DeepSeek License Agreement
Model licenseSPDX identifier:
LicenseRef-DeepSeek-ModelOSI ✗Data updated Sep 26, 2026In plain words
An OpenRAIL-style model license: commercial use allowed, with use-based restrictions that pass to derivatives.
Analogy: A free tool with a forbidden-uses list attached to every copy.
Pros
- + Commercial use allowed
- + Use restrictions travel downstream
Cons
- - Not open source by OSI
- - Newer DeepSeek models moved to MIT
Well-known projects using it
5 well-known projects in our map use this license.
Permissions
- Commercial use
- Modification
- Distribution
Conditions
- Include the license
- Pass on use restrictions
Limitations
- No liability
- No warranty
- Use restrictions
Extreme scenarios · Model and data licenses
- E1Blocked by licenseWeights are used for military, surveillance or disinformation
- E2With conditionsDistillation, or training other models on its outputs
- E3AllowedA hyperscale company uses it commercially
- E4With conditionsFine-tuned, renamed and released as closed weights
- E5Not addressedA dataset is used commercially and redistributed
- E6Blocked by licenseYou want to allow research use only
Worst-case radar
- 1Misuse control100
- 2Derivative control50
- 3Commercial control0
- 4Adoption friction33
Computed from the scenario matrix. Higher means more of that property, not "better".
Compare with…
- Apache-2.0
- MIT
- Baichuan 2
- BLOOM RAIL 1.0
- ChatGLM License
- Falcon License 2.0
- FLUX.1-dev NC
- Gemma
- Hunyuan Community
- Llama
- Mistral Research
- NVIDIA Open Model
- OpenRAIL-M
- Stability Community
- Qwen License
- CC BY 4.0
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- CC0
- CDLA-Permissive-1.0
- Etalab-2.0
- GFDL-1.3
- ODbL-1.0
- ODC-By-1.0
- OFL-1.1
- OGL-UK-3.0
Official text
Only the official text is legally binding. We do not translate license texts.
https://github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-LLM/blob/main/LICENSE-MODEL