
The Apache-2.0 future grant
The FSL includes an irrevocable future grant: each release converts to the permissive Apache License 2.0 exactly two years after that release is published. The first public release shipped in June 2026, so it converts in June 2028 — and every release after it follows on its own two-year clock. That's what the -ALv2 suffix in FSL-1.1-ALv2 denotes.
Why not MIT or Apache from day one?
TurboLLM is built by a solo maintainer. The FSL prevents a large vendor from re-skinning the project as their own competing product while it's young — and the irrevocable future grant guarantees the full open-source outcome anyway. It's the same honest trade-off Sentry popularized: source-available now, permissive later, stated plainly.
Full license text
This page is a plain-language summary, not the license itself. For the authoritative, legally binding terms, read LICENSE.md in the repository.
The complete license lives in the TurboLLM repository — read LICENSE.md for the binding terms.