Directus is both premium and free – two things that don't often go together. It takes an enormous amount of resources to maintain and advance the platform, and it's only through our community's support that we're able to keep this project active. There are many ways to support our open-source software, most of which don't cost a penny. Please consider helping keep Directus open-source through one of the methods below – our entire team and community would greatly appreciate it!
Our servers and full-time staff all cost money. Far more money than we generate through our paid Cloud Service or donations. For this reason, any financial support gets us closer to being self-sufficient. If you can spare the cash, we have a few ways to help us keep the lights on.
We accept memberships through our Patreon account. These monthly donations are the ideal financial contribution since they're a bit more dependable and we can roughly predict the monthly amount. To become a member/sponsor, please visit our Patreon page.
Unfortunately, Patreon doesn't support one-time payments. Instead, you can use our PayPal account to send a single financial donation.
Our merchandise is a great way to support Directus – you get a shirt and we get some financial support and free advertising. We don't have an online store, but if you make a financial donation using the above methods we'd be happy to send you stuff. Just be sure to message us with sizing/shipping details. T-Shirts require a minimum donation of $20 and our sweatshirts are currently sold out.
Another great way to get something back for your financial support (other than our amazing software) is to commission Directus work. If you need an interface, layout, or other custom feature – just reach out to our parent company to design and build it for you. If it can be merged into our Core codebase then it even benefits the entire community!
Since most of our financial support goes to our staff, another excellent way to help out is by contributing your services. And don't worry, you don't even need to be a developer!
Whether squashing bugs, optimizing the codebase, increasing unit tests, or adding new features, submitting pull-requests through GitHub is extremely valuable. The best places to contribute are our App (front-end) and API (back-end).
No technical skills? Not enough time for a pull-request? No problem! We have plenty of user guides and documentation that could use some extra attention. Fix spelling, add code examples, help organize, write new articles, or just check for broken links... it all helps.
Directus is a worldwide project. Our team and users are spread out across the globe and often speak different languages. If you do too, we'd love to get Directus translated into your native tongue. It's easy, and each new translation opens the door to a huge number of new users.
This one is surprisingly underutilized. If you encounter a bug within Directus, no matter how small, we would love to hear about it. With such a small team, it's difficult for us to test every commit. Sometimes after we update a small snippet of code, a totally different piece of code breaks elsewhere. More people using and testing the software is always good, but if no one reports the issues they come across then it may not get fixed!
No money or time?? You can still help us out. You can have the best software in existence, but if no one knows about it then what good is it? Marketing and advertising cost money... money we don't have (see above). You can help us avoid these costs by getting the word out... and that word is: Directus.
GitHub is the primary metric by which we measure our success. We literally have a display in our office that just shows us the live GitHub star count. If you have five seconds to spare, head over to our repos and give them a star! As an added bonus, when Directus gets enough stars in a short period of time, we become featured as "trending" on GitHub and even more people learn about our software.
Have a few followers on Twitter? A quick post mentioning our @directus account goes a long way. We've even been known to re-tweet some of our favorite shout-outs. And be sure to follow us to get the most up-to-date info on new features, releases, and sneak-peeks.
One sentence. Even that was a sentence and it was only two words! If you're a fan of Directus, we'd love to hear why with a short endorsement. Shoot us an email, Tweet, or Slack message. And if you'd like to have your testimonial on our website be sure to include your name, title, company, and picture.
It wouldn't be cost-effective for us to give out thousands of free shirts and sweatshirts (you can buy them!), but we can send out thousands of stickers, pins, magnets, and other "Stuff We All Get". Mention us on Twitter or even just shoot us an email with your shipping address and we'll send you some! Post a pic of our sticker somewhere awesome (and legal) and we might just send you some free merch too!
Headless and decoupled software is awesome because it all works behind the scenes. Great for you, but certainly doesn't help us get the word out. If you're using Directus, please consider adding a small badge to your site/app/project. We're designers too, so we completely understand if you can't needlessly busy up your UI... but even just a comment in your codebase or README goes a long way!