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Billing and model

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Do I have to pay for Evolution?

No. The community license is free. There is no charge at any point — neither on activation nor on continued use.

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Will Evolution start charging in the future?

The current model is free for self-hosted and stays that way. The Evolution Foundation commercial model focuses on:
  • Hosted Cloud — for those who prefer not to self-host
  • Professional support — SLA and priority
  • Managed services — infrastructure and compliance
If the model changes, relevant changes will be announced in advance and publicly documented. Code already shipped under Apache 2.0 remains under Apache 2.0.

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Can I use Evolution commercially?

Yes. Apache 2.0 permits commercial use, redistribution, modification and use in paid products. The only caveat is the use of the Evolution trademark (name, logo, visual identity), which is separately protected — see Can I fork it?.

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Are there paid features inside the open source product?

No. Everything in the public repository is free and unrestricted. There is no feature flag gating functionality by tier.

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Privacy and data

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Does Evolution monitor my messages?

No. No message content, contact number or media is sent to the licensing server. See Telemetry for the exact payload.

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What happens to my email and phone?

They are stored on the licensing server for:
  • Identifying the instance operator
  • Contact in case of security incident or abuse
  • Community support
They are not sold to third parties, not used for marketing outside Evolution scope, and can be deleted on request ([email protected]).

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Can I disable licensing telemetry?

Heartbeat collection is part of the activation flow and has no “disable” flag in the official product — disabling it equates to running an instance without registration, which is outside the supported use of the Evolution brand. Forks can remove the licensing client (Apache 2.0 permits it), with the trademark caveat below.

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How do I verify what is actually sent?

You can intercept the traffic with mitmproxy or use the local debug endpoint. Procedures in Telemetry — How to audit locally.

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Open source and fork

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Is Evolution going closed source?

No. The code remains under Apache License 2.0, with no additional clauses.

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Can I audit the code?

Yes. All source code for Evolution API, CRM and Go is publicly available:

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Can I fork it?

Yes, Apache 2.0 allows forks. Restrictions:
  • Trademark: the name “Evolution”, logo and visual identity are protected. Redistributed forks must use their own name.
  • Notice: forks must keep the Apache 2.0 NOTICE.
  • Attribution: Evolution Foundation credits must be preserved as required by the license.

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Can I remove the licensing client in my fork?

Technically yes — Apache 2.0 allows modification. Implications:
  • Your fork is no longer the official Evolution — cannot use the trademark
  • You become responsible for all fork maintenance
  • Future updates from official Evolution will not be directly compatible without manual merging
The Evolution Foundation does not pursue forks for removing the licensing client, as long as they respect the trademark.

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Can the Evolution Foundation switch to closed source in the future?

Only for future code. Everything already shipped under Apache 2.0 remains under Apache 2.0 forever — that’s a guarantee of the license itself. If there is a license change for future versions, the last Apache 2.0 commit will still be available and forkable.

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Offline mode

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Does it work on isolated networks (air-gap)?

The initial activation requires connectivity to the licensing server (once). After activation, the instance tolerates long offline periods — heartbeats fail silently and resume when connectivity returns. For fully air-gapped environments, contact the Evolution team to discuss offline licensing.

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What happens if the license server goes down?

Your instance keeps working normally. The licensing client:
  • Retries with exponential backoff
  • Does not block any product operation
  • Logs failures as warnings, not fatal errors
There is no remote kill switch — the licensing server cannot disable instances in production.

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What if I suspend my key by mistake?

Contact [email protected] with the customer_id returned at activation. Suspension is reversible.

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Operation

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Can I have multiple instances with the same key?

Yes. The community tier has no instance limit — run as many as you need, on as many servers as you want, for free. This applies to both simple self-hosted deploys and multi-tenant platforms that create instances programmatically. There is no cap, no throttle and no per-instance fee.

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What is instance_id?

A UUID v4 generated locally on first run and persisted. It uniquely identifies an installation. Migrating servers while keeping the same database preserves the instance_id — recreating from scratch generates a new one.

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What is api_key?

A 64-character hex string generated by the licensing server when registration completes. It works as the instance credential in subsequent calls (HMAC). Treat it as a secret — do not commit to repos, do not expose in logs.

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Can I move an api_key between servers?

Yes, within the same operation. On host migrations, just copy api_key + instance_id to the new server. The next heartbeat appears with the new IP, and the server updates geolocation.

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How do I back up the license?

Include in your backup:
  • The config file where api_key is stored (e.g. .env, secret manager)
  • The persisted instance_id
  • The product database (which may also store these values)

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Older versions

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I have Evolution API 2.3.x. Do I need to upgrade?

No. Versions older than 2.4.0 don’t require activation and keep working normally. The requirement only applies from 2.4.0+.

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Can I downgrade to avoid activation?

You can stay on whatever version is running. But downgrades lose features, fixes and performance gains — not recommended.

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Is 2.4.0 stable?

2.4.0 was released as a Release Candidate (RC) — a validation version before the stable release. Use accordingly in critical production.

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