VICIdial licensing (AGPL) explained for buyers

VICIdial is licensed under the AGPL-3.0, and for a buyer that means one thing up front: running it to power your own call center is free, with no commercial license fee and no per-agent charge. The license only becomes a topic if you redistribute a modified copy as a service to others.

Licensing is the part of cost that confuses buyers most, which is why our pillar on what VICIdial really costs puts the software cost at zero. This post explains why that zero is real and where the one exception lives.

What AGPL is in plain terms

AGPL is the Affero General Public License, a free-software license built around the Asterisk world's open-source tradition. Asterisk is the telephony engine VICIdial is built on. The AGPL grants you the right to use, modify, and run the software at no charge. Its one notable condition: if you modify the code and offer that modified version to users over a network, you must make your modified source available to those users. That is the whole hook.

flowchart TD
  A[You download VICIdial] --> B{Do you modify the source}
  B -->|No| C[Run it freely - no obligation]
  B -->|Yes| D{Do you offer it to others over a network}
  D -->|No - internal use only| C
  D -->|Yes - as a service| E[Share your modified source]

Why it is a non-issue for most buyers

Most call centers never touch the VICIdial source code. You load a Lead list, the set of numbers you dial, configure campaigns, and run agents. None of that is modification of the software, so the AGPL's source-sharing clause never triggers. You are a user, not a distributor. The license sits in the background and asks nothing of you. The point that VICIdial costs no license fee is the same one we make in is VICIdial free.

When the obligation actually applies

The clause matters if you fork VICIdial, change its code, and then offer that changed version to outside users as a hosted service. In that case the AGPL says those users can ask for your modified source. If you are running an internal dialer for your own agents, even a heavily customized one, you are not redistributing it as a network service to third parties, so the obligation generally does not reach you. The distinction is redistribution to others, not customization for yourself.

What you actually pay for

Since the license is free, your real costs are the VPS to run it on, your Carrier minutes paid directly to the telco, and the labor to install and maintain the box. A VPS is a rented virtual server; a Carrier is the company that carries your calls per minute. No part of that bill is a software license. We unpack the running costs in VICIdial hosting cost.

Where a managed provider fits

Our Managed hosting fee, a flat monthly charge per server, is not a software license either. Managed hosting means we run and patch the box for you. We provision a dedicated Single tenant server with secured VICIdial on a Branded subdomain in under 40 seconds, then keep it patched and backed up. You are paying for the service of running the open-source software, never for the software itself, and never per agent. For our current flat figures, see our pricing page.

Read the license once, file it, and get back to dialing. For nearly every buyer, AGPL means free to use and nothing to send anyone.