At a glance
| Supported databases | Relational, cloud warehouse and NoSQL platforms, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Db2, Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery and MongoDB |
| Migration approach | Versioned changesets in changelogs (SQL, XML, YAML or JSON) |
| Schema diff and generation | diff, diff-changelog and generate-changelog in Community |
| Rollback | By tag, count and date in all editions; targeted rollback in Secure only |
| CI/CD and automation | CLI, Docker image, Maven, Gradle and Spring Boot; policy checks and drift detection in Secure |
| Language or runtime | Java 17 or later (from 5.0) |
| Licensing | Community 5.0+ FSL-1.1-ALv2 (Apache 2.0 after two years); 4.x Apache 2.0; Secure by quote |
Liquibase suits teams that want rollback, diff and changelog generation without paying, or one set of database-independent changes for several engines. Check the licence first: Community 5.0 and later is under FSL-1.1-ALv2, which allows internal production use but is not an OSI-approved open source licence. Targeted rollback, drift detection and policy checks need Liquibase Secure, priced by quote.
Overview
Liquibase records each schema change as a changeset, identified by an id and an author, inside a changelog file written in formatted SQL, XML, YAML or JSON. Deployed changesets are tracked in a DATABASECHANGELOG table. Modelled change types such as createTable are database-independent and many have automatic rollback; formatted SQL changesets are engine-specific and carry hand-written rollback comments.
On 30 September 2025 Liquibase announced that Community 5.0 and later would use the Functional Source License, Version 1.1, ALv2 Future License. Liquibase says you may still run it in development, test and production and fork or modify it, but third parties may not commercialise it in competition with Liquibase, for example as a managed service. Each release converts to Apache 2.0 two years after it ships, and releases made under Apache 2.0 (the 4.x line) stay under Apache 2.0. Version 5.0 also stopped bundling drivers and extensions (installed with liquibase lpm) and requires Java 17.
Key features
- Changelogs in formatted SQL, XML, YAML or JSON, with database-independent change types
- rollback (to a tag), rollback-to-date and rollback-count in all editions, each with a -sql preview variant
- diff, diff-changelog and generate-changelog for comparing databases and capturing an existing schema
- Preconditions, contexts and labels to control where and when changesets run
- rollback-one-changeset and rollback-one-update for targeted rollback in Liquibase Secure
- Policy checks, drift detection and compliance reporting in Liquibase Secure
- Built-in package manager (liquibase lpm) for drivers and extensions since 5.0
Pros and cons
Pros
- Rollback commands, with SQL previews, in the free edition
- Database-independent change types and automatic rollback for many of them
- diff and changelog generation from an existing database without a licence
- Wide database list, including cloud warehouses and NoSQL platforms through extensions
Cons
- Community 5.0 and later is under FSL-1.1-ALv2, which is not an OSI-approved open source licence
- More concepts to learn (changesets, contexts, labels, preconditions) than SQL-file tools
- Formatted SQL changelogs get no automatic rollback
- Liquibase Secure has no published prices and requires a Professional Services package
Pricing
Liquibase Community is free. Liquibase Secure (formerly Liquibase Pro) is sold in Starter, Team, Business and Enterprise plans that differ in features, database types (1, 1, 2 and 4) and database targets (250, 500, 750 and 2,000). No prices are published; each plan is by quote, every plan requires a Professional Services package, and Starter is limited to companies with under USD 1 billion in annual revenue.
Pricing checked on the vendor's official page on 7 November 2026. Prices change; confirm before buying.
Who it is best for
Teams that need rollback and diff in a free tool, or that deploy one set of changes to several database engines.
Who should look elsewhere
- Organisations that require an OSI-approved open source licence for current releases: compare Flyway vs Liquibase.
- Python services that keep their schema in SQLAlchemy models: see Liquibase vs Alembic.
Verdict
Liquibase gives more in its free edition than most migration tools, notably rollback by tag, count and date and diff-based changelog generation, and it reaches more database platforms. The trade-offs are a steeper learning curve and the FSL licence on current Community releases, which is fine for most internal use but worth a licence review if you embed or redistribute it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Liquibase still open source?
Not under an OSI-approved licence for current releases. Since 5.0, Liquibase Community is under FSL-1.1-ALv2: production use and modification are allowed, competing commercial offerings are not, and each release converts to Apache 2.0 two years after release. The 4.x releases remain Apache 2.0.
What happened to Liquibase Pro?
It is now called Liquibase Secure. Liquibase's support site describes Secure as formerly Pro, and from 5.0 the Secure and Community distributions are downloaded from separate locations.
Does Liquibase Community include rollback?
Yes. rollback, rollback-to-date and rollback-count and their -sql variants are listed for all editions. rollback-one-changeset and rollback-one-update are Liquibase Secure only.
Sources
- Liquibase: Community licence moves to FSL
- Liquibase Community 5.0 release notes
- Liquibase: Rollback commands
- Liquibase pricing
- Liquibase supported databases
- Liquibase releases (GitHub)
Checked November 2026.
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