Philterd builds open source software for finding and redacting PII and PHI in text. Every tool is released under the permissive, business-friendly Apache License, Version 2.0, and developed in the open on GitHub. You can read the source, run it for free, and self-host it inside your own cloud or data center. See PHI redaction for the HIPAA-specific workflow.
Why open source, self-hosted redaction
Redaction decides your compliance boundary, and the boundary is what an auditor examines. If sensitive text has to leave your network to be redacted by a hosted service, the exposure has already happened. The open source, self-hosted approach removes that problem at the root:
- Your data never leaves your perimeter. Philter runs inside your VPC or on-premises, so customer names, Social Security numbers, medical record numbers, and account IDs are redacted before anything crosses the wire. This is what keeps HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI scope defensible.
- No vendor lock-in. Apache-2.0 means no license keys, no per-seat fees, and no commercial review. Run it on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, on-premises, or air-gapped.
- Auditable by design. The detection logic is purpose-built NLP and pattern matching that you can read, test, and version, not a black box. Policies are versioned artifacts, so “what did we redact, and how, on this date” is answerable with a diff.
- Free to run. The full toolkit is free under the open source tier. Commercial paths exist for teams that want one-click marketplace deploys or hands-on engineering, but the code is never gated.
Apache-2.0 licensed
Every Philterd project is released under the Apache License, Version 2.0. You are free to use, modify, and distribute it under the terms of that license, with no per-seat fees and no usage caps. See the full Philter license for details, and browse all of the source on the Philterd GitHub organization.
Get started
You can run the open source toolkit from source for free, or deploy the turnkey Philter API in minutes from your cloud marketplace with per-hour billing inside your existing account:
See pricing for how the open source, marketplace, and engaged tiers compare.
FAQ
Is Philter really free and open source?
Yes. The full toolkit is on GitHub under the Apache License, Version 2.0. There are no license keys, no usage caps, and no commercial review. Self-host it on whatever infrastructure you want. Philterd earns revenue from cloud-marketplace deployments and engaged consulting, not from gating the code.
Can I self-host PII redaction in my own cloud?
Yes, and that is the point. Philter and the rest of the toolkit run inside your own VPC, on-premises, or air-gapped environment, so sensitive text is redacted before it ever leaves your network. Nothing is sent to a vendor in order to be redacted.
What license is the software under?
The Apache License, Version 2.0, a permissive and business-friendly open source license. You can read the full Philter license on this site.