Evolution API License 2026: What Apache 2.0 Grants, and What It Does Not

What does the Evolution API license actually let you do?

Evolution API is distributed under the Apache License 2.0, published by the Apache Software Foundation in January 2004. The repository's own LICENSE file is the document to check it against. That license permits commercial use, modification and redistribution, including inside closed-source software you sell. Redistribution adds four duties from §4: keep the notices, ship the license text, include any NOTICE file, and state which files you changed. The software license costs $0.

The document is dated, which matters when someone quotes it at you. Version 2.0 replaced version 1.1 in January 2004 and has not been revised since. Every clause cited in this article comes from that text.

Section 3 is the clause MIT users miss. Apache 2.0 carries an express patent grant from each contributor. A contributor holding a patent that reads on code they contributed has already licensed it to you. MIT is silent on patents.

The Open Source Initiative's Open Source Definition, criterion 6, states that “the license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor.” Apache 2.0 passes. A license that forbade commercial use would fail that test and would be source-available, not open source.

Ten minutes with the LICENSE file settles the software question. It does not settle the question most searchers are actually asking.

One word, five licenses: which one are you asking about?

Five different licenses hide behind “Evolution API license”. Four trace back to the software project; the fifth is granted by WhatsApp and appears in no repository. The code license is Apache 2.0, granted and free. The trademark is withheld by §6. Support is not in the license at all. Permission to send comes from WhatsApp.

1. The software license. Apache License 2.0 on the source, published January 2004. Granted by the project. Costs $0.
2. The trademark. §6 expressly withholds it. Not for sale at any price.
3. Commercial and resale permission. Already inside Apache 2.0. You do not apply; you hold it.
4. Permission to send on WhatsApp. Granted by WhatsApp's Terms of Service. No per-message fee on the unofficial protocol, with account risk attached; business verification plus per-message charges on the Cloud API.
5. Support and warranty. §7 ships the software AS IS. The license promises nothing more.

Number 4 is why this article exists. You can verify 1, 2, 3 and 5 in an afternoon and be certain. License 4 is not written in code, is not a maintainer's to grant, and is the only one that ends numbers.

The four duties in §4 are the entire bill for items 1 and 3: keep copyright and license notices, include a copy of the license, ship any NOTICE file, and mark modified files. There is no royalty, no field-of-use restriction and no seat count.

Can I sell or white-label a product built on Evolution API?

Yes, on both counts, with one hard limit on the name. Apache 2.0 permits commercial use, modification and redistribution, including inside closed-source software you sell, and it permits rebranding. The limit is the mark: §6 withholds trademark rights, so a white-label fork must carry your own name and keep the notices intact.

The clause is narrow. Apache License 2.0 §6, published by the Apache Software Foundation in January 2004, reads: “This License does not grant permission to use the trade names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file.”

Practically: you may say your product is built on the project. You may not imply it is the project, endorsed by it, or distributed by it. Keep the copyright notices and any NOTICE file while you rebrand. Strip the attribution and you have converted a permissive license into a copyright problem.

There is no field-of-use restriction to negotiate and no royalty to pay. Section 4's duties are the whole obligation.

Does Apache 2.0 come with any warranty or support?

No. Apache License 2.0 §7 ships the software “AS IS”, without warranties or conditions of any kind, and §8 disclaims liability on the same terms. “Free” means no recourse, not no risk. If the server drops a queued job, the license gives you the right to fix it and nothing else.

Read the operative sentence from the same January 2004 text: “Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, Licensor provides the Work (and each Contributor provides its Contributions) on an 'AS IS' BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.”

No vendor to escalate to. No credit to claim. No incident review. For an agency running client accounts, that exposure lands on the client relationship rather than on a supplier.

Be fair about the trade. It is the normal open-source bargain, it is why the software exists, and for a competent team it is often correct. It is simply not a commercial agreement, and buyers routinely confuse the two. Cost the on-call hours before you commit.

Is Evolution API AGPL, and will I have to open-source my code?

No. Apache 2.0 is permissive, not copyleft, so it places no source-disclosure condition on your own code whether you run it internally or ship it inside a commercial product. AGPL is the license that triggers disclosure on network use. Apache 2.0 has no equivalent clause.

The dates keep the distinction straight. Apache License 2.0 was published in January 2004. Version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License was published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and its §13 requires that users interacting with a modified version over a network be offered its source.

