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Why We Open-Sourced Graphora Under AGPL

• Ezhil Vendhan

TL;DR
Graphora’s text-to-graph engine and reference UI are now available on GitHub under the Affero GPL (AGPL). You can self-host the platform, extend it for your ontology, and keep your deployment private—as long as modifications to Graphora remain open. Our consulting team still partners with enterprises that need domain ontologies, integration help, or managed delivery.
Repos: graphora-api · graphora-fe

Why AGPL?

  1. Keep the core open – AGPL ensures improvements made to the Graphora codebase flow back to the community, even when deployed behind the firewall.
  2. Align with how customers buy – Many teams want to evaluate Graphora on their own infra before engaging us. An open license removes procurement friction.
  3. Match our operating model – Consulting stays focused on outcomes (ontology design, integrations, SLAs) while the base platform remains transparent.
  4. Encourage responsible use – AGPL’s reciprocal nature prevents closed forks that fragment the ecosystem.

What’s Included Today

  • Graph ingestion + enrichment pipeline covering document parsing, entity extraction, disambiguation, and Neo4j writes.
  • Domain starter kits (finance, healthcare, public sector, consumer goods) to accelerate ontology design.
  • Deployment scripts for Docker Compose plus IaC examples for AWS/GCP/Azure.
  • Reference frontend (graphora-fe) with dashboards, lineage explorer, and demo scenarios you can extend.

Self-Hosting Checklist

  1. Clone the repo and copy the .env.example.
  2. Point the pipeline at your blob storage / queue / vector store.
  3. Load an ontology starter kit, or plug in your own JSON schema.
  4. Tailor the conflict-resolution hooks for your business rules.
  5. Add SSO/observability using the hooks we expose (we kept them simple on purpose).
  6. Contribute back fixes or extensions via PR—AGPL requires it, but it also keeps the ecosystem healthy.

When to Bring Our Consulting Team In

  • You need domain-specific ontologies, lineage, and governance that match compliance requirements.
  • You want Graphora embedded in an existing stack (SAP, ServiceNow, custom portals, mainframe exports, etc.).
  • You’re shipping to regulated environments (HIPAA, GDPR, PDPA) and need design reviews, DLP, or on-prem delivery.
  • You prefer a shared-delivery pod—we co-own roadmaps, SLAs, security, and runbooks.

Licensing & Compliance Notes

  • AGPL covers the Graphora codebase. Your data, ontologies, and downstream apps remain proprietary.
  • If you expose Graphora as a network service (internal or external), changes made to the Graphora source must be published.
  • Dual-licensing is available for teams that need to embed the engine in closed products—reach out if you fall into that category.
  • Contributions require a simple CLA so we can keep provenance clean.

What’s Next

  • Additional starter kits for procurement/tenders and manufacturing process intelligence.
  • Terraform blueprints for AWS PrivateLink + private Neo4j Aura deployments.
  • A hardened Helm chart with opinionated observability (Grafana/Loki) baked in.
  • More learning resources: deployment recipes, architecture walkthroughs, and postmortems from real projects.

If you build something interesting with Graphora—or need a partner to deliver production outcomes—let’s talk. Book a consultation or open an issue if you hit a snag.