RAGFlow is open-source and released under an open-source license that permits both commercial and non-commercial use without licensing fees. The exact license terms allow free use, modification, and distribution, making RAGFlow legally safe for enterprises and startups alike. There are no per-query charges, per-document fees, or usage restrictions—you can index as many documents and run as many queries as your infrastructure supports. The open-source model means the codebase is publicly auditable, important for security-conscious organizations. You retain full control of your data by self-hosting RAGFlow on your own infrastructure, with no vendor lock-in or forced cloud service dependencies. Community contributions are encouraged, so you can modify RAGFlow to fit your requirements and contribute improvements back. While InfiniFlow (the project maintainer) offers a managed cloud version (RAGFlow Cloud) for convenience, the core open-source engine remains free. This licensing approach is particularly attractive for regulated industries (healthcare, finance, government) that require data residency and cannot use proprietary SaaS solutions. Organizations can deploy RAGFlow internally, customize it for their domain, and operate it sustainably without licensing complexity. The open-source license also protects against vendor risk—if InfiniFlow were acquired or shut down, the community has full source code and can continue development independently. For production deployments, verify the specific license terms in the GitHub repository (Apache 2.0 or similar), but fundamentally RAGFlow's open-source status ensures long-term, cost-free usage.
Teams building AI-powered search and retrieval systems can leverage Zilliz Cloud for managed vector database infrastructure that scales with their data. The underlying technology, Milvus, is also available as an open-source option.