That is why an AGPL base changes the commercial calculation and an Apache 2.0 base does not. If you are choosing a self-hosted WhatsApp base specifically to avoid source disclosure, the license name on the repository decides it. Read it before you build.

Apache 2.0's obligations on your side are limited to notices and attribution on redistribution. Your application source stays yours.

Does the code license say anything about your WhatsApp number?

No. No code license transfers standing with WhatsApp. Evolution API's unofficial channel is documented as speaking the WhatsApp Web protocol through Baileys, a separately MIT-licensed library. Apache 2.0 on the server and MIT on the library describe rights to software, not permission to send messages. Check both repositories before you rely on either.

The gap is structural, not a defect. A maintainer can license code they wrote. No maintainer can license a protocol they do not own, or grant a permission only the platform can give. Bans are possible on every unofficial tool in this category, SocialMate included, and a permissive repository does not change that baseline.

The platform keeps moving. Salesforce Help's WhatsApp Business Platform account-model note, published 15 October 2026, describes a shift toward business-scoped user IDs in Meta's account structure. IAGENTE's 9 November 2026 write-up reports the same theme alongside flexible limits and max-price. Both are secondary reporting: treat the detail as reported, not confirmed, and check Meta's own documentation before designing around it.

For the policy ladder itself, read Do WhatsApp Policy Violations Apply to Self-Hosted Automation? and the knowledge-base answer to Will I get banned?.

Is Evolution API legal, and does the license cover a ban?

The license part is settled; the platform part is not. Apache 2.0 is freely granted and unrestricted. Whether a given use complies with WhatsApp's Terms of Service is a separate contractual question, and no code license insures a number against enforcement.

Keep two questions apart:

• Is it licensed? Settled. Apache 2.0, freely granted, no registration, no fee, no field-of-use restriction.
• Is it permitted by the platform? Decided by WhatsApp's Terms of Service, which sit outside the repository and are not a maintainer's to waive.

“Unlicensed” and “against the terms” are not synonyms. The first is a copyright problem; the second is a contractual one, and the second is the one that reaches your number. Neither is a criminal question, and neither is one this article can settle for you. Consult your own counsel on the platform side.

So does the license cover a ban? No. Apache 2.0 and MIT say nothing about account enforcement. A tool can reduce exposure through pacing, warming and content discipline. It cannot remove the possibility.

The license is $0. What does the operation actually cost?

Apache 2.0 gives you the code and nothing else. The license line is $0; the machine, database, TLS, backups, upgrades, pacing layer and on-call are yours to fund. Cost them with your own numbers rather than a borrowed average.

• The machine it runs on, and PostgreSQL and Redis behind it: ______ / month
• TLS, domain, reverse proxy: ______ / month
• Backups and restore testing: ______ / month
• Upgrades and breaking-change migrations: ______ hours / month
• Send pacing, rate limiting and duplicate handling you build yourself: ______ hours
• Your hours × your rate: ______

The list is not an argument against the project. It is the honest shape of any self-hosted stack, and Docker with PostgreSQL and Redis is a well-trodden one.

One row deserves its own line. Evolution API's public documentation describes the transport; it does not describe an anti-ban engine. Randomised jitter, pacing profiles, per-number rate limits, session warming, real typing indicators and read receipts, adaptive throttling and a duplicate-content guard are not in Apache 2.0, and no license could put them there.

For the running-cost argument in full, read Evolution API Free: the License Is $0, the Running Cost Is Not. For hosting and operations, read Evolution API Hosting.

Which license do you actually need?

Which license you are missing depends on what you are doing. A hobbyist needs only the code license. A developer shipping a product needs the code license plus platform compliance. An agency needs support. A business sending order and booking updates needs a reliable platform route, because the number is not disposable.

Hobbyist tinkering. Apache 2.0 is all you need, and the platform risk lands on a number you can afford to lose. Binding constraint: none that matters.

Developer embedding it in a product. Apache 2.0 covers you fully, including inside closed-source software, provided you honour the §4 duties. Binding constraint: code rights, which you already hold. The moment your product messages real customers, platform risk becomes product risk.

Agency running client accounts. Apache 2.0 permits the resale and the hosting. Binding constraint: support exposure — the license behind you carries no warranty and no on-call, and automation can fall foul of WhatsApp's terms. You are missing license 5, not license 1.

Business sending order, booking and delivery updates. Binding constraint: platform risk, because the volume is revenue-critical. That is an operations question, and the Cloud API comparison covers the structural difference.

