Products and Licensing
Products and Licensing explains how Workflow Engine product names relate to Product Families, Editions, Licenses, and License Keys. It also identifies historical names, separates the members of the Workflow Engine Family from the Form Engine Product Family, and distinguishes embedded Products from the separately deployed Workflow Server.
The Workflow Engine Family includes four Products: Workflow Engine Free, Workflow Engine, Workflow Engine NEO, and Workflow Server. Workflow Engine NEO is based on classic Workflow Engine. Workflow Server is a separate Product built on NEO, with its own deployment model, API, and Editions. See Workflow Engine Editions for the Workflow Engine and Workflow Engine NEO capability and license comparison; Workflow Server Editions are product-specific.
Product and license basics
Product, Product Family, Edition, License, and License Key describe different parts of a product and its right of use. A Product can be available in several Editions, while a Product Family groups related Products, Editions, or both. A License grants use of a Product or Edition, and a License Key is used to register that License with Workflow Runtime.
Product: The software itself. A Product can be available in Editions with different capabilities and License terms. Workflow Engine Free, Workflow Engine, Workflow Engine NEO, and Workflow Server are workflow Products, while Form Engine Core and Form Engine Designer are form Products. A Product can belong to a Product Family.
Product Family: A shared name for related Products, Editions, or both. Workflow Engine Family groups four related workflow Products, while Form Engine groups the Form Engine Core and Form Engine Designer Products. Having several Editions does not by itself make software a Product Family: Workflow Engine Team and Workflow Engine Complete belong to the Workflow Engine Product, while the four Workflow Engine NEO Editions belong to the Workflow Engine NEO Product.
Edition: The capabilities, limits, and License model offered together under a specific name. Workflow Engine Team and Workflow Engine Complete are Editions of the Workflow Engine Product. Workflow Engine NEO Subscription, Workflow Engine NEO Business, Workflow Engine NEO SaaS, and Workflow Engine NEO Enterprise are Editions of the Workflow Engine NEO Product. Workflow Server has its own Editions, which are specific to Workflow Server and are not Editions of Workflow Engine or Workflow Engine NEO. An Edition is a licensing choice, not a software release version. Workflow Engine pricing lists the price of each Edition.
License: Permission to use a Product or Edition under stated conditions. The Edition describes what is included; the License describes who may use it, for how long, in which scenarios, and with which distribution rights.
Perpetual License: A License that does not expire after purchase. Access to future updates can still be limited to a defined period.
Subscription License: A License that remains valid while the subscription is active. Workflow Engine NEO Subscription uses this License model and is billed annually.
License Key: A string used to register a trial or commercial License with Workflow Runtime. The runtime validates its expiry information and applies its restrictions. Workflow Engine Free runs without a License Key. In code, use WorkflowRuntime.RegisterLicense to register one.
Execution Thread: A License concurrency unit represented in code by the MaxNumberOfThreads restriction. When this value is positive, each WorkflowRuntime creates its own concurrency limiter for activity execution and for calculating available commands and states. A runtime operation waits up to LicenseSemaphoreTimeout to acquire a slot. If no slot becomes available, the operation fails with TimeoutException and does not run. Therefore, MaxNumberOfThreads is a strict upper bound for these concurrent runtime operations. An idled Process Instance does not retain a slot, and Execution Thread does not mean a dedicated .NET thread.
Products and editions
The following entries identify members of the Workflow Engine Family and their Editions, followed by the separate Form Engine Product Family. Product descriptions give only the details needed to distinguish one name from another; the Editions page contains the complete Workflow Engine comparison.
workflow engine: The generic category of software that coordinates and executes workflows. Lowercase workflow engine means the category. Workflow Engine is the Product behind the classic Workflow Engine Team and Workflow Engine Complete Editions.
Workflow Engine Family: The Product Family that includes four Products: Workflow Engine Free, Workflow Engine, Workflow Engine NEO, and Workflow Server. Workflow Server is a separate Product within the family, not an Edition of another family member. The Form Engine Product Family is not part of the Workflow Engine Family. To choose between them, compare the Workflow Engine products.
Workflow Engine by Optimajet: The public brand label used by this documentation site, not a separate Product or Edition. The term Workflow Engine Family describes the product relationships shown above. Optimajet is the public brand spelling; the historical capitalization OptimaJet remains in public .NET namespaces such as OptimaJet.Workflow.Core.
Workflow Engine Free: The current name of the free embeddable .NET Product. It has no Editions, uses classic Workflow Engine for personal use and internal commercial use, with attribution, under the Workflow Engine Free terms, and does not require a License Key. Community Edition is its historical name and can still appear in older material; both names identify the same Product, not an Edition of Workflow Engine. Product page: Workflow Engine Free.
