Today I’m announcing two big changes to Beekeeper Studio:
- The code has been relicensed under the GPLv3 license, effective Friday Feb 18.
- There is now a separate, commercial version, of Beekeeper Studio available, Beekeeper Studio Ultimate Edition.
If you use Beekeeper Studio on a regular basis, please consider buying a copy of Ultimate Edition
The Path to Ultimate Edition
Beekeeper Studio is becoming popular. Thousands of people use it every day, and many more use it weekly or monthly. This is wonderful, and makes me incredibly proud, but success also comes with added responsibilities.
I currently spend two days per week working on Beekeeper Studio, as a freelance software engineer that means I’m giving up 40% of my income. Even with this time investment I’m swamped by bug reports, library upgrades, and new database releases, not to mention trying to squeeze in time for new features!
With all that in mind, I’ve decided to offer a commercial version of Beekeeper Studio, named Beekeeper Studio Ultimate Edition, and ‘rebrand’ the existing version as Beekeeper Studio Community Edition. This provides me with the ability to continue investing my time directly in app development while also giving professionals and businesses a way to support the app directly.
What ‘Ultimate’ Means
Beekeeper Studio Ultimate Edition is a fork of Beekeeper Studio Community Edition with more features. It is provided under a commercial end user license agreement.
I’ve previously expressed distaste at hiding core features behind a paywall, so I’m working hard to make sure that the Ultimate Edition provides additional utility to professionals and businesses (who can afford a license), but does not lock other users out of day to day functionality.
I’ll probably make mistakes with this separation from time to time, I hope that if I do, you will let me know.
At launch there are no substantive differences between the two editions, but that will change quickly.
Ultimate License Types
Ultimate edition is available with two different licenses - individual and business.
Individual licenses are generous and provide perpetual use of the product plus three years of updates. This is very similar to the Sublime Text license.
Business licenses are annual subscriptions, so as long as the business has an active subscription, they have access to the app. Unlike the personal license, there is no perpetual usage fallback license provided.
Roadmap
As part of this launch I’m also going to be more transparent with the roadmap, and provide visibility into the next version of the app. You can check out upcoming milestones on the GitHub page. At the time of writing I’m working towards ‘Version 4.0’, with issues labelled ultimate being slated only for the ultimate edition.
Team Workspaces Bundled
Back in early January I announced the availability of team workspaces. An online storage area for connections and saved queries. This was a feature I personally wanted, and represented a path to profitability that has been successful for other apps like Insomnia.
As of today I’m bundling team workspaces in the Ultimate Edition, so if you buy the Ultimate Edition, you get Team Workspaces for free.
Download Ultimate Edition
If you are an existing Beekeeper Studio user, your data and settings should ‘just work’ in Beekeeper Studio Ultimate Edition. You also get a 14 day free trial.
👉 👉 Download Ultimate Edition Today 👈 👈