Name the license you are missing before you name the vendor. It is usually not the one on the repository.

Where a flat license changes the question

SocialMate starts from the same self-hosted premise and ships the operating layer instead of leaving it as homework: a desktop app on your own machine or a server you control, your own WhatsApp number, no Meta business approval, no per-message fee, chats and contacts in local storage. It is independent software, not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with WhatsApp or Meta.

The anti-ban engine is the part no code license grants: randomised delays and jitter, Safe/Balanced/Fast pacing profiles, per-number rate limits, session warming for new numbers, a real typing indicator and read receipts before replying, an adaptive throttle that slows as risk climbs, a duplicate-content guard, live risk scoring including cold-outreach detection, and risk-based auto-resume for cooled accounts. None of it makes a number immune. Bans are always possible; a gradual ramp plus monitoring is the safe default.

Pricing is a flat license. Free is $0 forever, 200 messages a day on one account. Pro is $10/month or $99/year: 500 a day per account, scaling to 5,000 through High-Volume Mode after 72 hours of warming. One license includes one device; add seats at $4/month or about $40/year each for more concurrent machines. The 7-day Pro trial is opt-in and machine-bound, with no card.

Pro adds media, polls, locations, contact cards, group ops, the smart queue, scheduled messages and batches, the stable named tunnel, unlimited webhooks and Agent Memory. The local HTTP API runs on Free — read endpoints and plain text send work there — which is the detail most summaries get wrong.

On where it runs: the desktop app connects from your own residential IP, the network WhatsApp already associates with your number. That removes a risk factor; it does not eliminate bans. On a VPS, per-account proxy routing (Pro) lets a server egress through your own residential or mobile proxy. It changes the network path only, never the rate limits or the warming. Docker and systemd are available on a server — the option here, not the obligation.

Developers get a native n8n community node whose every operation works as an n8n AI-Agent tool, and a native MCP server for Claude Desktop, Cursor and any MCP client. SocialMate is the hands and the memory; your own model is the brain. AI replies and summaries generated by SocialMate are still coming soon.

So what do you actually need to license before you send?

Two documents decide the outcome, and only one of them is in the repository. The LICENSE file settles what you may do with the code: use it commercially, modify it, sell around it, keep your own source closed. It is generous, unambiguous and verifiable in ten minutes.

The platform terms settle whether the number survives. No permissive license reaches them, no maintainer can waive them, and no vendor can promise an outcome there.

If you want the operating layer handled rather than assembled — pacing, warming, storage, support, flat pricing — download the free app and start at 200 messages a day on your own number. If you are building, the local API with webhooks, the native n8n node and the MCP server are the developer surface, and /pricing states the split exactly.

Sources and verification notes

The license claims here rest on primary documents you can open yourself: the Apache License 2.0 text published by the Apache Software Foundation in January 2004, the Open Source Initiative's Open Source Definition, and the Evolution API and Baileys repositories. The WhatsApp-side items are secondary reporting and are labelled as reported.

Primary documents.

• Apache License 2.0, apache.org — §3 patent grant, §4 redistribution duties, §6 trademarks, §7–8 warranty and liability. Published January 2004.
• GNU Affero General Public License v3, Free Software Foundation, November 2007 — §13 network clause.
• Open Source Initiative, Open Source Definition, criterion 6.
• Evolution API repository — LICENSE file, README and release notes.
• Baileys repository — MIT license and project description.
• Meta, WhatsApp Business Platform documentation — onboarding, verification, per-message pricing.

Secondary reporting, attributed by name and date.

• Salesforce Help, “WhatsApp Business Platform – WhatsApp Account Model Evolution”, published 15 October 2026. Reported; not confirmed detail.
• IAGENTE, 9 November 2026 — business-scoped user IDs, flexible limits, max-price. Reported.
• TechCrunch, 10 November 2026 — WhatsApp head Kunal Shah on simplification and AI. Reported; it says nothing about licensing.

Deliberately not restated. Per-message Cloud API and BSP rate figures appear in WhatsApp API Pricing 2026 with their own sourcing. They are not repeated here, because a stale rate is worse than no rate.

