BlitzRaw is free. Here's how to get it for nothing.
I sell a bundle on this site, and I'd rather you knew exactly what's in it before you spend anything, including the part you can have without me.
The two apps, side by side
| Question | BlitzRaw Free, open source | BlitzSync Paid, closed source |
|---|---|---|
| What does it cost? | Nothing. | $20 as part of the bundle, once. |
| What's the license? | AGPL-3.0, inherited from RapidRAW, for good. | A normal paid license. Closed source. |
| Can you read the source? | Yes, all of it, on GitHub. | No. The source isn't published. |
| Can you change it? | Yes. Anything you build on it keeps the same license. | No. |
| Can you give it to other people? | Yes, to anyone, for free or for money. The license says so, and I'm not going to argue with it. | No. It's licensed to you. |
| Where do you get it? | Build it from the source, or take the ready-made copy in the bundle. | Only in the bundle. |
Build BlitzRaw yourself
This is the whole thing. If it works for you, you never need to buy anything from me.
You'll need four things installed first:
- Git
- Rust
- Node.js
- The Tauri prerequisites for Windows, which are mostly Microsoft's C++ build tools
Then, in a terminal:
git clone https://github.com/Accent-Studio/BlitzRaw.git
cd BlitzRaw
npm install
npm run tauri build
The finished app lands in src-tauri/target/release. The first build takes a while, mostly Rust compiling everything once. After that, rebuilds are much quicker. The README has the full instructions.
A copy you build yourself doesn't update by itself. For a newer version, pull the latest source and build again.
So what's the $20 for?
Skipping all of that, mostly. If you're happy to install four tools and run four commands, do it. You'll end up with the same BlitzRaw.
The bundle gives you:
- BlitzSync, which you can't get anywhere else.
- BlitzRaw, ready-made, in an installer that just works.
- Updates for both, delivered automatically by BlitzSync, free for as long as I make them.
And it helps one person keep working on all of it.
What the AGPL-3.0 means for you
BlitzRaw is a fork of RapidRAW, which is licensed under the AGPL-3.0. A fork keeps the license of the project it came from, so BlitzRaw is AGPL-3.0 too, for good. In plain words:
- You can use it for anything, including paid client work.
- You can read the source and change it.
- You can give it to other people, and even charge for it.
- Anything you build on it has to carry the same license.
- If you run a changed version as a service over a network, you have to offer its source to the people using it.
The copy of BlitzRaw in the bundle is under exactly the same license. Buying the bundle doesn't change your rights to it in either direction. The full license text ships with the installer, along with a link to the exact source the build was made from.
And why BlitzSync isn't open source
Because I wrote it from scratch, and it's the part of this that pays for the rest. It shares no code with BlitzRaw and isn't built from RapidRAW. It works alongside BlitzRaw only by reading the files BlitzRaw leaves on disk, the same way any other program could. Keeping the two truly separate is what makes it honest, and legal, to give one away and sell the other.
If you ever find a page here that suggests BlitzSync is open source, or that you can't pass BlitzRaw on, that's a mistake and I'd like to hear about it: [email protected].