The GWS Backup Free Licence

Free for up to ten client workspaces. Not open source. Written so a human can actually read it.

The deal, in one paragraph

You may use GWS Backup free of charge for up to ten client workspaces, at home or in your business — including using it to serve your own paying clients. In return, you agree not to pass the software off as your own: no rebranding, no reselling, no redistribution, and no tampering with the code. If you'd like it under your own brand, we sell white-label editions — and if the free version earns its keep, donations keep it alive.

GWS Backup Free Licence · Version 1.3 · Effective 31 August 2026 (v1.2: 25 August 2026, v1.1: 25 August 2026, v1.0: 8 July 2026) · KIKO Solutions Ltd, Christchurch, Dorset, United Kingdom

1. Grant of Licence

KIKO Solutions Ltd ("we", "us") grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use GWS Backup (the "Software") free of charge, for both personal and commercial purposes, on infrastructure that you own or control.

  1. You may back up as many Google Workspaces as your licence key permits — ten on the free licence — with an unlimited number of Google accounts inside them. Reaching that limit does not affect workspaces you have already configured; it only prevents adding another.
  2. You may use the Software to provide backup services to your own clients (for example as a managed service provider).
  3. You may install the Software on as many of your own servers as you need.

2. What You May Not Do

This is a free licence, not an open-source licence. The source code remains closed and the Software remains our property. You may not:

  1. Rebrand or re-market the Software, in whole or in part, as your own product or under any name other than GWS Backup;
  2. Sell, resell, rent, lease, sublicense or redistribute the Software or licence keys to any third party;
  3. Remove, hide or alter any GWS Backup or KIKO Solutions branding, notices, or licence mechanisms;
  4. Decompile, reverse-engineer, modify or create derivative works of the Software, except where such a restriction is prohibited by applicable law;
  5. Claim ownership of the Software or any of its components.

Want to do any of the above legitimately? That is exactly what our commercial white-label and custom-branding programme exists for — start an enquiry.

3. Donations

The Software is funded by voluntary donations. Donations are always appreciated and never required; they do not purchase additional rights, features, or support obligations, and they are non-refundable.

Donating grants no additional rights: no extra capacity, no extra features, no separate edition and no support obligation. There is no donor tier and no badge — the software is identical either way. We will be in touch to thank you personally, and when we are able to we intend to recognise supporters in other ways. The Donate link in the console sidebar is a link rather than a prompt: it never interrupts or degrades a backup, never appears in reports or other client-facing output, and looks the same whether or not you have donated.

4. Registration & Licence Keys

Use of the Software requires a free licence key, issued when you register. Keys are issued to a named individual or organisation and may not be shared publicly or transferred without our written consent.

  1. Each licence key permits one running installation at a time. You may move your installation to a different server whenever you like, but the same key must not be live in two places at once.
  2. Licence key usage is actively monitored. We may suspend or withdraw a key where we reasonably believe it is being abused, or that the conditions of this licence are not being adhered to.
  3. If you are unsure whether your intended use fits — failover, clustering, lab environments, or anything unusual — please ask us via the contact form first. We would much rather work out a solution that suits you than withdraw a key.

5. Your Data

GWS Backup is self-hosted. Your backup data flows between Google and the storage destination you configure — it never passes through, and is never stored on, our infrastructure. You are responsible for the security of your own servers and storage.

6. Data Protection

Section 5 is about the data you back up. This section is about the small amount of information we hold about you, as the licence holder. It is written as a complete list rather than a summary, so that anything not named here is something we do not collect.

  1. What you give us when you register. The name you declare, your email address, your organisation name, and the number of workspaces you expect to protect. We generate a licence number and hold it against that record.
  2. The licence check. When an operator opens the console, your installation contacts our licence server to confirm the key is still valid. That check is how we enforce clause 4 — one running installation per key. If our server cannot be reached, the check is skipped and your console keeps working; it never blocks a backup.
  3. Exactly what that check sends. Five things, and nothing else:
    • your licence key, so it can be verified;
    • an installation identifier — a random value generated by your installation and kept in its own database, which lets us tell two deployments of the same key apart;
    • the version of the software you are running, so we know which installations a security notice applies to;
    • the number of client workspaces you have configured — a count only, never their names, domains or any detail about them;
    • the network address the check arrives from, which our server records because a copied database carries the same installation identifier and only the address distinguishes them.
    We also store when each installation was first and last seen, and how many times it has checked in.
  4. News inside the console. We use the reply to that same check to send you news about the software: new versions, security advisories, and other information relevant to running it. It appears in the console for you to read when you choose, never as an interruption, and never in anything your own clients see. No additional information is collected to provide it, and it is delivered as plain text.
  5. Release and security notices by email. We will also email you about releases, so you always have the opportunity to move to the latest and most secure version. Running an out-of-date backup system is a security risk, and telling you about updates is part of the service.
  6. What we never see. Nothing you back up, and nothing about who you back up. No mail, no files, no file names, no calendars, no contacts, no credentials, no client names and no client domains. None of it passes through our infrastructure, as set out in section 5. The list in clause 6.3 is the whole of what leaves your server.
  7. Your rights. You may ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it — bearing in mind that deleting your record means withdrawing your licence key, since the two are the same record. Contact us via the website.

7. No Warranty & Limitation of Liability

The Software is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied — including, without limitation, any implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. While we work hard on reliability — it's rather the point of backup software — we do not warrant that the Software will be error-free, uninterrupted, or free of defects.

  1. Software contains bugs. Like all software, the Software may contain defects ("bugs"), errors or omissions, and releases identified as beta are supplied explicitly for evaluation and may contain more of them. You accept that you use the Software entirely at your own risk.
  2. Your verification duty. Backup software only proves itself at restore time. You are responsible for verifying your backups and testing restores regularly, and for maintaining any additional safeguards appropriate to the value of your data.
  3. Exclusion of liability. To the maximum extent permitted by law, KIKO Solutions Ltd shall not be liable for any loss or damage of any kind arising out of, or in connection with, the use of — or inability to use — the Software, including without limitation loss of data, loss of profits or revenue, loss of business, business interruption, or the cost of substitute services; whether such loss is direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential; whether arising in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty or otherwise; whether or not caused by a defect, error or omission in the Software; and even if we have been advised of the possibility of such loss.
  4. Cap. To the extent liability cannot be excluded, our total aggregate liability under or in connection with this licence shall not exceed the amount you have paid us for the Software — which, for the free licence, is nil. Voluntary donations are not payment for the Software.

Nothing in this licence excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the law of England and Wales.

8. Termination

This licence terminates automatically if you breach any of its terms. Upon termination you must stop using the Software and delete all copies. We may also revoke licence keys that are shared publicly or used in breach of Sections 2 or 4.

9. Governing Law

This licence is governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from it.

Thanks for playing fair — enjoy the software.