Clarification on Self-Hosted Community Edition for internal product middleware

Hi everyone,

We are currently using a self-hosted instance of n8n (Community Edition) and want to ensure we are fully compliant with the license terms to avoid any future “cost traps.”

Our Setup:
We use n8n for a single, specific workflow.

It serves as a temporary “bridge” or middleware for a product currently under development.

Our application sends data to n8n via a webhook, n8n processes/enriches the data, and returns a response to our application.

Our Concern:
The final output of our product is intended for a third-party client. While we are not selling n8n as a service, providing a dashboard for clients to build workflows, or embedding the n8n UI, we are technically using it to power a feature of a commercial product.

Our Questions:
Does this “middleware” use case (processing data for a commercial product) fall under the FairCode/Community Edition license?

At what point would this transition into a “Sustainable Use” or Enterprise requirement? We are not an “External Service Provider” in the sense that we offer n8n itself; we only use its output.

We want to stay compliant while keeping our overhead low during this development phase.
Thanks for your help!

Best regards,
Lorenz

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Hi @Lorenz_Karow Welcome!
Consider reading the articles listed here those will bring you clarity to most of your questions: