Updated August 2026
    Safe for commercial use

    MIT-Licensed Projects You Can Build a Product On

    MIT is the default answer to "can I build a business on this?". There is no copyleft, no network clause and no patent grant to negotiate — you keep the notice and you are done. The real risk with MIT projects is not legal, it is commercial: if the code is free to fork, so is your product, and your moat has to sit somewhere other than the source.

    TL;DR • MIT commercial use • as of August 2026

    MIT lets you fork, modify, close the source and sell the result. The only obligation is preserving the copyright notice and licence text. This dataset tracks 368 MIT projects (22% of 1665 total), 222 of them actively maintained, led by Ollama with 179k stars. Verified against repository metadata as of August 2026; this is engineering guidance, not legal advice.

    368
    MIT projects
    222
    Actively maintained
    22%
    Share of dataset
    Safe for commercial use
    SaaS verdict

    What MIT actually allows

    Internal use

    Running the software inside your own company, without redistributing it, is permitted under every licence family here except undeclared/proprietary code.

    Hosted product

    Permitted. You can host, modify, close your changes and charge for access with no obligation beyond attribution.

    Selling a fork

    Permitted. Keep the notices, rename the product, and expect competitors to do the same to you.

    The 25 largest MIT projects

    Project Category Stars Maintenance Licence
    Ollama Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) 179k Actively maintained MIT
    Hoppscotch Community Edition Software Development 80k Actively maintained MIT
    code-server Software Development 79k Actively maintained MIT
    Strapi Content Management Systems (CMS) 73k Actively maintained MIT
    revealjs Miscellaneous 72k Slowing down MIT
    AnythingLLM Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) 65k Actively maintained MIT
    Traefik Web Servers 64k Actively maintained MIT
    Memos Note-taking & Editors 62k Actively maintained MIT
    PocketBase Software Development 61k Actively maintained MIT
    MeiliSearch Search Engines 59k Actively maintained MIT
    Gitea Software Development 57k Actively maintained MIT
    Joplin Note-taking & Editors 56k Actively maintained MIT
    Ghost Blogging Platforms 55k Actively maintained MIT
    Huginn Automation 50k Actively maintained MIT
    LocalAI Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) 48k Actively maintained MIT
    Gogs Software Development 48k Actively maintained MIT
    Cal.diy Booking and Scheduling 48k Actively maintained MIT
    copyparty File Transfer 46k Actively maintained MIT
    Rocket.Chat Communication 46k Actively maintained MIT
    RSSHub Feed Readers 46k Actively maintained MIT
    Payload CMS Content Management Systems (CMS) 44k Actively maintained MIT
    LibreChat Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) 42k Actively maintained MIT
    Reactive Resume Miscellaneous 40k Actively maintained MIT
    Novu Communication 40k Actively maintained MIT
    Umami Analytics 38k Actively maintained MIT

    Every MIT project in the ledger

    Ollama

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    179k

    Get up and running with Llama 3.3, DeepSeek-R1, Phi-4, Gemma 3, and other large language models.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Hoppscotch Community Edition

    Alternative to Postman, API development

    80k

    Fast and beautiful API request builder.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Strapi

    Alternative to Contentful, Content Management System/ CMS

    73k

    The most advanced open-source Content Management Framework (headless-CMS) to build powerful API with no effort.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    AnythingLLM

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    65k

    All-in-one desktop & Docker AI application with built-in RAG, AI agents, No-code agent builder, MCP compatibility, and more.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Gitea

    Alternative to Code hosting & collaboration

    57k

    Git with a cup of tea! Painless self-hosted all-in-one software development service, including Git hosting, code review, team collaboration, package registry and CI/CD.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Joplin

    Alternative to Evernote, Onenote, Roam Research, Note-taking/ Knowledge management, Note-taking / Personal Knowledge Management

    56k

    Note taking application with markdown editor and encryption support for mobile and desktop platforms. Runs client-side and syncs through a self hosted Nextcloud instance or similar (alternative to Eve

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Ghost

    Alternative to Medium, Substack, Company blogs/ newsletters, Web CMS and Blog Engines

    55k

    Just a blogging platform.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    LocalAI

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    48k

    Run your AI models locally and generate images and audio (alternative to OpenAI and Claude).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Gogs

    Alternative to Code hosting & collaboration

    48k

    Painless self-hosted Git Service written in Go.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Cal.diy

    Booking and Scheduling

    48k

    Online appointment scheduling system.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    copyparty

    File Transfer

    46k

    Portable file server with accelerated resumable uploads, deduplication, WebDAV, FTP, zeroconf, media indexer, video thumbnails, audio transcoding, and write-only folders, in a single file with no mand

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Rocket.Chat

    Alternative to Slack, Team communication, Chat & Team Communication

    46k

    Communications platform that puts data protection first (alternative to Gitter.im and Slack).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    RSSHub

    Feed Readers

    46k

    Easy to use, and extensible RSS feed aggregator capable of generating RSS feeds from pretty much everything ranging from social media to university departments.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    LibreChat

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    42k

    Enhanced ChatGPT-compatible AI chat interface supporting multiple AI providers, with multi-user auth, message search, and plugin support.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Reactive Resume

    Miscellaneous

    40k

    One-of-a-kind resume builder that keeps your privacy in mind. Completely secure, customizable, portable, open-source and free forever.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Novu

    Alternative to Courier, MagicBell, Knock, Notification infrastructure, Push notifications

    40k

    Notification infrastructure for developers.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Umami

