eZ publish is released under the GPL licence making it open source and free. Most users of eZ publish use this licence and do not need to buy any other licence to download, install and use eZ publish.

You can get more commercial possibilities with the software if you get the Professional licence. This licence is only for those who wants to take the eZ publish development one step further and develop commercial software on eZ publish, rename or close the source code

eZ publish Online editor (OE) has another licence. The Proprietary licence tells you what you can and can not do with this product under this licence. The OE is also a commercial product released by eZ systems. It will work on eZ publish 2.2 and 3 series.

For users of eZ publish 2.2 the eZ publish desktop edition (DE) has another licence that makes it commercial for the users that want to use the DE on their eZ publish 2.2 series. DE is a commercial product from eZ systems released under the Commercial licence.