OBSCURA for teams
Your people are probably already using this. Here is what buying the licence actually involves, what it does not involve, and the answers your security reviewer is going to ask for.
There is no data to protect
OBSCURA has no accounts, no login, no database and no upload. Every tool runs inside the browser tab. A document your team redacts, a contract they read, a photo they strip the location out of: the file is opened from their disk, worked on in memory, and written back to their disk. It is never sent anywhere, because there is nowhere to send it.
That is not a policy we promise to keep. It is how the software is built, and you can confirm it in a minute: open any tool, open the network tab, and use it. Nothing goes out.
The practical consequence is the reason this page exists. There is no processor relationship, so there is no data processing agreement to negotiate. There are no sub-processors to list. There is no region to pick, no retention period to set, and no deletion request to honour, because we never had anything of yours.
There is nothing to install or administer
Today OBSCURA is a website. There is no agent, no browser extension, no admin console and no directory integration. Your team opens a page over HTTPS, the same as any other page. Nothing runs in the background and nothing starts at login.
A desktop application is coming, and when it does it will be an ordinary signed download that works offline. It is on the waitlist on the pricing page, along with Sync, which will encrypt on the device before anything moves.
What the licence is
The software is published under the PolyForm Noncommercial licence. That covers every noncommercial purpose permanently, at no cost. Using it as part of doing business is a commercial purpose, and that needs the commercial licence.
- Price
- 25 USD per person, per year
- Counted by
- The people who actually use it for work. Not headcount, not devices.
- Covers
- Every tool on the site, including any added during the licence term.
- Term
- One year, renewing. Cancel and it simply stops renewing.
- Enforcement
- None. There is no licence server, no activation, no phone home and no check of any kind.
That last line is worth being blunt about. The software behaves identically whether or not you buy the licence, because it has no way to know. You are buying a legal permission, not a feature unlock, and what it pays for is the version that stays free for everyone else.
What you are not buying
Said plainly, so nobody finds out later:
- No admin console, no central provisioning, no SSO or SCIM.
- No support contract and no response time commitment. Email reaches a person, usually quickly, with nothing promised.
- No audit logs or usage reporting. There is no server to log anything.
- No shared team vault yet. Files live with the person who made them. Sync and Teams are being built, and neither is included in this licence.
- No SOC 2 report, no ISO 27001 certificate, and no penetration test summary.
If any of those is a hard requirement in your process, this is not going to clear it, and it is better to know now.
The questions your security team will ask
Where is our data stored?
On the machine the person is sitting at. In the browser for autosaved work, and in a folder they choose for anything they save out. We hold none of it and cannot see any of it.
Can we get a DPA signed?
There is nothing for one to cover, since no personal data is ever transferred to us. If your process requires a signed agreement regardless, say so and you will get one that says exactly that.
Do you have SOC 2?
No. A SOC 2 report describes how a vendor protects the customer data it holds. We hold none, so the report would be a page long and would tell you nothing you cannot verify yourself in a browser network tab.
What happens to our work if you disappear?
Nothing. The files are already on your disks, in ordinary formats: docx, xlsx, pptx, csv, ics, vcf, pdf, markdown, plain text. There is no export to run and no account to close, because nothing was ever held hostage.
Does it work offline or behind a strict firewall?
Yes. Once a page has loaded it does not need the network again. There are no third party scripts, no fonts fetched from another domain and no analytics beacon.
Who are we buying from?
A small independent project, not a venture funded company. That is a real risk and you should weigh it. The mitigation is the previous answer: your files never depended on us in the first place.
Buying it
Set the number of people at checkout and pay by card. If your finance team needs an invoice, a purchase order, a W-8 or a signed copy of the licence, ask and you will get one.
Everyone at your company can keep using OBSCURA for their own personal things at no cost, licence or no licence, forever. That part is not a trial and never becomes one.