Community Edition
LyftData supports two licensing modes:
- Community Edition – automatic “unlicensed” mode that unlocks the full feature set with guardrails designed for evaluation, local development, and CI.
- Licensed Deployments – activated when you provision a license key, intended for production workloads that need more workers, more jobs, and higher data volumes.
Community edition at a glance
Community Edition is enabled whenever the server cannot find a license key.
- No activation required – the system recognizes the missing license and treats it as a valid Community Edition state.
- One worker – the built-in worker is always available; external workers cannot be added or enrolled and the built-in worker cannot be removed.
- 15 job limit – job creation and cloning calls are capped at 15 total jobs (existing jobs can still be edited or redeployed).
- Execution caps – workers are capped at 5 concurrent jobs and limited to basic job types until a license is applied.
- API parity – the core control-plane APIs remain available; the server reports Community Edition in license endpoints so dashboards and automation can detect constrained mode.
Why community edition exists
Community Edition gives teams a frictionless way to explore LyftData and to run lower-scale automation locally:
- Try the platform quickly – no keys or activation steps are needed before creating jobs and running them.
- Local & CI usage – ideal for test suites, proofs of concept, or developer environments that only need the built-in worker.
- Seamless migration – once you add a license, Community Edition restrictions disappear instantly without downtime or data loss.
Feature comparison
| Capability | Community Edition | Licensed Deployment |
|---|---|---|
| License requirement | None | Valid license key |
| Worker management | Built-in worker only | License-defined (external workers allowed) |
| Job count | 15 jobs | License-defined |
| Job execution | 5 concurrent jobs, basic job types only | License-defined |
| API surface | Full | Full |
| Support | Community-driven | Enterprise support options |
Operating in community edition
When a server is running in Community Edition you will see the following behaviours:
- License views (in the UI or via
/api/license/show) report Community Edition. - Job creation requests return a descriptive error once the 15-job limit is reached.
- Worker APIs reject attempts to add or enroll additional workers and refuse to remove the built-in worker.
- Workers are limited to basic job types and a maximum of 5 concurrent jobs.
Because Community Edition is considered a “licensed” state internally, existing CLI tools and scripts do not need to change—authorization checks succeed even though the environment is running in constrained mode.
Upgrading to a licensed deployment
Switching out of Community Edition is straightforward:
- Acquire a license key from LyftData.
- Activate the license using the provided API endpoint or the server UI.
- Refresh – as soon as activation succeeds, the server lifts Community Edition limits (extra workers can be added, job limits disappear, and any future rate limiter is disabled).
- No reconfiguration required – jobs, history, and settings remain intact.
Monitoring & best practices
- Detect Community Edition – automation should inspect the license summary rather than assuming “licensed” equals unrestricted.
- Plan for limits – keep an eye on job counts and worker needs; upgrade before hitting the cap if you expect growth.
- Observe volume – once the data-volume limiter lands, add alerts for quota consumption so builds and tests don’t stall unexpectedly.
- Document your upgrade process – because activation is seamless, most teams just need a runbook describing where the license key lives and who can apply it.
Community Edition is perfect for learning the platform and building early pipelines. When you outgrow the single-worker limits or need higher throughput, activating a license unlocks multi-worker scaling, higher job counts, and production support.