Background

On May 28, 2025, dbt Labs announced the next-generation dbt Fusion engine, designed to be faster, more capable, and more efficient than the Python engine powering dbt Core v1.x. Later on June 1, 2026, the company announced that Fusion would power both the open-source and proprietary distributions of the dbt v2.0 framework and published the relevant Apache 2.0 code in the dbt-core repository.

As part of dbt v2’s release to general availability during dbt Summit 2026, dbt Labs announced final branding for the v2 era: the full distribution is called dbt, and its Apache 2.0 subset is called dbt OSS. The dbt Core name no longer applies to any dbt v2 distribution.

Is the license for dbt Core v1.x changing?

No, it is still Apache 2.0.

Is the license for dbt OSS changing compared to dbt Core v1.x?

No, it is Apache 2.0 as well.

Does dbt OSS contain all of the same code that was previously published as dbt Core 2.0?

Yes.

Why change the name if the code is the same?

The code is the same, but the semantics are different. Historically, “dbt Core” was a shorthand for “the free version of dbt,” “the local version of dbt,” or “the open source version of dbt.”

In the v2 era, both distributions are now available as free and local, and we think that the dbt OSS name will better explain each distribution’s purpose.

For existing beta users of dbt Core v2, this is purely a rebrand; there are no changes to what code is publicly available, or what you can do with it. If you currently use “dbt Core” because you want a free, local version of dbt, you can now get this from the full dbt v2 distribution.

Will dbt Labs continue to support and maintain dbt Core v1.x?

Yes. When it’s released, dbt Core 1.13 will be the final minor version of 1.x. dbt Core 1.13 will continue to receive critical support (security and installation patch releases) beyond the normal 1 year window. We don’t have a hard cutoff date defined, but we expect it to be several (3-5) years. We will monitor adoption of dbt v2 and provide ample notice before a final end-of-life date for dbt Core v1.x.

What are the two distributions of dbt v2?

Version 2 of the dbt framework has two distributions which can both be installed locally for free, powered by a single engine:

• dbt (formerly known as the dbt Fusion engine) is the main distribution. It contains everything that dbt OSS offers, plus additional features (such as SQL comprehension) derived from proprietary code.
• dbt OSS is the completely open-source subset of dbt. It is entirely built on code released under the Apache 2.0 license.

Teams (and even other competitive vendors) can use the full dbt distribution for free.

We recommend that most teams install dbt, which has more capabilities available than its Apache counterpart even if you never engage with dbt Labs.

What happened to the ELv2-licensed code in the dbt-fusion repository?

It is now in the dbt repository under the more permissive Apache 2.0 license.

Do I need a dbt platform account, or to be a paying dbt platform customer in order to use dbt?

No.

Do I need a dbt platform account, or to be a paying dbt platform customer in order to access some premium features of dbt?

No. The dbt platform is a separate product with offerings like dbt Wizard, dbt State and more.

dbt itself is available for free and all features in the engine (including SQL comprehension, the LSP and the VS Code extension it powers) can be accessed without login.

Is there any limit to the number of users at a company who can use dbt for free?

No.

Is there any limit to the number of users at a company who can use the dbt VS Code extension or LSP for free?

No. Both the VS Code extension and dbt itself are now licensed under the dbt Product Licensing Agreement, so previous restrictions such as the 15 user cap no longer apply.

What do I, a dbt Core v1.x user, need to know about the new dbt distribution?

As long as you aren't offering dbt as a hosted or managed service to a third party, you should think about using it in almost exactly the same way you think about using dbt Core historically. It’s free, you can contribute to its development, and you can adopt it across your organization without asking permission or changing your existing deployment method.

You can use the full version of dbt internally, for free and without restriction. This includes using dbt to provide transformed data to other customers. However, if you are providing your customers a product powered by the proprietary dbt version, you must enable your customers to authenticate and use dbt platform services unobstructed.

Licenses

What licenses does dbt Labs use for dbt products?

dbt Labs uses different license types for different software offerings: the Apache 2.0 license, the dbt Product Licensing Agreement, and other commercial terms of service.

• dbt OSS is released under the Apache 2.0 license, which is an Open Source software license that permits anyone to use, copy, redistribute, or modify the licensed software without warranty, conditions, or limitations, aside from the requirement to preserve license notices, attribution, and trademarks.
• The full version of dbt extends the capabilities of dbt OSS with code proprietary to dbt Labs. dbt is made available to customers and partners under the dbt Product Licensing Agreement, which allows broad adoption subject to terms designed to support the sustainable business of its developer and maintainer (dbt Labs).
• Other software is proprietary to dbt Labs (e.g. the dbt platform) and made available to customers and partners under commercial terms of service. This includes software that is available for free, within usage limits.

