🆚 BSD License vs. GNU License

Compare technologies based on real-world usage data *

Type

Open-source license
Open-source license

About

BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses that allow software to be used, modified, and redistributed with minimal restrictions.

They typically require preserving copyright notices and disclaimers, allow use in proprietary and commercial software, have variants such as the 2-clause ("Simplified BSD License" or "FreeBSD License") and 3-clause ("New BSD License") licenses, and do not require source code disclosure or derivative works to use the same license.

The GNU General Public Licenses are a family of free, copyleft software licenses created to guarantee users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify software while ensuring those freedoms are preserved when the software is distributed.

They require that anyone who distributes GPL-licensed software or derivative works also provide access to the corresponding source code under the same GPL terms, prohibit adding further restrictions beyond the license, and permit commercial use without extra fees.

Headquarters

Boulder, Colorado, United States
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Website

Categories

Licenses › Rank #5
Licenses › Rank #2

Popularity

Determined by the number of sites using each technology.

The GNU license is 20 times more popular than BSD License.
Total websites

Market share

Licenses

Popularity by country

Determined by the number of sites detected from each country.

GNU License is more popular than BSD License in all countries.
United States
Germany
France
Japan
Italy
United Kingdom
Spain
Netherlands
Russia
Czech Republic

Awards

Popularity by domain category

Determined by the number of sites in each category.

GNU License is more popular than BSD License in all market segments.
Software/Hardware
Blogs/Wiki
Internet Services
Education/Reference
Business
Technical Information
Marketing/Merchandising
Technical/Business Forums
Games
Entertainment

Top sites

Top-ranked sites that use these technologies.

Name
Rank
#6,981
#13,135
#33,061
#37,555
View more ➝
Name
Rank
#16,412
View more ➝

See also

* According to recent studies, many of online reviews are fake.
When making your decision, it is better to rely on data that cannot be falsified.
Our service evaluates the popularity of technologies by the number of websites using them.

Statistics were last calculated on .
For details, see our methodology and disclaimer.