Community Edition

LyftData exposes two editions in the product UI:

Community: constrained surfaces and limits for evaluation, local development, and CI.
Licensed: production-oriented surfaces and limits based on your license claims.

Runtime tiering includes:

Free Community: no license configured.
Community Plus: a configured license that still uses Community Edition surfaces/caps.
Licensed: a configured Licensed Edition key.

Community edition at a glance

Community Edition surfaces/caps are active when no license key is configured, and also for configured Community-tier keys.

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).
Daily volume cap – processing is rate-limited to approximately 250 GB/day in Community Edition.
Feature gating – licensed-only connectors and capabilities remain disabled in Community Edition.
Core API availability – control-plane APIs remain available so dashboards and automation can operate in 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 activate a licensed key, Community limits are lifted without rebuilding your existing jobs.

Feature comparison

Capability	Community Edition	Licensed Deployment
License requirement	None (Free Community) or Community-tier key	Valid Licensed Edition key
Worker management	Built-in worker only	License-defined (external workers allowed)
Job count	15 jobs	License-defined
Daily processing	Approx. 250 GB/day cap	License-defined
Feature access	Licensed-only connectors/capabilities are disabled	License-defined
API surface	Core control-plane APIs available	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 and features views in the UI show Community surfaces/tiering.
Job creation requests return a descriptive error once the 15-job limit is reached.
Job cloning is also blocked once the job cap is reached.
Worker APIs reject attempts to add or enroll additional workers and refuse to remove the built-in worker.
Throughput is rate-limited against the Community daily-volume cap.

For automation and health checks, prefer /api/features (license_status.edition and license_status.tier) plus /api/license/show details, rather than assuming “license configured” means unrestricted.

Upgrading to a licensed deployment

Switching out of Community Edition is straightforward:

Acquire a license key from LyftData.
Activate the license in Settings → License or provide LYFTDATA_LICENSE at startup for automation.
Refresh – as soon as activation succeeds, Community Edition limits are lifted (extra workers can be added, job limits disappear, and Community rate limiting is disabled).
No reconfiguration required – jobs, history, and settings remain intact.

Monitoring & best practices

Detect edition/tier explicitly – call GET /api/features and inspect license_status.edition (Community or Licensed) plus license_status.tier (FreeCommunity, CommunityPlus, or Licensed) instead of assuming license_configured=true means unrestricted.
Plan for limits – watch job counts and worker requirements; upgrade before hitting caps.
Observe volume – add alerts around daily quota consumption in CE environments.
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 ideal for learning and early pipeline development. When you need external workers, higher throughput, or licensed-only integrations, move to a Licensed Edition deployment.