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.
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.
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.
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