Licensing and commercial use

Auto Tournament is licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. The source is public and free to use, change and share for non-commercial purposes. It is not "open source" in the OSI sense.

The rule is simple: if you earn money from it, you need a license. If nobody earns money from your events, it's free.

Free, no permission needed

• Personal use, hobby projects, learning and research, under the license's personal-use terms.
• Tournaments and LAN events where nobody earns money from your events: all entry fees and sponsor money go back into the event, and no organizer, volunteer or helper is paid or takes profit.
• Use by the organizations the license lists: charities, schools and universities, public research, public safety or health and environmental protection organizations, and government bodies. They are free even when they charge entry.
• Changing the code, forking it and sharing your changes, as long as you keep the LICENSE and the Required Notice line, and your use stays non-commercial.

Running a zero-profit LAN? It's free, no registration needed. Want your install to show up in your account? Get an optional free key in the console. It never expires, has no server limit and enforces nothing. Want it in writing? Tell us about your event (name, dates, website, organizer, roughly how many servers, how entry fees and sponsor money are used, and whether anyone is paid) and we'll send you a free confirmation. It's optional: the license already allows non-commercial use.

Commercial use needs a license

Examples of commercial use:

• Hosting or running Auto Tournament for someone else for money, including managed hosting and "tournaments as a service".
• Selling Auto Tournament, a modified version of it, or a product or service built on it.
• Running tournaments or events where the organizer makes a profit.
• Using it inside a business, for example an esports organization, venue or company running events.
• Being paid to set up, install or operate Auto Tournament, CS2 Server Manager or Ready Up for someone else, even for a flat fee, and even when that event is itself free.

Forks and modified versions stay under the same license; they can't be relicensed (for example as MIT) or used commercially without a license.

Not sure whether your use counts as commercial? Ask first.

Getting a commercial license

Licenses are sold by Gullberg Hansen Consulting (ENK), org. nr. 938 566 674, to businesses and organizations only, not to consumers. Buy in the console, or email [email protected] for an invoice. By paying you accept the Commercial License Terms and Terms of Sale. Paying by card, you get your license key right away, in the console. Not sure what you need? Ask; the answer is free. How we handle your details is in the Privacy Policy.

One license covers everything: the platform, CS2 Server Manager, Ready Up and the game packs. It's priced by the most game servers running our software at the same time, spares included. Prices in EUR, excl. VAT: we're not VAT-registered, so no VAT is charged today.

For example: 4 servers is €29 a month. 10 servers is €41.50 a month, or €415 a year. 34 servers is €101.50 a month.

The rules:

• One license per licensee. The server limit applies at any one time, and every server running our software counts: match servers, spares, practice and test servers.
• Monthly and yearly renew by themselves until you cancel. Cancel any time and the license runs to the end of the period you paid for.
• Change the server count in the console any time. More servers work right away, and you pay the difference for the rest of the period. Fewer servers are credited to your next payment.
• Monthly and yearly include all updates while the license runs. If you cancel, you keep commercial use of every version line (such as 1.4) that started on or before the last day you paid for, including its later patches (1.4.1, 1.4.2…). New minor and major versions (1.5, 2.0) need an active license. Buying again restores them.
• Every license also covers events you operate for clients, such as a LAN that hires you to run its servers. We may ask which events you ran if we have a reason to check.
• One key works on one Auto Tournament install. CS2 Server Manager and Ready Up hosts under it count as servers, not installs.
• Price changes apply to new purchases and renewals only, never to a running period or a founding supporter license.

Founding supporter

Limited: first 25 or until 31 March 2027, whichever comes first.

• Pay once, lifetime updates: commercial use of every version we release, for as long as we sell the software, including new major versions and renamed successors of it. No yearly fee.
• For up to 40 servers, and the count is fixed. More servers later are added with a monthly or yearly license.
• The license can't be resold or transferred.
• If we ever stop selling it (not offered for a full year), you keep every version you have, nothing can lock you out, and we release a final build without the license check.

CS2 updates can break older versions; install our updates to stay current.

When a license stops

A paid-up license never stops anything. An unpaid monthly or yearly license keeps working for 13 days after the last day you paid for, then the software stops until it's paid. A key also stops on a second Auto Tournament install, and an old key stops a day after you make a new one. Your data is never deleted. Founding supporter licenses never stop. The details are in License key.

Examples

• A small LAN party run for profit uses the platform on 4 servers for one weekend: €29 for a month. Cancel after.
• A freelancer runs 34 servers (32 + 2 spares) with CS2 Server Manager for a paying client, once a year: €101.50 for the month of the event. Spares count, and the freelancer pays even when the event itself is free.
• A gaming café runs weekly tournaments and matchmaking on 10 servers: €415 a year.
• A volunteer-run LAN where nobody is paid or takes profit: free.

This is pricing v4, valid from October 2026. Licenses bought under earlier pricing keep their terms. If the pricing doesn't fit your case, email and we'll work it out. More worked examples are on Licensing & pricing, and the full rules are in the Commercial License Terms.

What a licensed install sends

Without a key, the platform sends nothing to Auto Tournament. With a key saved (a free key too), it checks in with autotournament.gg once a day: shortly after startup, when the key changes, and then daily. Before creating game servers with a paid key, it also asks whether they fit the license. It sends:

• the license key, so its id and signature can be checked (only the id is stored)
• a random id for this installation, made once, and its public address if it has one, so one key stays on one install
• the number of game servers
• the platform version
• counts since the last check-in: finished matches, tournaments with activity, and the largest team count
• for an event license, your answer to "Planning something new?" (testing, a new event, or moved dates), if you gave one

It sends no names, players or match details. The answer brings the license's current terms (servers, paid until) and the servers other hosts use on the same license. If a check-in fails (offline, a LAN without internet), nothing happens; creating servers with a paid key then relies on the last check-in, as long as it's at most 3 days old. You can see the last check-in under Settings > License. How long we keep the data is in the Privacy Policy.

CS2 Server Manager hosts with a paid key check in the same way, with their server count.

For an event license that is used on days outside its dates, the admin dashboard may show a small note asking what's going on. Testing and setting up need no action. It shows at most once every 30 days, and you can turn it off for that license.

Unlicensed commercial use

If we notify you in writing that your use is commercial and unlicensed, PolyForm gives you 32 days (first notice only) to come into compliance: stop the commercial use or buy a license, and put right past use. To settle past use, we offer a back-dated license at the normal price plus 50%. If you don't come into compliance within 32 days, all your PolyForm licenses end and we may claim compensation under the Norwegian Copyright Act (åndsverkloven § 81).

Which license covers what

• PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0: the platform, 3.0 and later (auto-tournament), the CS2 Server Manager, the Ready Up plugin, the game packs, this documentation and the website. Game packs published before 24 September 2026 were MIT and stay MIT; packs published from that date are under PolyForm Noncommercial.
• MIT: the CS2 plugin MatchZy Enhanced, free for any use, including paid work. It is forked from MatchZy, which is MIT, and built on CounterStrikeSharp: GPLv3, with an exception letting plugins use MIT; a noncommercial license isn't allowed. Ready Up is a separate, native plugin, not a fork of MatchZy, and it is not MIT.

Older versions

Versions up to and including 2.4.15 (released as "MatchZy Auto Tournament") were published under the MIT License and remain under it. Everything since the rename to Auto Tournament is under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0.

The full terms for paid licenses are the Commercial License Terms.

This page explains how the author reads the license. The permissions it grants beyond the LICENSE, such as free use for zero-profit events, are extra permissions from the copyright holder and apply in addition to the LICENSE. Otherwise, if this page and the LICENSE disagree, the LICENSE wins.