Open source, and here's why

Elastic has always been committed to an open development process with transparent and direct engagement with our community. The core of Elasticsearch and Kibana are open source under an AGPL license, and our code is housed in public repositories. You can get started — or even build an entire solution — without running code you can't see.

Openness, transparency, and collaboration are at the heart of a strong community!

Open source is not just an effective way to distribute software. It's an effective way to make the best product possible. Each download is an opportunity for the project to improve and evolve. Security gets hardened as users scrutinize the code. Reliability and resiliency are established with rigorous testing across various architectures and environments. Its extensibility increases as users experiment with new use cases, share successes, open issues, and build integrations, add-ons, plugins, and frameworks that expand the project's reach

Our recent update to include the AGPL license reaffirms our commitment to the open source principles that have always been in our DNA. Founded as an open source project, Elasticsearch didn't become what it is today without our code being open and the amazing community behind it. We build on top of and actively contribute to Apache Lucene, an open source search engine library. Elastic contributes to OpenTelemetry developing semantic conventions that support a single open schema and improving the convergence of observability and security data. We have always been committed to open source ingest with Logstash and Beats. Elasticsearch made it easy for developers to quickly build search functionality into their applications and take search technology in new directions.

By embracing open source, we align with ethical considerations and community values, fostering an environment of openness, sharing, and technical excellence.

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"It was easy to get started using the Elastic Stack for testing purposes. Not only that, the Elastic Stack also proved to be easy to use and scale once in production, and was also within cost constraints — ensuring efficiency and value for money."

Department of Work & Pensions

Deliver value for everyone

Whether it's a developer building their first generative AI application, an SRE ensuring round-the-clock reliability, or a SOC analyst protecting against complex threats, Elastic's commitment to open source underpins it all.

  • For developers

    Developers try our products and quickly transform a proof-of-concept into a large-scale deployment powering mission-critical systems. The scalability of our open source solutions means you can grow without the constraints of proprietary licensing models.

  • For decision-makers

    Decision-makers take notice of what their developers are doing and turn to Elastic to help connect people with content that matters, solve increasingly complex environments, and protect their digital ecosystems with flexibility and control.

  • For security operations

    Developing in the open is not common in the security industry, but openness empowers organizations to efficiently scale security operations and quickly adapt to evolving threats by leveraging shared knowledge.

No matter who you are or what you're working on, Elastic believes open source delivers amazing results where value is the common denominator.

And we believe that community is more than code

Our community is part of Elastic's identity. When our community interacts on forums, organizes meetups, and gives feedback, it fosters collaboration that goes beyond the exchange of code. We actively collaborate with our community by offering resources and rewards through the Elastic Contributor Program. This partnership is driven by global contributors who host events, give talks, create content, answer technical questions, and validate contributions.

Since day one, our community and customers have always been significant contributors able to:

  • Share code and ideas
  • Help and connect with others
  • View our open code
  • Make pull requests to update our code
  • Modify the code for their own use cases to make sure it fits perfectly into their own environments

  • Community events

    Join a meetup or conference to see users sharing knowledge about Elastic technology all around the world. Or submit your own talk to one of our events today.

  • Join the conversation

    Find advice or lend a helping hand. Ask your most burning questions about all things Elastic or chat with us on Slack.