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Frequently Asked Questions

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Licensing

Do I need a license to test Backpack?

You don't need a license code AT ALL. Go head and install Backpack CRUD on your machine - it's free and open-source, released under the MIT License.

You only need to pay if you want the extra features provided by our premium add-ons (eg. Backpack PRO and Backpack DevTools. That's it.

Do I need a license to put a PRO project on a testing domain?

No:

• when you purchase Backpack PRO for Unlimited Projects, you can use it on any number of domains, subdomains and IPs (that's why it's called unlimited);
• when you purchase Backpack PRO for One Project, you get the right to use it on one MAIN domain, but also as many staging/test/beta domains or subdomains as you need; if someone from our team contacts you, you can explain, it's perfectly reasonable to have test instances - we know how it goes;

Can I use Backpack to create an open-source project?

Yes you can! Use Backpack CRUD v5, which is free & open-source, released under the MIT License.

Can I use Backpack PRO in an open-source project?

In short - no, you cannot. Please use Backpack CRUD v5 instead, which is free & open-source, released under the MIT License.

Backpack PRO is a closed-source add-on, which requires payment in order to receive an access token. If you did include backpack/pro as a dependency in your open-source software... your software would no longer be open-source. Everybody who installed your project/package would need to pay for Backpack PRO, to get access to it.

Can I get Backpack PRO for free, to use in a non-commercial project?

No, sorry, we're no longer giving away free licenses. But we have released Backpack CRUD v5 under MIT License, which means it's free & open-source. It has fewer features, but you can do absolutely anything you want with it.

For background... until Feb 2022, we've been giving away our paid software, for free, if you used it for non-commercial purposes. We introduced this as a way for us to give back to the community. And we thought it's a fair system - that we only ask money from people who make money. We still think that's fair. However, giving away free licenses turned out to be very time-consuming. In order to get a free license, we required people to read the terms & conditions and fill in an application form. A LOT of people submitted the application form, but VERY FEW people actually read the T&C or properly filled in the form. In consequence, because we're good guys and wanted to treat each case with care, it took us dozens of hours every week (dozens! every week!) to analyze applications and do the necessary back-and-forth emails required... because people did not give proper (or any) information about their organizations and projects. We even ended up hiring someone to do that, so we developers don't do it. So yes, we ended up paying for someone in our team... to answer people who were not considerate enough to answer the questions we asked. Naturally, we had to put an end to that, it wasn't a good use of our time or money.

We still want to help with free access to Backpack PRO:

• if you've contributed to our community with PRs, answering people or creating add-ons please DO NOT PAY; send us an email, we WANT TO give you access for free;
• if you have a good cause, you're giving away your time for free too and Backpack CRUD is not enough for you, then please (1) create a Backpack account and (2) send us an email, asking for a free license - we're grateful to be able to help, and want to help; but please make it dead-simple for us to say "yes", otherwise our default answer is "no";
• if you've previously received a free Backpack v4 license and your project is still non-commercial, please send an email to [email protected], happy to give you access to PRO v5 for another year;

Miscellaneous

How do I update Backpack to the latest non-breaking version?

First of all, run composer update on your project. That will pull in the latest supported version of all your Backpack packages.

Then you should re-publish the JS and CSS assets. There are two ways to do that:

(A) Run php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Backpack\CRUD\BackpackServiceProvider" --tag=public --force. Please note this will overwrite anything that's already there. This B solution has a downside: unused files are not removed. A few files Backpack no longer uses will still be in your public/packages folder, even though they're no longer used.

(B) If you have NOT touched you public/packages folder, or placed anything custom inside it:

• delete the public/packages directory and all its contents;
• run php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Backpack\CRUD\BackpackServiceProvider" --tag=public
• if you use elFinder, also delete resources/views/vendor/elfinder and run php artisan backpack:filemanager:install

How do I uninstall Backpack from my project?

You can remove Backpack from your project pretty easily, if you decide to stop using it. You just have to do the opposite of the installation process:

# delete the files Backpack has placed inside your application
rm -rf app/Http/Middleware/CheckIfAdmin.php
rm -rf config/backpack
rm -rf config/gravatar.php
rm -rf public/packages
rm -rf resources/views/errors
rm -rf resources/views/vendor/backpack
rm -rf routes/backpack

# delete any CrudControllers you've created, so MAYBE:
rm -rf app/Http/Controllers/Admin

# delete any Requests you've created for your CrudControllers.
# MAKE SURE YOU DON'T NEED ANYTHING IN THIS DIRECTORY ANYMORE.
# You might have OTHER requests that are not Backpack-related.
rm -rf app/Http/Requests 

# (MUST) remove other Backpack packages that you are using, like PRO, Editable Columns, DevTools etc:
composer remove --dev backpack/devtools
composer remove backpack/pro
composer remove backpack/editable-columns

etc...

# After everything related to Backpack is deleted, just need to delete the crud!
composer remove backpack/crud

That's it! If you've decided NOT to use Backpack, we'd be super-grateful if you could send us an email telling us WHY you didn't like Backpack, or it didn't fit your project. It might help us take Backpack in a different direction, one where you might want to use it. Thank you 🙏