No. 8 of 28 ·Open Source License Compliance Software

REUSE Tool

Windows · Linux · Self-hosted · API

Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.5

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely2 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

REUSE Tool is ranked #8 of 28 in open source license compliance software on Freedom251. It runs on API, Linux, Self-hosted, Windows. There is a free plan.

REUSE Tool plans and pricing

All plans

REUSE Tool Free no registration required · can be used offline reuse.software · 1 Oct 2026

Compared on open source license compliance software

Free plan: Yes
Policy enforcement: both
Obligation tracking: Yes
Attribution reports: No
SBOM import formats: SPDX
Deployment options: on-premise
Source scan methods: multiple

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The record

Purpose: REUSE provides recommendations and tools to make Free Software licensing easy, comprehensive, unambiguous, and machine-readable.
Compliance assistance: The REUSE tool downloads full license texts, adds copyright and license information to file headers, and contains a linter to identify problems.
SBOM generation: The tool can generate a software bill of materials with a simple command.
API: The REUSE API continuously checks and displays compliance status and can provide a badge and generated JSON output.
CI/CD: REUSE can be integrated into CI/CD processes, including Drone, Woodpecker CI, Forgejo Actions, GitHub Actions, and Docker-based workflows.
Pre-commit: A pre-commit hook can run reuse lint on every Git commit and prevent the commit from proceeding when there is an error.
Installation: The documentation lists Debian and Fedora packages, pipx, pip, and source installation methods.
Runtime requirement: The tool requires Python 3.10 or newer; Git, Mercurial, Pijul, and Jujutsu are optional version-control dependencies.
Docker: An fsfe/reuse Docker image is available for running compliance checks in CI/CD.
Commands: The CLI includes annotate, download, lint, lint-file, spdx, supported-licenses, and convert-dep5 commands.
Scope limit: REUSE does not check whether a project respects the licenses of its dependencies; that requires different tools and processes.
Licensing: The original source code of the tool is licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later, documentation under CC-BY-SA-4.0, and some configuration and data files under CC0-1.0.
Support: Users can report issues and feature requests on GitHub, and the [email protected] mailing list is available for discussion and support.
Privacy: FSFE says it strictly limits personal-data processing and will not sell user data to third parties.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Open Source License Compliance Software in 2026#8 of 28

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Sources

reuse.software· checked 1 Oct 2026
reuse.software/dev/· checked 1 Oct 2026
reuse.readthedocs.io/en/stable/readme.html· checked 1 Oct 2026
reuse.software/faq/· checked 1 Oct 2026
fsfe.org/about/legal/imprint· checked 1 Oct 2026
reuse.software/supporters/· checked 1 Oct 2026