Update on Anaconda's Terms of Service for Academia and Research

Recently, our users at academic and research institutions have raised important questions about commercial fees in Anaconda’s Terms of Service and their applicability in educational settings. We recognize that an update to the Terms of Service in March 2024 was not communicated as clearly as it should have been, causing confusion, concern, and unintentional exclusion of a large number of free users, particularly among our valued academic and research users. We take full responsibility for this lack of clarity and want to address it head-on.

Anaconda was founded with a vision to drive the adoption and growth of open-source tools for numerical computing, science, and data analytics. From the beginning, academic and research institutions have been at the heart of our ecosystem and community. It’s clear that our current legal language doesn’t adequately reflect this commitment, and as such, we’re preparing an update to our Terms of Service, End User License Agreement, and other related documents. Once updated, these documents shall continue to reflect our commitment to our valued academic and research users by, for example, reiterating that Anaconda remains free for students, researchers, and educators at accredited universities, with very limited exceptions. This update, expected to conclude by year-end, aims to make our legal terms more accessible and understandable for our entire community.

As we work to ensure our Terms of Service complement our intent within the community, we are providing the following guidelines to help you better understand our current Terms of Service.

When Is Anaconda Free to Use?

The Anaconda portfolio, as illustrated below, can be used as follows:

1. Conda is open source and free for all users. The conda package manager and any other tools in the conda ecosystem (which you can find in these GitHub organizations: https://github.com/conda, https://github.com/conda-incubator) are and will continue to be fully open source and free to use for everyone. The full governance policy of the conda open-source software (OSS) project can be found here: https://github.com/conda/governance. These projects are not governed by Anaconda Inc.

*One exception is that we do not allow the content of our servers to be mirrored on a university’s servers without a license.

2. The Community Repository (https://anaconda.org) is free. This means you can install and update any packages hosted on any community channel, including conda-forge (https://anaconda.org/conda-forge). However, it’s important to note that we offer convenience mirrors of some of our non-free channels on anaconda.org: main, r, msys2, and anaconda. The packages in those four specific channels are subject to our Terms of Service, even though they are mirrored at anaconda.org.

* “Channels” are defined as remote package storage locations maintained by various entities, including the community, companies, or individuals

3. The Anaconda Repository (https://repo.anaconda.com/) is governed by our Terms of Service which means

It is free for individuals, universities, as well as companies with fewer than 200 employees; and
It requires a license for any use at companies with 200 or more employees that are not educational or academic instructional organizations (including, for example, non-university research entities and national laboratories).

4. The Miniconda Installer is free for everyone except to the extent guideline 3 (see above) applies, which means

it is and will continue to be fully open source and free to use for everyone; and
when Miniconda downloads package updates from the Anaconda Repository, installing/using those packages is governed by our Terms of Service and therefore might require a commercial fee license as described in guideline 3. Note that Miniconda can easily be configured to point to a free-for-everyone alternative repository, such as conda-forge as described in guideline 2.

5. Miniforge (and any other non-Anaconda installer) is free for everyone, which means it is and will continue to be fully open source and free to use for everyone

6. Mirroring, or copying significant portions of the Anaconda Repository and redistributing them to other internal or external users, requires a commercial fee license under our Terms of Service under all circumstances.

Anaconda Portfolio

Note: For all automatic channels set by an installer, you always have the option to reconfigure your channel preferences by editing your .condarc file. Find instructions for how to do this in the conda docs: https://www.conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/configuration/use-condarc.html

Free or Fee? A Quick Guide to Anaconda’s Offerings Based on Your Company’s Revenue and Size

Below is a guide to our free and paid tools, tailored to where you work/study and how you use our tools.

If you’re an individual, using Anaconda on your own personal device for non-commercial purposes, such as hobby projects, self-study, or academic coursework not related to paid employment:

Both Anaconda installers, the Anaconda Distribution Installer and Miniconda, are free to download, install, use and update.
Downloading, installing, using, and updating packages from the Anaconda Repository (“defaults” and any other channel hosted under https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/) is free.
Downloading, installing, using, and updating packages from anaconda.org, including the conda-forge channel, is free.

If you’re a student/educator/researcher at an accredited university, using Anaconda to learn, perform coursework, experiment, or conduct research for non-commercial benefit:

Both Anaconda installers, the Anaconda Distribution Installer and Miniconda, are free to download, install, use and update.
Downloading, installing, using, and updating packages from the Anaconda Repository (“defaults” channels, see: https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs) is free.
Downloading, installing, using, and updating packages from anaconda.org, including the conda-forge channel, is free.

