About keel — Name, License, keel.sh & KEEL FAQ
keeltrading.com is the public website of keel, the open-source Shariah-compliance engine for spot crypto trading maintained by CodeGate Software. The site is a read-only layer over GitHub: the docs section renders documents fetched from the engine repository at build time, the news feed reads GitHub Discussions, and download buttons point at GitHub Releases. Nothing interactive happens here — posting, voting, and questions live on GitHub.
The site itself is open source too; its build pipeline is designed so the site can never contradict the repository it presents.
Licensing
The keel engine is licensed Apache-2.0 by its own repository (CodeGateSoftware/keel).
This website's code is MIT. The site's content — prose, translations, branding — is © CodeGate Software; quoting with attribution is welcome (see CONTENT-LICENSE.md).
Brand FAQ
Is this the Kubernetes project called Keel?
No. There is an established Kubernetes deployment tool named Keel at keel.sh, and it currently owns the bare-“keel” search results. This project — keel by CodeGate Software — is unrelated to it: no shared code, history, or people. We call the project “keel trading” where ambiguity would mislead, and this site exists partly to make that distinction easy to find.
Is this Keel Infrastructure, the KEEL stock?
No. A Nasdaq-listed bitcoin-mining company (formerly Bitfarms) trades under the ticker KEEL, so a search for “keel trading” or “keel crypto” may show its stock chart near these results. It has no connection to this project. This keel is an open-source compliance engine by CodeGate Software — if you landed on keeltrading.com, you are in the right place.
Is this “Shariah law”?
No. keel constrains its operator's own trading and governs nobody else's conduct. No ruling is embedded in the software: the ruling is an input the operator records, not an output the engine produces. The honest description is a compliance engine that happens to have been built for one ethical framework.
Why is it called keel?
The keel is the structural spine of a ship — the part that keeps everything upright and determines how the vessel behaves. The name says what the engine is: not the sails, not the wind, but the part whose job is to keep trading on a straight, auditable line.
What is keeltrading.com's relationship to the engine repository?
This site is a separate repository (CodeGateSoftware/keeltrading.com) whose build fetches from the engine repo — releases for version numbers and asset links, Discussions for news, and pinned documents for the docs section. If the engine moves a document, this site's build fails on purpose rather than showing something stale.
Who is CodeGate Software?
CodeGate Software is the project's maintainer organization. keel began as a personal tool and is published open source so that its compliance claims can be audited rather than trusted.
Open source — and the catch
What does “open source” actually mean?
It means the source code — the actual instructions the program runs — is published where anyone can read it, use it, check what it really does, and change it. keel carries the Apache-2.0 license, one of the most standard open-source licenses in the world: you may run it for any purpose, study it, modify it, and even build a business on it.
For a tool that makes religious and financial claims, that is the whole point. You do not have to take our word for what keel does. You can read every line yourself, or have someone you trust read it — every rail, every gate, every number on this site traces back to code you can open.
Why is keel open source — and free?
Because keel's entire value is auditability. A compliance engine you cannot inspect is exactly the “trust me” model keel exists to replace: closed screening tools ask you to believe their verdicts; keel publishes the machinery and the rulings it enforces, with sources. Openness is not a marketing choice bolted on — it is the product.
And to be precise about “free”: the engine is free by license, not by trial. Apache-2.0 cannot be revoked: a copy of the license ships with every version.
What's the catch? Competitors charge subscriptions — why doesn't keel?
Screening services charge because the verdict is their product: they compute or author classifications and sell you access to them. keel deliberately does not sell verdicts — it enforces yours, and its own honest result says the reference rules don't beat their fees. There is nothing here to upsell you on performance, and we won't pretend otherwise.
The honest part of the answer: keel is also young and small, with no company behind it yet. Free is partly what an honest, early-stage project looks like. Running keel is not free, though — your time, a trading venue, and market-data access all cost real money, and we would rather say that than call trading free.
One deliberate detail: this website's prose and branding are copyrighted (© CodeGate Software), unlike the engine's code. That boundary is the extent of the current commercial thinking.
When will keel charge money, and for what?
There is no date, no price list, and no decided plan — inventing one would be exactly the kind of claim this project refuses to make. If paid services ever come, they will be services built around the engine — not the engine itself. You will read about it here and in GitHub Discussions first, with the same honesty as everything else: the announcement will say plainly what it is, what it costs, and why.
What can be promised today: the engine you can download now is licensed Apache-2.0, and that cannot be revoked or retracted. Any future paid offering would have to be worth paying for on top of a free engine — which is exactly the standard a project like this should hold itself to.