What Is Open Source License Generator?
Open Source License Generator helps you choose and generate the right license for your project. It covers MIT, Apache 2.0, GPL, BSD, ISC, Mozilla, Creative Commons, and other common licenses — with plain-language summaries of what each license permits, requires, and restricts.
How to Use This Tool
Browse the available licenses with their plain-language summaries, or answer a few questions about how you want your code used (commercial use, modifications, distribution, patent grants) to get a recommendation. Select your license, enter your name and year, and the tool generates the complete license text. Copy or download the LICENSE file. Everything runs in your browser.
Why Use Open Source License Generator?
Choosing the wrong open source license can have real legal consequences — from unexpected copyleft requirements to patent liability. This tool explains each license in plain English and generates the correctly formatted text with your details filled in. It’s free, instant, and requires no legal knowledge. For a detailed walkthrough, see our step-by-step guide.
Common Use Cases
Open-sourcing a personal project and picking between MIT, Apache 2.0, BSD, and GPL based on what you actually want users to be able to do with the code. Adding a LICENSE file to an internal repo so future contributors and acquirers know the IP posture without having to ask. Switching a project's license at a maintainer transition and needing the canonical text rather than a paraphrase — license bodies are not free-form, and small wording variations matter legally.
Drafting a dual-licensed setup where the same code ships under AGPL for community use and a commercial license for closed-source distribution — you need both license bodies ready, with the notice sections customized. Also useful when vendoring third-party code: dropping their LICENSE alongside your own makes the attribution explicit instead of buried in commit history where future audits won't find it.
How We Compare
GitHub will offer to add a license file when you create a new repo, but only inside its own create-repo flow — you still need an external source if you're adding a license to an existing project, vendoring code, working with GitLab or Codeberg, or running self-hosted Git. The choosealicense.com guide is the standard reference for picking; this tool focuses on the production side.
It emits the canonical SPDX text with your name and year filled in, plus the right header block to paste at the top of source files when the license expects one (Apache 2.0 and MPL 2.0 both have this convention). Important caveat: a generator can stamp a license file, but the legal weight of your choice depends on the patent grants, copyleft scope, and compatibility implications you're signing up for. Read the license text in full before distributing commercial software under it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Built by Derek Giordano · Part of Ultimate Design Tools