Unified community license for Kpow and Flex

Table of contents

Sarah Brown
December 2nd, 2025
xx min read

The new unified Factor House Community License works with both Kpow Community Edition and Flex Community Edition, so you only need one license to unlock both products. This makes it even simpler to explore modern data streaming tools, create proof-of-concepts, and evaluate our products.

What's changing

Previously, we issued separate community licenses for Kpow and Flex, with different tiers for individuals and organisations. Now, there's just one single Community License that unlocks both products.

What's new:

  • One license for both products
  • Three environments for everyone - whether you're an individual developer or part of a team, you get three non-production installations per product
  • Simplified management - access and renew your licenses through our new self-service portal at account.factorhouse.io

Our commitment to the engineering community

Since first launching Kpow CE at Current '22, thousands of engineers have used our community licenses to learn Kafka and Flink without jumping through enterprise procurement hoops. This unified license keeps that same philosophy: high-quality tools that are free for non-production use.

The Factor House Community License is free for individuals and organizations to use in non-production environments. It's perfect for:

Getting started

New users: Head to account.factorhouse.io to grab your free Community license. You'll receive instant access via magic link authentication.

Existing users: Your legacy Kpow and Flex Community licenses will continue to work and are now visible in the portal. When your license renews (after 12 months), consider switching to the unified model for easier management.

What's included

Both Kpow CE and Flex CE include most enterprise features, optimized for learning and testing. Includes Kafka and Flink monitoring and management, fast multi-topic search, and Schema registry and Kafka Connect support.

  • License duration: 12 months, renewable annually
  • Installations: Up to 3 per product (Kpow CE: 1 Kafka cluster + 1 Schema Registry + 1 Connect cluster per installation; Flex CE: 1 Flink cluster per installation)
  • Support: Self-service via Factor House Community Slack, documentation, and release notes
  • Deployment: Docker, Docker Compose or Kubernetes

Ready for production? Start a 30-day free trial of our Enterprise editions directly from the portal to unlock RBAC, Kafka Streams monitoring, custom SerDes, and dedicated support.

What about legacy licenses?

If you're currently using a Kpow Individual, Kpow Organization, or Flex Community license, nothing changes immediately. Your existing licenses will continue to work with their respective products and are now accessible in the portal. When your license expires at the end of its 12-month term, you can easily switch to the new unified license for simpler management.

Get your free Community license at account.factorhouse.io

Questions? Reach out to [email protected] or join us in the Factor House Community Slack.