If you’re an employee using Anaconda at work or for your company:

The Anaconda Distribution Installer is free to download/use/install/update if you work at a company with fewer than 200 employees.
The Miniconda installer is free to download/install/use/update for everyone. No commercial fee license is required for download.
Downloading, installing, using, and updating packages from the Anaconda Repository (“defaults” channels, see: https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs) is governed by our Terms of Service, regardless of installer. A commercial fee license is required if you work at a company with 200 or more employees.
Downloading, installing, using, and updating packages from anaconda.org, including the conda-forge channel, is free (with exclusion of the channels mirrored from the defaults channel as explained in guideline 2)).

What’s Next and Our Commitment

In the coming months, we are committed to building back trust from individuals, educational users, and the community. In order to deliver on that commitment, we are updating our Terms of Service once again to address the questions raised by the community. Additionally, we’re going to formalize our educational offerings to provide additional clarity for students, researchers, and educators.

We are in the process of consolidating your feedback and working with our legal advisors to update our Terms of Service to address this feedback. First and foremost, we will clearly reinforce our commitment to free use of Anaconda for educational purposes. Second, we will include clear language on how the Terms of Service applies to anaconda.org and, once again, reinforce free use of all of the channels on anaconda.org. Third, we will offer scalable discounts, up to 100%, for nonprofits based on their revenue. This approach ensures equitable access to our tools while supporting research organizations of all sizes, and offering tailored discounts to ensure our tools remain accessible to those advancing important research and societal causes. Finally, we are forming an advisory board of academic and research stakeholders to establish a formal connection with our community and gain insights around how to better support educators and scientists.

As we navigate these changes, we remain steadfast in our commitment to our founding principles and to fostering an open, collaborative environment for data science and analytics. We hope this blog post helps clarify our position and invites further dialogue with our valued community members. We appreciate the feedback we’ve received and look forward to continuing our journey together, supporting the open-source community while ensuring the sustainability and security of our shared resources. If you have additional questions or feedback about our Terms of Service and plans to update it, please contact us at [email protected].

Is Anaconda still free?
- Conda is and will always be free, but when choosing an installer and when subsequently downloading, installing, using or updating packages, users need to know the terms of service that apply to each installer and where those packages are hosted to determine if their use is free, as described in the guidelines above.
- If packages are hosted in community channels such as conda-forge, you can use all packages for free, provided you use Miniconda or any non-Anaconda installer such as Miniforge. (subject to the mirrored channels exception mentioned in guideline 2)
- If a package is hosted in Anaconda channels, you can use conda for free, but downloading, installing, using and updating those packages may require a commercial fee license, which means:
  - The distribution of packages Anaconda builds and maintains remains free for individuals and small organizations, which is defined in the Terms of Service as having less than 200 employees or contractors.
  - A paid license is required for large organizations, which is defined in the Terms of Service as having more than 200 or employees or contractors.
  - Anaconda is free for all educational entities—even those with 200 or more employees or contractors—when used in a course curriculum, including teaching, learning, and researching, at accredited universities worldwide.
  - A paid license is always required for any individual or entity—even an educational entity—that is embedding, mirroring, or providing third parties access to our products. If you’re interested in pursuing an embedded use case, please contact our partner team at [email protected]. See the Anaconda Terms of Service for details.
Does Anaconda require academic entities with 200 or more employees to purchase a business or enterprise license?
- No. Anaconda does not require academic institutions and universities to purchase a commercial fee license for our installers or for access to our package repository, regardless of their size, when used in course curricula. We maintain a free-use policy for educational entities when Anaconda is used in course curricula, including teaching, learning, and research at accredited educational institutions worldwide. This free-use policy applies even to large universities with 200 or more employees. The 200-employee threshold for paid licenses primarily applies to commercial organizations. However, it’s important to note that paid licenses may be required for specific use cases within academic settings, such as embedding Anaconda’s products, mirroring them, or providing third-party access beyond standard educational use.
Does this mean that Anaconda now charges for Python and open-source software?
- No. Anaconda does not charge for open-source libraries or Python itself. Instead, it charges for the value-added services it provides. Much like distributors Red Hat and Canonical, Anaconda’s engineers curate, build, maintain, and serve these libraries as binary packages on secure cloud infrastructure. Non-educational organizations that do not fall under the “small organization” definition in the Terms of Service and are using these packages pay for access to Anaconda’s secure repositories.
How does Anaconda support open source software?
- Anaconda donates a portion of its profits to support the maintainers of popular open-source projects, helping to sustain the open-source ecosystem. Over the past 12 years, we’ve invested over $30 million in creating, incubating, and maintaining numerous open source projects. We’ve created or incubated essential tools like conda, Numba, Bokeh, and Dask, while also maintaining and funding projects such as pandas, conda-forge, and Jupyter. Our support extends to employing key contributors of critical open source tools like pip/PyPA and conda-forge. We also invest millions of dollars annually to provide crucial infrastructure support by hosting Anaconda.org, a free platform for sharing open source packages. Additionally, we offer financial backing to NumFOCUS through our dividend program, supporting the broader scientific computing community. Throughout all of this, we maintain a strong focus on supporting educational and academic research facilities, which are vital to the open source ecosystem.
Do I have to pay if I use Miniconda?
- Because Miniconda is a minimal Anaconda distribution installer that points to the Anaconda repositories by default, the need to pay depends on the package channels you use. If you use the default channel (named “defaults” and points to the Anaconda Repository) and your company has 200 or more employees, you need to purchase a license. However, if you use community-maintained package channels on anaconda.org (like conda-forge and bioconda) as your preferred channel, you don’t need a license. It’s important to note that community channels cannot guarantee the security, availability, consistency, or support available when using an Anaconda proprietary channel. Learn more about channels here.
- See the table below for the common installers and the channels they set by default.

