What's New
I’m writing with an important update about BentoPDF’s license.
When I started this project, the mission was clear: create a powerful, open-source PDF toolkit for everyone, with no exceptions.
It recently came to my attention from a user of ours that a company was taking advantage of our open Apache 2.0 license. They repackaged BentoPDF, sold it as a proprietary product at a high price, and offered zero credit or contributions back to the community.
To be blunt, that’s not okay. It undermines the work of every single contributor and the entire spirit of the project.
That’s why we are switching BentoPDF to the AGPLv3 license.
This isn't a decision I take lightly, but it’s a necessary step to protect the project and ensure it remains truly open.
Here’s what you need to know:
-
Commercial use is still allowed. You can continue to use BentoPDF in your products and for your company.
-
If you modify BentoPDF and run it as a public-facing service (like a SaaS product), you must now share your source code under the same AGPLv3 license.
-
This stops bad actors. No one can just take our code, close the source, and profit from it without giving back.
Most importantly BentoPDF is still free and open source and always will be.
There’s also an upside:
This move to AGPLv3 allows us to legally and officially integrate Ghostscript. This is fantastic news for the future of the project, as it will let us add more advanced features and improve performance.
This change is about safeguarding our community's work and staying true to our original mission.
Thanks to all of you for being a part of this ❤️