    Alternative to Web analytics

    38k

    Simple, fast, privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    PostHog

    Alternative to Amplitude, MixPanel, Product analytics

    38k

    Product analytics, session recording, feature flagging and a/b testing that you can self-host (alternative to Mixpanel, Amplitude, Heap, HotJar, Optimizely).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    MedusaJs

    Alternative to Shopify, Ecwid, Online store builder

    36k

    Headless commerce engine that enables developers to create amazing digital commerce experiences.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Langfuse

    Software Development

    33k

    LLM engineering platform for model tracing, prompt management, and application evaluation. Langfuse helps teams collaboratively debug, analyze, and iterate on their LLM applications such as chatbots o

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Onyx Community Edition

    Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    32k

    Chat UI that works with any LLM. It comes loaded with advanced features like agents, web search, RAG, MCP, deep research, Connectors to 40+ knowledge sources, and more.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    SRS

    Media Streaming

    29k

    A simple, high efficiency and real-time video server, supports RTMP, WebRTC, HLS, HTTP-FLV and SRT.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Actual

    Money, Budgeting & Management

    28k

    Local-first personal finance tool based on zero-sum budgeting, supporting synchronization across devices, custom rules, manual transaction importing (from QIF, OFX, and QFX files), and optional automa

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    ArchiveBox

    Archiving and Digital Preservation (DP)

    28k

    Create HTML & screenshot archives of sites from your bookmarks, browsing history, RSS feeds, or other sources (alternative to Wayback Machine).

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Bagisto

    Alternative to Shopify, Ecwid, Online store builder

    28k

    Leading Laravel open source e-commerce framework with multi-inventory sources, taxation, localization, dropshipping and more exciting features.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Dashy

    Personal Dashboards

    26k

    Feature-rich homepage for your homelab, with easy YAML configuration.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Activepieces

    Alternative to Zapier, Tray, Workflow automation

    24k

    No-code business automation tool like Zapier or Tray. For example, you can send a Slack notification for each new Trello card.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Krayin

    Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

    24k

    CRM solution for SMEs and Enterprises for complete customer lifecycle management.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Super Productivity

    Task Management & To-do Lists

    21k

    Advanced todo list app with integrated timeboxing and time tracking capabilities. Integrates with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Redmine and OpenProject.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Wekan

    Alternative to Kanban board

    21k

    Open-source Trello-like kanban.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    MediaMTX

    Media Streaming

    20k

    Ready-to-use, zero-dependency real-time media server and proxy to publish, read, record, playback and route video/audio streams over SRT, WebRTC, RTSP, RTMP, HLS, MPEG-TS, RTP.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    UVDesk

    Alternative to Zendesk

    20k

    UVDesk community is a service oriented, event driven extensible opensource helpdesk system that can be used by your organization to provide efficient support to your clients effortlessly whichever way

    Dormant
    MIT

    docker-mailserver

    Communication

    19k

    Production-ready fullstack but simple mail server (SMTP, IMAP, LDAP, Antispam, Antivirus, etc.) running inside a container. Only configuration files, no SQL database.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Showing 48 of 368

    MIT licensing FAQ

    Can I use MIT software in a commercial SaaS?

    MIT lets you fork, modify, close the source and sell the result. The only obligation is preserving the copyright notice and licence text. MIT is the default answer to "can I build a business on this?". There is no copyleft, no network clause and no patent grant to negotiate — you keep the notice and you are done. The real risk with MIT projects is not legal, it is commercial: if the code is free to fork, so is your product, and your moat has to sit somewhere other than the source.

    How many MIT projects are there in this dataset?

    368 of 1665 tracked projects carry a MIT licence — about 22%. 222 of them show real momentum (commits in most of the last twelve months plus a recent release), so the practical shortlist is smaller than the raw count suggests.

    What happens if I ignore a MIT licence?

    Licence breach is copyright infringement, and the usual consequence is not a lawsuit — it is a failed diligence review. Acquirers and Series A investors run automated licence scans over your dependency tree; an unresolved copyleft or source-available dependency in a closed product either delays the deal or gets priced into it. The cheap fix is choosing correctly at week one.

    Is MIT the same as "open source"?

    Yes — MIT is an OSI-approved open-source licence family. What varies is the obligation that comes attached, not whether the code is open.

    Licence data comes from repository metadata and can lag a relicensing event. Confirm the LICENSE file in the repository before shipping. This page is engineering guidance, not legal advice.

    Is the licence the only thing standing between you and this market?

    IdeaProof checks whether your idea is already built, how saturated the category is, and where the remaining wedge sits — in about two minutes.

    Validate your idea free

    Open source competition: common questions

    How do I know if my startup idea already exists as open source?

    Search this database by category and by the commercial product you would replace. It covers 1665 projects across 130 categories, each mapped to the paid tool it substitutes. If your category shows a "Crowded" verdict, a maintained free version almost certainly exists and your positioning has to account for it.

    Does an open-source alternative mean I should not build my product?

    No. It means free is your price anchor. Plenty of large companies were built next to a good open-source project — the ones that failed were the ones selling the same job at a price the free tool made indefensible. Find the part of the job the project deliberately does not do, and sell that.

    What does the saturation score mean?

    Each category gets a 0–100 score built from three inputs: how many implementations exist, what share of them are still actively maintained, and how far ahead the leading project is compared with the category median. 62+ is Crowded, 38–61 Contested, under 38 Open. 11 categories are Crowded and 88 are Open.