Workflow Engine: The embeddable .NET Product that runs inside the host application's process. Its Editions are Workflow Engine Team and Workflow Engine Complete; together they can be called classic Workflow Engine when they must be distinguished from Workflow Engine NEO. Classic Workflow Engine is the technical foundation on which Workflow Engine NEO is based; the word classic is descriptive and is not part of the Product name. Workflow Engine Web API can be attached to classic Workflow Engine as an ASP.NET Core integration, publishing Designer API and Health Check API endpoints without the NEO Data API or RPC API capabilities. Product page: Workflow Engine.
Workflow Engine Team: An Edition of Workflow Engine for internal commercial applications, available under a Perpetual License. It has usage limits and supports single-server deployment. Team is one of the two classic Workflow Engine Editions.
Workflow Engine Complete: An Edition of Workflow Engine for internal commercial applications, available under a Perpetual License. It removes the usage limits of Team and supports multi-server clustering. Complete is one of the two classic Workflow Engine Editions.
Workflow Engine NEO: The SaaS-oriented Product based on classic Workflow Engine. NEO capabilities extend the classic Product with Data API and RPC API groups in Workflow Engine HTTP API, multitenancy, and forms integration. The Web API package itself can also be attached to classic Workflow Engine for Designer and health-check endpoints. NEO is self-hosted software, not an Optimajet-operated cloud service. Product page: Workflow Engine NEO.
Workflow Engine NEO Subscription: An Edition of the Workflow Engine NEO Product, offered under an annually billed Subscription License. Subscription is part of the Edition name and distinguishes Workflow Engine NEO Subscription from the Workflow Engine NEO Product.
Workflow Engine NEO Business: An Edition of the Workflow Engine NEO Product for internal commercial applications, available under a Perpetual License. It enables the Data API and RPC API groups in Workflow Engine HTTP API and includes full hybrid multitenancy and forms integration.
Workflow Engine NEO SaaS: A self-hosted Edition of the Workflow Engine NEO Product for public web applications and SaaS platforms, available under a Perpetual License. It supports hybrid multitenancy. SaaS describes the customer's application and deployment scenario; it does not mean Optimajet hosts the application.
Workflow Engine NEO Enterprise: An Edition of the Workflow Engine NEO Product for enterprise platforms, OEM distribution, and white-label deployments, available under a Perpetual License. It adds OEM redistribution, white-label Designer, and source code access.
Workflow Server: A separate Product within the Workflow Engine Family, built on Workflow Engine NEO. Workflow Server is deployed and operated as a standalone service, and applications interact with it over HTTP through Workflow API instead of embedding Workflow Runtime directly. Workflow Server has its own Editions, which define the available capabilities and licensing options for this Product; they are not Editions of Workflow Engine or Workflow Engine NEO. Workflow API is distinct from Workflow Engine HTTP API. Product page: Workflow Server.
Form Engine: A separate Optimajet Product Family for defining, rendering, and visually designing forms. It contains two Products: Form Engine Core and Form Engine Designer. Forms Plugin, also called Form Plugin, integrates both Products with Workflow Engine NEO; it is an integration component, not a Form Engine Product.
Form Engine Core: A Product in the Form Engine Product Family for defining, rendering, and validating JSON-based forms in an application. Its main package is @react-form-builder/core. Form Engine Core can be used without Workflow Engine and is also the form runtime used by Forms Plugin.
Form Engine Designer: A Product in the Form Engine Product Family for creating and editing forms in a visual drag-and-drop editor. Its main package is @react-form-builder/designer, which is built on Form Engine Core. Form Engine Designer can be used without Workflow Engine and is also the form editor used by Forms Plugin.
See also
These pages provide the product comparison and technical context behind the definitions.
- Workflow Engine Editions compares current Editions and License models.
- License Key explains how trial and commercial keys are registered with Workflow Runtime.
- Workflow Engine HTTP API describes the HTTP endpoints published by Workflow Engine Web API and the API groups enabled by NEO capabilities.
- Glossary overview links to the other terminology subjects.
Frequently asked questions
Which products belong to the Workflow Engine Family?
The Workflow Engine Family includes four Products: Workflow Engine Free, Workflow Engine, Workflow Engine NEO, and Workflow Server. The Form Engine Product Family is separate.
Is Community Edition a separate Workflow Engine Edition?
No. Community Edition is the historical name of Workflow Engine Free, a Product without Editions. It is not an Edition of Workflow Engine.
Is Workflow Server an Edition of Workflow Engine NEO?
No. Workflow Server is a separate Product built on Workflow Engine NEO and deployed as a service. Its own Editions apply only to Workflow Server; they are not Workflow Engine or Workflow Engine NEO Editions.
What is the difference between Workflow Engine NEO and Workflow Engine NEO Subscription?
Workflow Engine NEO is the Product. Workflow Engine NEO Subscription is the annually billed Subscription Edition of that Product.
How is Workflow Engine NEO related to classic Workflow Engine?
Workflow Engine NEO is based on classic Workflow Engine and extends it through additional NEO packages and licensed capabilities. Classic Workflow Engine remains the technical foundation of the Workflow Engine NEO Product.