# Enterprise and Community editions
Source: https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/learn/self_hosted/enterprise_edition

Self-hosted users can choose between the Community Edition and the Enterprise Edition. The Community edition is free under the MIT license, while Enterprise offers advanced features under a BUSL license.

## What is the Meilisearch Community Edition?

The Meilisearch Community Edition (CE) is a free version of Meilisearch. It offers all essential Meilisearch features, such as full-text search and AI-powered search, under an MIT license.

## What is the Meilisearch Enterprise Edition?

The Enterprise Edition (EE) is a version of Meilisearch with advanced features. It is available under a BUSL license and cannot be freely used in production. EE is the Meilisearch version that powers Meilisearch Cloud.

The only feature exclusive to the Enterprise Edition is [sharding](/learn/multi_search/implement_sharding).

## When should you use each edition?

In most cases, using Meilisearch Cloud is the recommended way of integrating Meilisearch with your application.

Use the Meilisearch Community Edition when you want to host Meilisearch independently.

Meilisearch makes the Enterprise Edition binaries available for testing EE-only features before committing to a Meilisearch Cloud plan. If you want to self-host the Enterprise Edition in a production environment, [contact the sales team](mailto:sales@meilisearch.com).