Updated October 23, 2026
Trying to work out whether Form.io’s free, open source core is enough for your project, or where Enterprise starts? The short answer: the open source core gives you the form builder, the form renderer, the API server, and the front-end libraries, under OSL 3.0 and MIT licenses.
Enterprise (self-hosted or SaaS) adds the Developer Portal, projects, premium components, and more. A few pieces, like the PDF servers, the Reporting UI, and the Enterprise Form Builder Module, are optional add-ons. Here’s how the two compare, piece by piece, with a quick at-a-glance table at the end.
Open Source Core Features: What You Get for Free
We mention on our FAQ that the open source core pieces are:
- Open Source Form Renderer
- Open Source Form Builder
- Open Source API Server
- Angular Front End Library
- React Front End Library
While that information is helpful (because you know you get the core functionality), we often get asked what the differences are, more specifically with the form builder.
The Open Source Core Form Builder includes:
- The ability to create forms and resource data models with a drag and drop interface
- Submit data to any form or resource directly in the form builder
- View and export data to JSON or CSV
- 33 available form components (basic, special, and layout oriented components)
- Ability to set up form actions in the UI
- Basic ability to configure access permissions
- Apply tags to forms and resources to be used as references as well as a filtering mechanism in your app.
Enterprise Features: What Enterprise Adds on Top of the Core
This might be obvious, but the Enterprise & SaaS offerings include everything in the Open Source Core as well as everything listed below. A few of these, noted as optional, are add-ons you license on top of the base configuration (see Configuration-Based Pricing).
Broad Features Only In Enterprise
The Developer Portal: A comprehensive tool with inline documentation to help you manage your forms, resource data models, APIs, actions, access, teams, roles, and more.
Projects are segmented sandboxes that house a set of forms and resources. By leveraging projects, you can assign teams to different projects to limit their access based on what’s relevant to team members.
CORS Configuration: Built-in user-interface to configure your CORS settings globally.
Reporting UI: Sort, filter, and visualize your data. (Now an optional module, priced per project.)
PDF & PDF+ Servers: Allow users to submit via a PDF document and receive a PDF of their submission data. (Optional, priced per environment.)
Embeddable, white-labeled Enterprise Form Builder Module (EFBM) that allows non-developers to build drag and drop forms inside your own application and limits access to sensitive configurations. (Optional, with its own library license. It replaces the older standalone Form Manager app, which Form.io now treats as legacy.)
Submission & Usage Features
- Submission logs for all forms
- Quick inline embed scripts for all forms for easy embedding
- One-click launch button to create a single-page application of any form.
Viewing Data Features
- Submission revisions are shown in context of each submission
- Ability to Print/Export to PDF all submissions
Form Builder / Editing Forms Features
- Automatic tracking of the history of all form revisions
- Nested forms and form revisions within the nested forms
- Premium Components (these need a separate Library License key, available on enterprise plans):
- Fully wired file uploads
- Dynamic multi-page wizards (as of server version 9.3.0, the Dynamic Wizard lives in the community contrib repository)
- Data Sources
- reCaptcha
- Tagpads
- Sketchpads
- Review Pages (summary before submission)
- Signatures
- Custom JSON
- Data Tables
- Encrypted Fields (field-level encryption comes with the API Plus server)
- Advanced Conditional Logic
Form Actions Features
- Premium actions including easy integrations, role assignments, 2FA, Google Sheets integration, SQL Connector (since deprecated; Form.io now points to webhooks, a custom API layer, or Data Sources instead)
- The most frequently used actions are pre-configured
- Email action that dynamically updates after email sending provider is set up
- Logs of each action that’s executed (who, what, and when they did it)
- Built-in user authentication, including OAuth, SAML, custom JWT Tokens, and more
Form Access Features
- Set roles with their own permissions for this Form
- Set roles with their own permissions for access to the Developer Portal itself (the commercial version of this tool)
- Form promotion through development, staging, and production environments
- Additional No-Code UI for a number of features.
- Configure teams with their own permissions for projects that connect to your own user database that exists elsewhere.
Enterprise Deployments: How Self-Hosted Enterprise Is Delivered
When you use an enterprise deployment (and our SaaS), the Form Renderer, Form Builder, API Server, and Front End Library are all pre-wired in for you, as well as a number of other things.
Self-hosted enterprise deployments are packaged for you, with their dependencies, maintained regularly with release notes, licensed and served to you as a platform in a Docker container.
Get the flexibility to meet your unique requirements, without going outside of your organization, and without losing control of your data.
We offer 30-day evaluation licenses based on the configuration of your choice. Contact us to get started.
Form.io Open Source Core vs. Enterprise at a Glance
Still deciding? This table restates the comparison above, checked against Form.io’s current pages in October 2026.
| Piece | Open source core | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Form builder and form renderer (formio.js) | Yes (MIT) | Yes, pre-wired |
| API server (formio) | Yes (OSL 3.0) | Yes, packaged as Docker containers with release notes |
| Angular, React, and Vue renderers | Yes (MIT) | Yes |
| Developer Portal and projects | No | Included |
| Premium components (Data Source, Tagpad, Sketchpad, Review Page, Data Table, and more) | No | Separate Library License key |
| PDF and PDF Plus servers | No | Optional, per environment |
| Reporting UI | No | Optional module, per project |
| Enterprise Form Builder Module | No | Optional, separate library license |
| Field-level encryption and advanced audit logging | No | With the API Plus server |
One thing the table can’t show: you don’t have to choose forever on day one. Texas Tech University started on open source forms and switched to Enterprise in 3 weeks. If you want to test that path, the open source page has the Docker install steps, and Form.io offers a 30-day evaluation license you run in your own environment.
Sources: Form.io open source libraries and licenses, Form.io FAQ, Configuration-Based Pricing, Premium Components documentation, Enterprise Form Builder Module documentation, Form Manager (legacy) documentation, and SQL Connector (deprecated) documentation.
Keep reading: The False Dichotomy Of Choosing Open Source Software Or Commercial Developer Productivity Tools, Open Source Form Builders: When Enterprise Forms Need APIs, Workflow, and Control, and the case study How Texas Tech University Switched From Open Source Forms To Enterprise In 3 Weeks. Or see how self-hosted Enterprise works and tell us what you’re building.