Has dbt Labs’ commitment to open source changed?

No. The commitments Fivetran + dbt Labs President Tristan Handy made in a blog post introducing the dbt Fusion engine and again when announcing Fivetran and dbt Labs’ merger apply to dbt OSS in the exact same way as they did to dbt Core.

The combined company will continue maintaining the open source version of the dbt framework (i.e. dbt OSS) under the Apache 2 license indefinitely. Fivetran + dbt Labs is committed to the ecosystem around dbt OSS, and the thousands of users and customers who rely on it for their data work every day.

Does a single shared engine mean that the open source offering is being replaced?

No, there will always be an open source implementation of the dbt framework, which includes a language and an engine.

The dbt language, the code you can write in your dbt project, has become a standard for the industry. dbt Labs has developed this language, with contributions and input from the community, in historical dbt Core over the past decade.

The dbt engine is the foundational technology for compiling dbt projects, executing transformation graphs, and producing metadata. There is an entirely new next-generation engine for v2 of the dbt framework, written in a different programming language (Rust) than dbt v1.x (Python).

Instead of maintaining two engines in two languages, dbt Labs has open sourced the code required to produce dbt OSS: a completely Apache-licensed Rust distribution of dbt v2. We are committed to maintaining and continuing to expand the dbt language across both distributions, exactly as we have done to date. You should expect to see new dbt OSS versions (v2.1, v2.2, etc) that include support for new language features and fixes. dbt Labs will also continue to evaluate and integrate external contributions from the community.

How is dbt licensed?

The dbt Product Licensing Agreement terms only apply to the proprietary dbt binary (not the dbt OSS binary or code) and strike the balance of providing openness and flexibility for users, while also providing protections for dbt Labs to build a sustainable business as the software’s primary developer and maintainer.

As a user of the proprietary dbt binary, you can do almost anything with the software, except:

• If you redistribute dbt to others as a managed service, you must permit your end users to utilize the full capabilities of dbt, including dbt platform features gated behind login, if they choose to do so. User login must be accessible through standard documented flows.
• You cannot circumvent the dbt platform’s login functionality or attempt to derive dbt’s proprietary source code.
• You cannot remove or obscure any notices about dbt’s license or dbt’s trademarks/copyrights.

Why does the proprietary distribution of dbt not use ELv2 any more?

The primary purpose of the Elastic License (ELv2) is to prevent a tool’s use in competing products which host that tool as a service. Now that dbt OSS and dbt are built on the same engine – using code which was relicensed from ELv2 to Apache 2.0 – preventing competitive deployments of dbt is not a priority.

Third party vendors can offer dbt as a managed service – including the advanced features which are available without login – provided they do not prevent users from logging in and enabling the dbt platform’s premium features. This also aligns with the goals of Open Data Infrastructure, which at its heart prioritizes flexible tool choice, low switching costs, and interoperability with established standards.

We would prefer users accessing managed dbt services from other vendors (e.g. a different orchestrator) to adopt the full dbt binary, so they can seamlessly opt into additional services from dbt Labs in the future if they choose to.

What’s the difference between dbt’s public source code and binary distributions?

The two distributions of dbt v2 are both derived from a single engine which is written in Rust, a compiled language. The foundation of v2 is made up of source code visible in the dbt repository, and also distributed as a compiled binary called dbt OSS.

You are welcome to read, compile, modify, and redistribute the visible source code and the accompanying dbt OSS binary. Both are licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.

The proprietary dbt binary is based on the same Apache-licensed source code in the dbt repository, and also includes components for which the source code is not publicly viewable. These components add additional capabilities available to any user for free, and/or interface with the dbt platform to access paid features. Our documentation site will make it clear when functionality requires the proprietary dbt distribution.

The dbt distribution is subject to the dbt Product Licensing Agreement as described above.

The dbt language spec and adapter functionality are freely available and licensed under Apache 2.0 in the dbt repository.

Does dbt Labs welcome contributions to dbt v2?

Yes! dbt Labs maintains many open-source software projects in public repositories on GitHub (https://github.com/dbt-labs). Anyone can contribute code to any of these projects after signing our Contributor License Agreement. If you are a user of dbt v2, contributions you make to the dbt repository will apply to both distributions since they share the same underlying code.

