Why We Built OpenLift This Way
OpenLift is more than just a fitness app. It's an open project built by people who believe workout tracking should be transparent, accessible, and sustainable. We don't have venture capital, and we don't want to become another corporate platform that puts profits first. But at the same time, software like this has real costs — servers, development, support, and long-term maintenance.
To keep this project healthy for years to come, we've chosen a path that balances freedom, fairness, and sustainability.
Our Backend-as-a-Service Approach
OpenLift operates as a Backend-as-a-Service platform under the AGPL v3 license. Here's what this means for you:
The backend is fully open source — all the intelligence, data processing, and core functionality that powers OpenLift is available for you to inspect, modify, and self-host. You get complete transparency about how your data is handled and processed.
The mobile app stays closed source — we maintain a single, trusted mobile experience that connects to any OpenLift backend (yours or ours). This ensures consistency, security, and helps us maintain the project long-term while still giving you complete backend control.
This approach gives you the best of both worlds: full backend freedom with a reliable, maintained mobile experience.
Our Licensing Approach
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For personal and family self-hosting You can run OpenLift on your own server, for yourself or your family, with all features unlocked. This includes our advanced progression playbooks, analytics, and recovery tools — no subscriptions, no limits. You'll use our official mobile app, but the backend and all its intelligence remain fully under your control.
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For gyms and fitness centers If you want to use OpenLift commercially or offer it as a service to your members, you'll need a commercial license from us. This ensures we can support you properly while keeping the project sustainable.
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For developers and contributors If you're passionate about building a self-hostable, community-driven fitness platform, you're welcome here. Explore our code on GitHub, contribute improvements, and help shape the future of open fitness tracking. Join our Discord community to connect with other contributors and users.
Free vs Paid Features
We believe core fitness tracking should be accessible to everyone:
- Always Free: Complete workout tracking, self-hosting, all backend features (for personal and family use), core mobile app functionality.
- Paid (Cloud Only): Advanced analytics, premium recovery tools, higher quotas, and enterprise features. These require significant infrastructure and maintenance that we can't provide for free at scale.
When you subscribe to OpenLift Cloud, you're directly supporting the project's future. That income goes back into development, server costs, and keeping the free version truly free.
Our Commitment
- Self-hosting will always be free and unlimited for personal and family use — with all features unlocked.
- Your data stays yours — we do not sell, trade, or exploit your information.
- We remain transparent about what's free, what's paid, and why.
- Community drives the project — your contributions, ideas, and discussions shape OpenLift's direction.
We're not here to "disrupt industries" or make bold promises. We want to build a tool that works, stays alive, and respects the people who use it.
How You Can Support OpenLift
If you believe in what we're building, you can help in several ways:
- Use and recommend OpenLift — tell others about a fitness platform that values freedom and transparency
- Contribute to the project — check out our open source code and contribute improvements
- Join our community — connect with other users and contributors in our Discord server
- Subscribe to OpenLift Cloud — your subscription directly funds ongoing development and keeps the core features free for everyone
Together, we can ensure OpenLift has a long, healthy future — free from corporate takeover, and built by the people who actually use it.