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Commercial Licensing

fastsim is distributed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. That license permits any noncommercial use — research, teaching, academic work, evaluation, personal and hobby projects — at no cost. Commercial use requires a commercial license. This page explains, in plain language, where that line falls and what a commercial license covers.

For a quote or to discuss terms, contact info@pathsim.org.

When you need a commercial license

You need a commercial license if you use fastsim in the course of running a business or delivering a commercial product or service. Two distinct scopes matter, because they are priced and governed separately:

1. Engine use (running the simulator)

Using the fastsim engine — the Python package, the Rust crate, the solvers, the JIT, FMU import — to do work for a commercial purpose. Examples:

  • running simulations as part of a commercial product, service, or paid consulting;
  • embedding the Python/native library in a commercial application or internal tooling at a for-profit company;
  • offering fastsim-powered analysis to customers.

2. Shipping generated code (the "Output" terms)

This is the heart of the code-generation business model and deserves its own attention. The C code emitted by Simulation.to_c(...) (and to_fmu(...)) is "Output" under the PolyForm Noncommercial License. The noncommercial limitation travels with the generated code — every generated file is stamped with the notice. So:

  • Generating C from a fastsim model and shipping that C (or an FMU, a firmware image, a HIL binary, a library, or any artifact built from it) in a commercial product requires a commercial license, even if the generation was done during noncommercial evaluation.
  • The generated code is the deliverable a commercial customer most often wants (an embedded controller, a plant model for a HIL rig, an FMU for a toolchain). Distributing it commercially is exactly what the Output terms govern.

A commercial license lifts the noncommercial limitation on the generated Output so you can compile it into, and distribute it as part of, a commercial product.

What noncommercial use always allows (no license needed)

  • Research, coursework, teaching, and academic publications.
  • Personal and hobby projects.
  • Evaluating fastsim — including generating and compiling C — to decide whether to adopt it commercially.
  • Contributing to fastsim itself.

The fully open-source alternative

If you need an option with no field-of-use restriction, the pure-Python engine pathsim is available separately under the MIT License. fastsim is a drop-in replacement for pathsim's Python API, so prototyping against pathsim and moving to fastsim (or vice versa) is straightforward. Note that pathsim does not provide the C code generator.

Summary

Activity Noncommercial license Commercial license
Research / teaching / personal use ✅ ✅
Evaluating the engine and codegen commercially ✅ ✅
Running the engine for a commercial purpose ❌ ✅
Shipping generated C / FMUs in a commercial product ❌ ✅

Contact info@pathsim.org for commercial terms.