Mave is now open source
6 min read
As of today, Mave Core is open source. This is a step we have been working toward for some time. Not because open source is a label we wanted to add to Mave, but because it fits the way we think video infrastructure should work: transparent, portable, privacy-first, and less dependent on closed platforms.
Earlier, we wrote about the path toward open source video infrastructure in Europe. At the time, that was still a direction we were building toward. Now, we have made that leap.
Mave Core is our video platform, released as open source. It includes the dashboard, encoding pipeline, embeddable player, analytics, API, and self-hosting setup. The SaaS-specific parts, such as billing and payment processing for our managed service, are not part of Core.
Developers can inspect the code, understand how Mave works, modify it, contribute to it, and run it on infrastructure they control. At the same time, we will continue to offer Mave as a managed service for organizations that want us to operate the infrastructure for them. The difference is that organizations now have a choice.
Video should give organizations more control
Online video is still largely built around closed ecosystems. A video may look like a simple embed on a website, but behind it sits infrastructure for storage, transcoding, delivery, playback, and analytics. In many cases, that infrastructure also introduces advertising, user tracking, or dependencies on technology outside an organization’s direct control.
Those choices have consequences. They affect who receives data, which laws and jurisdictions apply, how much insight an organization has into the technology it depends on, and how easily it can make a different choice later.
We started Mave because we believed organizations should have more control over that infrastructure. That meant building video without advertising or person-level tracking, keeping our managed infrastructure in Europe, and making integration as simple as possible.
But control is about more than where infrastructure runs or whether a video player sets cookies. It is also about the technology itself. Open source became the next logical step.
European infrastructure. Open technology.
Keeping data in Europe matters. But where your infrastructure is located does not necessarily tell you how much control you have over the technology behind it. An organization can keep its data in Europe and still depend on closed technology it cannot inspect, operate, or replace.
That raises a broader set of questions: Who controls the technology? Can we understand how it works? Can we run it ourselves? Can we move away from it if circumstances change? These questions apply to databases, cloud infrastructure, collaboration software, operating systems, and video.
We think European organizations should have more technology they can understand, evaluate, and control. Video should be part of that.
By opening Mave Core, developers and organizations get access to the technology itself. They can inspect the architecture, modify it, contribute to it, and run it on infrastructure they control. Mave Core can be started locally with Docker Compose and connected to S3-compatible storage you control. The goal is not just to make the code visible, but to make the technology usable outside our managed platform too.
Managed or self-hosted: a choice
That does not mean every organization should run its own video infrastructure. Video involves storage, databases, transcoding, delivery, monitoring, security, maintenance, and updates. For many teams, a managed platform will still be the most practical choice.
But there is a difference between choosing a managed service and being locked into a closed one. Open source gives you that choice.
What this means for customers
Mave will continue to offer a managed service for teams that want us to operate the infrastructure for them. For existing customers, very little changes in practice. We continue to take care of storage, transcoding, delivery, monitoring, security, maintenance, and updates.
The principles behind Mave remain the same too. Video should be fast, privacy should be built into the architecture, and organizations should be able to use video without introducing advertising technology or person-level tracking to their websites.
What changes is the technology underneath. Because Mave Core is open source, the platform you rely on can be inspected, evaluated, modified, and operated independently. If your requirements change in the future, you can run it on infrastructure you control.
You do not have to self-host Mave to benefit from that. For most customers, the managed service will continue to be the simplest option. The difference is that staying with the managed service is now a choice, rather than a technical dependency. Open source gives you more choice, not more work.
Video is digital infrastructure too
Across Europe, organizations are looking more closely at the technology they depend on. Much of that discussion is about cloud providers and large software platforms, but dependency does not stop there. Video is infrastructure too.
Universities, publishers, SaaS companies, governments, and other organizations rely on video every day. In many cases, the technology behind it comes from closed platforms that organizations cannot inspect or operate themselves.
For a long time, choosing a video platform was mostly a question of convenience. Increasingly, it is also a question of control, portability, privacy, and jurisdiction. If video is part of your digital infrastructure, it makes sense to ask the same questions you would ask about the rest of your stack.
Open to scrutiny and contribution
Making the technology public also means people can look at it critically. We want that. Developers can inspect the architecture. Security researchers can challenge our assumptions. People can open issues, question decisions, suggest changes, and point out where things can be improved.
Security vulnerabilities can be reported privately through our responsible disclosure process.
That scrutiny is part of being open. If organizations use Mave as part of their digital infrastructure, we think they should be able to see what they are relying on.
What comes next
We hope developers try Mave Core and tell us what could be better. We hope organizations start asking more questions about the infrastructure behind the video on their websites. And we hope people open issues, challenge our decisions, and contribute ideas or code where it makes sense.
More broadly, we hope Mave can contribute to a stronger European technology ecosystem, with more alternatives that organizations can understand, use, and control. Open sourcing Mave Core is our contribution to that.
Mave Core is available under the AGPL-3.0-or-later license. A commercial license is also available.