As always, we value the participation of the community, and will carefully review and evaluate external contributions. We also recognize that valuable contributions come in many forms: opening issues, commenting in discussions, answering questions from other community members, and contributing code to fix bugs or extend functionality.

Can I use the full dbt v2 distribution?

Examples by use case

My team is using dbt Core v1.x to develop, transform, and test data assets in my company's cloud data warehouse. Those data assets are powering real-time dashboards for our colleagues and embedded product experiences for our customers. Is this a permitted use of the full dbt v2 distribution?

Yes, this is permitted. We believe strongly in the “dbt way” of doing analytical work (which we’ve called the ADLC), and we believe that upgrading to dbt v2 will enable your team to do this work even more effectively.

I'm a contractor or consultant setting up dbt v2 for my clients to use internally. Am I permitted to continue doing this? Am I subject to the limitations on redistribution?

Yes, this is permitted and is not considered redistribution of dbt v2, assuming each client’s deployment is standalone and they could control it directly if they wanted to.

I want to use dbt to transform my customers’ data into assets that power my application. The app shows dbt data test failures directly to customers, as a way of alerting them to data quality issues in their source data systems. Am I permitted to continue doing this?

Yes, this is permitted, because your customers are not using a tool that embeds and redistributes dbt directly. Rather, your customers are accessing the data itself, which is transformed using dbt behind the scenes.

I’m building a general-purpose data preparation and analytics product. I provide my customers with data transformation workflows that are leveraging dbt without exposing the dbt platform’s login mechanism to my customers. Is this a permitted use?

No.

If your customers are submitting code, configuration, or other inputs to data transformation workflows embedded in your product, and your product is powered by dbt, users must be able to create an account and login to enable the dbt platform’s premium features directly. It does not matter whether your customers’ inputs happen via UI, API, prompts, or otherwise.

However, you can use dbt OSS in any way you choose, or modify the code in the dbt repository to meet your needs. If you take this approach, you must still respect dbt Labs’ trademark policy and brand guidelines.

If you would like to discuss your specific case, and the possibility of a negotiated commercial agreement for dbt, please reach out to us at license@dbtlabs.com.

I’m building a data product that provides functionality complementary to dbt. I provide my customers with a dbt integration as part of my hosted/managed service. Is this a permitted use?

Yes, provided you comply with the dbt Product Licensing Agreement.

If your product integrates with documented APIs of dbt — such as by generating dbt code to write back to your customers’ projects, or by parsing metadata artifacts that your customer provides from their own self-hosted dbt deployment — this is permitted without reservation (and encouraged!). dbt Labs publishes validation schemas and artifact specifications with Apache 2 licenses, which you may freely use as part of building your integration.

If your product integration invokes dbt against customer projects as part of your hosted or managed service, this use is permitted as long as you comply with the Redistribution requirements in the dbt Product Licensing Agreement. For example, you cannot block a customer’s network access to dbt servers, because they must be able to enable premium functionality if they choose to do so. Please reach out to us at license@dbtlabs.com with any questions.

Examples by deployment pattern

If I am self-hosting Airflow to run historical dbt Core for my own business today, can I start running dbt instead?

Yes.

If I am an end user of a hosted/managed service that provides historical dbt Core today, can they offer dbt to me directly as a feature of their service?

Yes. The hosted/managed service provider must not prevent you from enabling the dbt platform’s premium features if you choose to do so, but they may provide you with access to the full dbt distributions (which has additional capabilities beyond dbt OSS even if you do not log in).

If I am an end user of a hosted/managed service that provides historical dbt Core today and has not implemented native dbt v2 support, am I in violation of the license if I install dbt directly?

No, this is not a violation of the license. As an end user of dbt, you are not subject to the limitations applied to redistributors of dbt.

If you are the provider of a hosted/managed service that might run dbt, or if you have a different question not answered here, we encourage you to contact us at license@dbtlabs.com.

If I currently deploy historical dbt Core in an airgapped environment with no external network access, am I allowed to replace it with dbt v2?

Yes. You are allowed to deploy dbt into any environment you choose, with any networking restrictions required by your business. The dbt Product Licensing Agreement only prevents a third party from blocking your ability to enable dbt platform’s premium features if you choose to do so.

If I currently deploy historical dbt Core to developers across my company with preconfigured defaults which disable anonymous usage stats, am I allowed to replace it with dbt v2?

Yes. The Redistribution restrictions in the dbt Product Licensing Agreement only apply to those providing dbt v2 to third parties.