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Fingerprint's mission is to power a safe and seamless internet through device intelligence. As part of that mission, we want to make our products as accessible as possible.
So on October 22, we announced the availability of FingerprintJS version 5.0 under the MIT license, to make it easier for developers and organizations to use FingerprintJS — the most popular browser fingerprinting library on GitHub with over 25,000 stars — for free.
Why did we do this?
FingerprintJS got its start in 2012 as a fully open-source project. In 2023, we decided to introduce a Business Source License (BSL) for version 4.0 due to our competitors using it for free.
The BSL helped ensure fair and open usage for FingerprintJS v4.0 for most of our open-source community, but required companies to pay Fingerprint for commercial use. (Version 3.0 was always available under an MIT license and free to use, but did not have the improvements available in v4.0, such as Apple Pay support detection, improved WebGL capabilities detection, and more.)
Unfortunately, as a result, FingerprintJS was no longer so easily accessible to the developer community. We heard your feedback — now, all new code updates to FingerprintJS are under the MIT license. We want to ensure the latest in browser fingerprinting technology is accessible and available to all developers and businesses to help fight against fraud.
This change allows both commercial and non-commercial enterprises and individuals to use our open-source product at no cost. By providing FingerprintJS v5.0 under an MIT license, we hope to encourage all users to upgrade to v5.0 so we can all work together to prevent fraud.
Additional information for developers:
- Explore the FingerprintJS GitHub library
- Join our developer community on Discord
- Migration guides: v3 to v5, v4 to v5
For customers/partners
- Contact us for enterprise support or partnership questions
FAQ
We didn’t switch licenses in 2023 for version 3.0; it had always remained available under the MIT license for all uses.
Starting with version 4.0, we introduced the Business Source License because we learned that competitors were using the MIT-licensed version to power their browser fingerprinting.
We are making FingerprintJS version 5.0 available under an MIT license because:
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We believe effective fraud prevention technology like browser fingerprinting should be accessible to everyone.
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We have made substantial improvements to Fingerprint Pro so that competitors relying on FingerprintJS for browser fingerprinting is no longer a concern.
While FingerprintJS v5.0 improves upon previous versions, there are some key differences. FingerprintJS does not offer the same accuracy, access to additional device intelligence, or dedicated customer support as Fingerprint Pro.
If you’re interested in exploring Fingerprint Pro, please reach out to us directly for additional information.
