Best offer on record: Free self-hosting under open-source license (now MSCL-1.0-GPL, not Apache 2.0). 4 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Free self-hosting under open-source license (now MSCL-1.0-GPL, not Apache 2.0) high confidence
Self-hosting Directus is free: 'Self-host free with one install. No credit card required' (homepage; claim via npx directus-template-cli@latest init). The license is the Monospace Sustainable Core License (MSCL-1.0-GPL) v1.0 from Monospace Inc (parent of Directus), with an irrevocable grant converting each release to GPL-3.0 after 4 years. Permitted Purpose explicitly covers internal use and non-commercial education/research, so students and classrooms can self-host free; there is no seat/instance cap for internal use. No .edu email required, no credit card, no region limit stated. Caveats: 'Competing Use' prohibition (may not offer a managed service competing with Monospace's commercial Directus where it charges license fees), license-key integrity rules for protected functionality on v12+, and no reselling/white-labelling Directus itself.
Eligibility
Anyone for internal/non-commercial or personal use (incl. students, education, research); agencies may use it for client work as professional services. Commercial/resale use of Directus-as-SaaS requires OIG or a paid license.
How to claim
Download/run the open-source release (e.g. npx directus-template-cli@latest init); no key needed for pre-v12 releases; v12+ has key-gated functionality covered by the free Core tier or OIG.
Expiry
n/a (standing license); each release converts to GPL-3.0 four years after its release date
Gotchas
The 'Apache 2.0' label in prior notes is outdated — license is now MSCL-1.0-GPL (successor to BSL, which was replaced per the OIG FAQ). Not a true open license: competing-use ban, telemetry/licensing-key enforcement on v12+.
Directus Cloud Core free tier ($0/mo) high confidence
Free cloud/Core plan: 3 user seats, 25 collections, 5 flows, plus AI Assistant, Advanced RBAC, and Community Support. Cloud hosting is NOT included — it is an optional add-on at $99/mo (hosting only; overages/limits per 'Cloud Policies': e.g. legacy overage rates $5/2,500 DB entries, $10/25,000 API requests, $5/25 GB bandwidth, $5/5 GB asset storage — Core tier overage figures were not captured in the table render). Paid comparison: Team is $499/mo annual ($5,988/yr) or $599/mo rolling; 10 SSO seats, extra SSO seats $50/seat/mo, 50 collections (expandable to 100), 20 flows. No SSO on Core, not addable.
Eligibility
Any team up to 3 seats; no .edu requirement; no credit-card or trial mention on the current pricing page. No regional limits stated. Government customers are excluded only from the OIG grant, not from the Core tier.
How to claim
Sign up at directus.cloud (login → create or join a team → create projects); pick the Core ($0) tier. Self-hosting under Core costs $0.
Expiry
no expiry stated; 'No existing customer will be forced onto new pricing immediately' — monthly plans grandfathered 6 months, annual honored until renewal
Gotchas
The free tier caps you at 3 seats / 25 collections / 5 flows, well under OIG; hosting on Directus' cloud is +$99/mo on top of $0 software, so 'free' applies to self-hosting; no SSO and no paid support; each cloud project incurs infrastructure costs and there are no refunds for accidental/abandoned projects.
Open Innovation Grant (OIG) — perpetual full commercial access for small orgs & individuals high confidence
OIG grants 'fully permissive access to Directus at no software cost': unlimited seats, collections, and flows; SSO and custom access policies; bring-your-own LLM and AI translations; no feature limits or caps. Self-hosted use is free; cloud hosting is a flat $99/mo (hosting only). The grant is 'granted in perpetuity' — licenses have no expiration and require no renewal; it is 'a standing program, not a promotion.' Each key includes 5 activations (multi-container replicas pointing at the same DB/public URL share one activation). Grant applies to Directus v12.0.0+; v11 and below need no key and never will. You may build and sell commercial products/SaaS on Directus; reselling, redistributing, sub-licensing, or white-labelling Directus itself is out of scope.
Eligibility
Under $5M annual recurring revenue (measured across commonly-owned group; donations/grants excluded) AND fewer than 50 employees. Individuals qualify (assessed on personal finances, not employer), non-profits, hobbyists, agencies qualify; unpaid volunteers and school students don't count toward headcount. End-user rule: eligibility is judged by who logs into Studio (if a client's team logs in, the client's size governs; app end-users/website visitors never count). Government customers are explicitly excluded.
How to claim
1) Fill the OIG application at directus.com/oig (3-step form: applying-as, name, email, country/region), 2) read the OIG FAQ and accept the Open Innovation Grant agreement, 3) receive a perpetual license key for v12+. No credit card is involved; no payment of any kind.
Expiry
Perpetual — no expiration, no renewal process. Directus periodically reviews the grantee registry and may request proof of eligibility; keys can be disabled as a last resort for unreachable/inaccurate grantees; must contact sales within 90 days if the org grows past $5M or 50 people.
Gotchas
Required telemetry (no offline/air-gapped operation), no paid product support included, keys revocable for false information or abuse, 5 activations per key, no resell/white-label of Directus itself, and OIG FAQ terms apply only to v12+ (older releases are unlicensed/open).
Student / education-specific license or free offer medium confidence
No education-specific program, student discount, .edu-email offer, or free trial was found on any official page fetched today (homepage, /pricing/, /oig, /oig/faq, /license, /cloud-policies, /docs). Students are covered indirectly: (1) MSCL 'Permitted Purpose' explicitly allows free non-commercial education and research self-hosting, and (2) individuals (including students) are OIG-eligible, with students explicitly not counted toward the 50-employee cap when attached to a school/non-profit.
Eligibility
Indirect only: any student/educator via MSCL education purpose or individual OIG application; no .edu email verification mentioned anywhere.
How to claim
Self-host free for class/course use under the MSCL, or apply for OIG as an individual (assessed on personal finances) via the /oig form.
Gotchas
Education use is non-commercial only; a commercial SaaS built on Directus by a student or school still needs OIG or a paid license.
Material 2025–2026 changes: (1) LICENSE CHANGE — Directus is no longer under the 'Apache 2.0' license recorded in prior notes; the OIG FAQ states the prior BSL (Business Source License) was replaced by the MSCL (Monospace Sustainable Core License, MSCL-1.0-GPL) to add enforcement mechanisms after 'documented persistent abuse ... by large enterprise organizations'; each release converts to GPL-3.0 after 4 years. (2) OIG PERPETUITY — the homepage announces 'We're Making the OIG Perpetual and Clearer'; grants now carry no expiration date and no renewal process, and the program is described as a standing program. (3) PROFESSIONAL TIER SUNSET — per the Cloud Policies page, 'as of June 1, 2026 the Professional tier is a legacy tier that is no longer available for new projects' (it remains available to existing projects; monthly plans grandfathered 6 months, annual until renewal; the legacy $5-per-unit overage rates likely apply only to grandfathered accounts). (4) TRIAL — the 'Directus Cloud trial available' note from prior knowledge is unsupported on any official page fetched today: no trial duration, no trial credit, and no credit-card language appears on /pricing/, /oig, /license, /cloud-policies, or /docs/cloud/getting-started/introduction; the free entry points are now the self-hosted Core tier and OIG. No student/education program exists, so nothing to sunset there. Data-quality caveats: web search was unavailable (shared session search budget exhausted), so 2025–2026 change verification relied on official pages fetched 2026-10-22; /blog and /cloud paths 404'd, and the per-tier technical-limits table on /cloud-policies did not render its Core-tier row in the fetched text (Core limits were instead confirmed on /pricing/).