License in the query	What it actually is	Granted by	Cost to you	Recourse if it fails
Software license	Apache License 2.0 on the source code, published January 2004	The Evolution API project	$0	Fork it, or fix it yourself
Trademark	The project name and marks, expressly withheld by §6	The Evolution API project	Not for sale at any price	Rename your fork
Commercial / resale permission	Already included inside Apache 2.0	The project, via the license text	$0	None needed; already granted
WhatsApp platform permission	WhatsApp Terms of Service / Business Terms	WhatsApp / Meta	No per-message fee on the unofficial protocol, with account risk; business verification plus per-message charges on the Cloud API	None. No code license reaches it
Support and SLA	Nothing. Apache 2.0 §7 ships the software AS IS	No one; the license offers none	Your own hours	Your own on-call

How to verify the Evolution API license yourself in four steps

1. Open the LICENSE file Go to the Evolution API repository and open the LICENSE file at the root. Confirm it reads Apache License, Version 2.0, and note the copyright line at the end of the file.
2. Read §3, §4, §6 and §7 §3 is the patent grant. §4 lists your redistribution duties. §6 withholds trademark rights. §7 and §8 disclaim warranty and liability. Those four clauses answer almost every commercial question a buyer asks.
3. Check for a NOTICE file If the repository ships a NOTICE file, Apache 2.0 §4(d) requires you to include its attribution text in anything you redistribute. If there is none, note that too, so you can show you checked.
4. Confirm the Baileys license separately Evolution API's unofficial channel depends on Baileys, which is documented as MIT-licensed. Read that repository's LICENSE as well. Two licenses govern the stack, and neither addresses your standing with WhatsApp.

Frequently asked questions

Can I sell a product built on Evolution API?

Yes. Apache 2.0 permits commercial use and redistribution, including inside a closed-source product you sell. You must keep the copyright and license notices, include a copy of the license, ship any NOTICE file, and state which files you changed. Apache 2.0 is permissive, not copyleft, so your own code stays yours.

Can I white-label Evolution API?

You can rebrand a fork and ship it, because Apache 2.0 permits modification and redistribution. You cannot keep the Evolution API name or marks: §6 grants no trademark rights. White-labelling means removing the project's branding, adding your own, and keeping the license notices and NOTICE file intact.

Will I have to open-source my code?

No. Apache 2.0 is permissive, not AGPL. It places no source-disclosure condition on your own code, whether you run the software internally or distribute it inside a commercial product. The §4 obligations concern notices and attribution on redistribution, not disclosure of your application's source.

Is Evolution API affiliated with or endorsed by WhatsApp or Meta?

Nothing in its repository or license implies platform approval. Evolution API is documented as speaking the unofficial WhatsApp Web protocol through Baileys; it is not the official WhatsApp Business API and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with WhatsApp or Meta. The same independence applies to SocialMate: neither tool is official.

What is the license of the Baileys library inside it?

Baileys is documented as separately licensed under MIT, which is permissive and places no copyleft on your code. Its obligations are lighter than Apache 2.0: keep the copyright notice and license text. MIT carries no express patent grant, unlike Apache 2.0, and it grants no trademark rights either. Verify against the Baileys repository before relying on it.

Is there a paid or enterprise tier of Evolution API?

The software itself is Apache 2.0 and free, with no license fee, seat count or per-message charge from the project. Check the project's repository and documentation for any commercial support or enterprise offering rather than relying on a summary. None is confirmed here, so do not budget against one.

What happens if the maintainer stops shipping?

You keep the code and every right Apache 2.0 gave you: run it, fork it, maintain it, pay someone to maintain it. What ends is the free labour behind updates, security patches and compatibility fixes as the WhatsApp Web protocol moves. That is the support gap, and it belongs in your cost model.

Do I need a WhatsApp Business license as well?

In a practical sense, yes. Sending on WhatsApp is governed by WhatsApp's Terms of Service, which sits entirely outside any code license. The Cloud API route adds business verification, a dedicated number and per-message charges. The unofficial protocol route adds no per-message fee but carries account risk. Neither is granted by the repository.

Does the license cover me if my number gets banned?

No. No software license, permissive or commercial, insures a WhatsApp number against enforcement, and no vendor can guarantee otherwise. Bans are possible on every unofficial tool in this category, SocialMate included. Pacing, warming and monitoring reduce risk; nothing removes it. Will I get banned? covers the practical side.

Is Evolution API open source or just source-available?

Open source. Apache 2.0 meets the Open Source Initiative's definition: free redistribution, available source, permitted derived works, and no discrimination against persons or fields of endeavour. Source-available licenses restrict one or more of those, usually commercial use. Apache 2.0 restricts none of them.