Compare Editions
Caracal ships under a dual-license model. Everything in this documentation describes the Community Edition, licensed under Apache 2.0 and free to self-host. The Enterprise Edition is a commercial product from Garudex Labs that adds managed multi-tenant operation, a hosted control plane, single sign-on, and a fully managed data plane on top of the same authority model.
The two editions share one model, one mandate format, and one set of SDKs. Enterprise does not fork the concepts — it removes the operational work of running and scaling them yourself.
Edition Comparison
Section titled “Edition Comparison”| Capability | Community Edition (Apache 2.0) | Enterprise Edition (commercial) |
|---|---|---|
| Authority model, mandates, delegation, policy, audit | Included | Included |
| SDKs and connectors (TypeScript, Python, Go) | Included | Included |
| Zones as a manual isolation primitive | Included | Included |
| Managed multi-tenancy | Self-modeled with zones and the Admin API | Native tenant, organization, and workspace lifecycle |
| Single sign-on (SSO) | Not included | SAML and OIDC SSO with SCIM provisioning |
| Teams and role-based access control | Not included | Org, team, and role management across tenants |
| Control surface | Local Console and self-hosted Admin API | Hosted management UI for all tenants |
| Gateway and services | You deploy and operate every service | Fully managed Gateway, STS, Coordinator, and audit plane |
| Integration effort | Run the full stack, then integrate the SDK | Integrate the SDK against managed endpoints; no services to run |
| Support | Community and issues | Commercial SLA, priority support, and onboarding |
Enterprise Additions
Section titled “Enterprise Additions”Managed multi-tenancy
Section titled “Managed multi-tenancy”The Community Edition treats a zone as a manual isolation boundary, and you map tenants onto zones yourself as described in Model Your Application in Caracal. The Enterprise Edition provides a managed tenancy layer with first-class tenants, organizations, and workspaces, including provisioning, lifecycle, and isolation guarantees handled for you instead of automated by hand through the Admin API.
Hosted management UI
Section titled “Hosted management UI”The Community Edition is operated through the local Console and the self-hosted Admin API. The Enterprise Edition replaces the local Console with a hosted management UI that administers every tenant, application, resource, provider, policy set, session, and audit stream from one place, with role-aware access for your teams.
Managed data plane
Section titled “Managed data plane”In the Community Edition you deploy and operate the Gateway, STS, Coordinator, audit, and supporting stores yourself. In the Enterprise Edition these run as a managed data plane: the Gateway and every service are operated, scaled, and upgraded for you. Your application work reduces to integrating the SDK against managed endpoints — there are no Caracal services for your team to host, patch, or scale.
Single sign-on and team access
Section titled “Single sign-on and team access”The Enterprise Edition adds SAML and OIDC single sign-on with SCIM user provisioning, plus organizations, teams, and role-based access control so administrators and reviewers get scoped access across tenants. None of this is part of the open-source edition.
Commercial support and assurances
Section titled “Commercial support and assurances”Enterprise customers receive a support SLA, priority response, guided onboarding, and the commercial agreement terms covering warranty, indemnification, and enterprise integrations.
Licensing
Section titled “Licensing”The Community Edition is governed by the Apache 2.0 license and is free to use, modify, and self-host. Enterprise Components are proprietary and require a written commercial subscription from Garudex Labs. Using the managed multi-tenancy, hosted UI, managed data plane, or SSO components without that agreement is not permitted under Apache 2.0.
Get Enterprise
Section titled “Get Enterprise”- Book an enterprise call for pricing, a demo, or a deployment fit assessment.
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support@garudexlabs.comfor licensing and procurement questions. - Visit garudexlabs.com for company and product details.