Open-source funnel builders, compared by licence
“Open source” on a marketing page is a word. The licence file is the contract. This page lists both, side by side, for every funnel builder that claims the label - including ours.
All rows checked 2026-08-03. The commands to re-check them are at the bottom.
| Product | Licence | OSI-approved | Public source | Commercial / agency use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autonnel | Apache-2.0 | Yes | github.com/autonnel/autonnel | None. Run it for yourself, for clients, or as part of a paid service. |
| Launchtic | Fair-code - Sustainable Use License | No | github.com/launchtic/launchtic returns 404 | Their pricing page: "Pay only if you're running Launchtic for clients." Agency tier $997/year. |
| openfunnels (aialvi) | MIT | Yes | github.com/aialvi/openfunnels | None. |
| funnel-flow (sanurb) | None declared | None declared | github.com/sanurb/funnel-flow | A public repo with no licence file grants no rights by default, so commercial use is not permitted. |
| CartFlows | GPLv2 or later (free plugin); Pro add-on is proprietary | Yes, for the free plugin | plugins.svn.wordpress.org/cartflows | None on the GPL core. Pro features need a paid licence key. |
| FunnelKit | GPLv3 (free plugin); Pro add-on is proprietary | Yes, for the free plugin | plugins.svn.wordpress.org/funnel-builder | None on the GPL core. Pro features need a paid licence key. |
| WPFunnels | GPLv2 or later (free plugin); Pro add-on is proprietary | Yes, for the free plugin | plugins.svn.wordpress.org/wpfunnels | None on the GPL core. Pro features need a paid licence key. |
| ClickFunnels | Proprietary | No | None | Governed by their terms of service. No source access. |
| systeme.io | Proprietary | No | None | Governed by their terms of service. No source access. |
Where a project ships a free plugin plus a paid add-on, the licence column describes the free
plugin, and the GPL version differs between them. The add-on that unlocks the funnel features is
proprietary in all three WordPress cases. Every row is re-checked against its own source by
scripts/verify-licences.mjs in our repo,
so no row inherits another row's evidence.
The four categories, plainly
You may use, modify, redistribute and sell services around the software, including running it for clients, with no separate permission. Apache-2.0 additionally grants a patent licence and requires you to state your changes; MIT is shorter and asks only for attribution; GPL requires derivative works to stay under the GPL.
The source is published and you can read it, but the licence carves out commercial use. The usual shape is: free for your own use, paid the moment you run it for someone else. It is a legitimate business model - n8n built a good company on it - and it is not open source under the OSI definition. If you are an agency or a freelancer, this is the row that decides your bill.
A public repository with no LICENSE file is readable but not reusable: copyright still applies, and no rights are granted. Treat these as demos to learn from, not as dependencies to build on.
No source, no self-hosting, terms set by the vendor. That is a perfectly reasonable trade if you never want to touch infrastructure - see our ClickFunnels comparison for when it is the right call.
Check it yourself
We would rather you did not take our word for any of the rows above, including our own. Each of these takes a few seconds and returns a fact, not an opinion.
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO | grep spdx_idcurl -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPOcurl -s https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/SLUG/trunk/readme.txt | grep -i "^License"open https://opensource.org/licensesFAQ
Is "fair-code" the same thing as open source?
No. Fair-code is a term coined around the n8n Sustainable Use License. The source is published and readable, but the licence restricts commercial use - typically you may run it for yourself but not sell it as a service or run it for clients without a paid tier. The Open Source Initiative definition requires no discrimination against fields of endeavour, so a licence with a commercial-use carve-out is not OSI open source. Source-available is the accurate word for it.
Why does the licence matter if I am just running it for my own store?
For a single store you may never hit the restriction. It matters the moment you build funnels for a client, wrap the tool into an agency retainer, or fork it and ship a modified version. Under Apache-2.0 or MIT all three are allowed with no further permission. Under a fair-code licence the second and third usually require a paid tier.
What does a repository with no licence file mean?
Under the Berne Convention, code published without a licence is still copyrighted by its author, and nobody else gets a right to copy, modify or distribute it. A public GitHub repo with no LICENSE is readable but not legally reusable. GitHub says the same thing in its own docs.
Is a GPL WordPress plugin open source?
The free plugin in the WordPress directory is - though not always the same GPL: CartFlows and WPFunnels ship GPLv2 or later, FunnelKit ships GPLv3, and GPLv3 is not backwards compatible with GPLv2-only code. The paid add-on that unlocks the funnel features is a separate, proprietary download that needs a subscription key. So "the funnel builder is GPL" is true of the free half and misleading about the half most people end up paying for.
Which licence does Autonnel use?
Apache-2.0, on a public repository at github.com/autonnel/autonnel. There is no commercial-use restriction, no agency tier gate, and no separate licence key for features. The managed cloud is a hosting convenience, not a licence upgrade.
Autonnel is the Apache-2.0 row
Public repository, OSI-approved licence, no agency tier, no licence key. Run it for a client and nobody sends you an invoice.