Open Source Is Free to Use. It Is Not Free to Build.
Somebody still has to triage the issue, backport the security fix, review the pull request, and cut the release — on a Tuesday night, for free, indefinitely. A permissive license grants you the right to run Kowabunga forever. It says nothing about who keeps it alive, current, and trustworthy while you do.
As stated in the Kowabunga Manifest: "You may contribute to it or sponsor its development, but you will never buy it. We will never sell it, and it will never be locked behind a paywall." That commitment isn't a marketing line — it's the model every self-hosted Kowabunga adopter has relied on since day one, and it only holds up as long as the organizations who depend on it choose to help fund it.
Pick the Tier That Fits
All sponsorships are managed directly and transparently through GitHub Sponsors — billed monthly, cancel anytime, zero middlemen. Prefer a custom or one-time amount instead? Set your own on GitHub.
- Occasional email support
- Sponsor badge on your GitHub profile
- Occasional email support
- Sponsor badge on your GitHub profile
- Name listed in the project's README
- Email support
- Jump on a call
- Triage priority
- Optional publicity (brand sharing, case study)
- 10% discount on professional services
- Exclusive email support
- Slack / MS Teams online support
- Limited dedicated support (email, phone, video)
- Triage priority
- Optional publicity
- Feature requests
- Custom branch / patches
- 20% discount on services (6-mo. commitment)
- Free onboarding
- Exclusive email & chat support
- Exclusive Slack / MS Teams support
- Dedicated support (email, phone, video)
- Triage priority
- Optional publicity
- Guaranteed response within 2 business days
- Feature requests & development priority
- Custom branch / patches
- 50% discount on services (6-mo. commitment)
- Free onboarding
- Exclusive email & chat support
- Exclusive Slack / MS Teams support
- Dedicated support (email, phone, video)
- Triage & development priority
- Optional publicity
- Guaranteed response within 1 business day
- Feature requests & development priority
- Custom branch / patches
- Professional services included (12-mo. commitment, excl. 24/7 on-call)
- Free onboarding
Why Sponsorship Beats the Alternatives
When Kowabunga becomes load-bearing, you have to fund its reliability somehow. Here's how a sponsorship stacks up against the usual options.
No Clock, No Cold Start
Independent contractors typically run $150–400/hour, and every engagement starts with them relearning your setup. A sponsorship is a flat monthly rate with no meter running, backed by the people who wrote the code — not someone billing you to read it for the first time.
Prevention, Not a Payout
Insurance reimburses you after something breaks. Sponsorship buys you triage priority, patches, and direct maintainer guidance before an incident becomes an outage — with none of the paperwork or exclusion clauses.
Expertise That Doesn't Resign
A senior infrastructure engineer runs well into six figures a year, and their knowledge walks out the door the day they leave. A sponsorship costs a fraction of that, and the expertise stays put — maintained by the people who will still be here next year.
Better Than Being On Your Own
No triage priority, no roadmap influence, and no guarantee anyone notices your GitHub issue. Any sponsorship tier — even Hobbyist — beats hoping for the best alone.
Common Questions
The essentials, upfront and unfiltered — no-bs.
No. Kowabunga carries no commercial license and never will — every capability already ships for free, as laid out in our Manifest. A sponsorship is a separate product: it funds support, development priority, training, and other professional services layered on top of software you already have every right to run.
Kowabunga's original author and lead maintainer operates noBS! SAS, the company behind the project. Every GitHub Sponsors tier — from Hobbyist to Enterprise Plus — is fulfilled directly by noBS!, so the people you're funding are the same ones committing the code and reviewing your pull requests.
Anything beyond routine maintenance: onboarding, training, architecture reviews, presenting, managed services, and custom development work scoped specifically for your deployment.
Sponsorship funds the project's ongoing open development — support and priority scale with your tier, but there's no contractual SLA attached. Commercial Support is a formal engagement with noBS! SAS for production SLAs, turnkey deployment, and guaranteed response times. Plenty of organizations start with a sponsorship and graduate to a support contract once Kowabunga becomes mission-critical.
Not for our higher tiers. noBS! SAS can invoice directly — wire transfer, ACH, or purchase order — for teams whose procurement process needs it. Reach out and we'll arrange it outside GitHub if required.
Probably not. Sponsorships billed through GitHub Sponsors run under GitHub as the vendor of record, which most procurement teams already have cleared. Need a direct invoice instead? noBS! SAS is the same entity behind our Commercial Support contracts, so it may already be on file.
Yes. GitHub Sponsors accepts one-time amounts alongside the recurring tiers — pick whatever fits your budget cycle on the GitHub Sponsors page.
Start with whatever tier you can commit to — a Hobbyist sponsorship still beats no support at all, and you can always upgrade later. If your needs are genuinely custom, get in touch and we'll figure it out together.
There's More Than One Way to Help
Star and share the project, report bugs, or contribute a patch — every bit of it moves Kowabunga forward. And if your organization needs production SLAs, turnkey deployment, or 24/7 support rather than open-source sponsorship, that's a different commitment: see Commercial Support.