*Note that for all automatic channels set by an installer, you always have the option to reconfigure your channel preferences by editing your .condarc file.

Find instructions for how to do this in the conda docs: https://www.conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/configuration/use-condarc.html

Why does it matter which Anaconda installer I choose (e.g., Anaconda Distribution Installer versus Miniconda)?
- Your selection should be based on whether you prefer a minimal, open-source installation that you can customize (Miniconda) or a full suite of pre-installed tools with the appropriate licensing (Anaconda Distribution Installer).
- The choice between the Anaconda Distribution installer and Miniconda matters due to differences in functionality and licensing. Miniconda provides a minimal installation with essential components and is licensed as open-source software as described in guideline 4. In contrast, the Anaconda Distribution Installer offers a comprehensive set of pre-installed data science packages and tools, which is proprietary software owned by Anaconda
Do commercial fees apply to conda-forge?
- If you use Miniconda or any other non-Anaconda provided installer such as Miniforge, then a commercial fee license is not required for the user-uploaded packages at anaconda.org, which includes conda-forge. If you use the Anaconda Distribution Installer, it is free to download/use/install/update if you work at a company with fewer than 200 employees. Anaconda does not build packages on conda-forge. We host them as a free service to the community – something we’ve done for over 10 years. While commercial license fees do not apply to these conda-forge packages under our Terms of Service (e.g., if you use Miniconda or a non-Anaconda installer such as Miniforge), there are parts of our Terms of Service that do still apply to conda-forge, as they do for any third-party content we host, which is typically the case when an internet service provider hosts third-party content. For example, by using anaconda.org, users agree not to share content that is illegal, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, offensive, invades another’s privacy, or promotes bigotry, racism, hatred, harm or other abuse against any individual or group.
I have Anaconda installed but need to remove it as I’m in violation of its Terms of Service. How do I remove it?
- Detailed instructions for uninstalling Anaconda Distribution on Windows, macOS, and Linux can be found here.
What happens if we meet the requirements for company size or revenue that require a license but don’t comply with the Terms of Service?
- We encourage all users to comply with our Terms of Service to avoid being in breach of those terms. You should reach out to our sales team to discuss next steps.
I’m interested in obtaining a license for Anaconda products. What should I do?
- Click here to contact a sales representative.
Why did Anaconda change its Terms of Service?
- Anaconda updated its Terms of Service in 2020 to offset the costs associated with maintaining and hosting our platform.In March 2024 we made further changes to the Terms of Service, with the intent of consolidating and deduplicating legal language.We will be updating the Terms of Service in Q4 2024 to provide additional clarity and address the concerns and unintended impact on educational users that have been raised since the March 2024 changes.
- We remain committed to supporting data professionals by providing secure libraries that deliver immense value to the community. As a business, however, we must ensure the long-term viability of our model by enforcing compliance with our Terms of Service.

DISCLAIMER: These summaries and FAQ answers about our Terms of Service are provided for convenience only. These responses and general summaries are not legally binding; they do not include all of your obligations or rights under the Terms of Service, do not form part of the Terms of Service, and do not affect the interpretation of the Terms of Service. Please read the Terms of Service in full, including any document referred to in the Terms of Service, to fully understand your legal rights and obligations when using Anaconda.

[i] One exception is that we do not allow the content of our servers to be mirrored on a university’s servers.

[ii] “Channels” are defined as remote package storage locations maintained by various entities, including the community, companies, or individuals