The Genworks stack is not one SKU. It is a ladder: open-source Gendl for learning and experimentation, hosted professional workflows taking shape online, commercial Genworks GDL for serious development and deployment, and Cyclops as an optional deployment component.
Gendl is the AGPL-licensed kernel at the heart of everything else. Pair it with skewed-emacs for the most direct way to learn the language, explore live objects, and build open-source applications. This is the right entry point for hobbyists, researchers, students, and anyone who wants to understand the stack before making a commercial commitment.
For many professional engineers, the preferred path is increasingly online rather than installed: browser entry, hosted terminals, MCP access, guided examples, and a cleaner upgrade path into paid capability. That experience is still being built out, but it is an explicit product direction rather than an afterthought.
Coming soon
Hosted KBE sessions, metered commercial access, and clearer online package combinations for professional evaluation and VAR-style offerings.
Genworks GDL builds on the same declarative core with commercial Lisp, support, and optional industrial modeling components. Today the most obvious commercial shapes are development-oriented seats, enterprise deployment seats, and royalty-based arrangements for some closed-source distribution cases.
Best for development teams who need closed-source work, commercial support, and a stable foundation for serious prototyping or internal tools.
Best for on-site deployment, runtime distribution, SMLib-backed geometry, CAD interfaces, and the traditional installed commercial model that many organizations still require.
If your main need is closed-source distribution rather than installed enterprise seats, the royalty path may be a better fit than the legacy seat model.
Cyclops is a compact, optional reverse proxy for Gendl, Genworks GDL, skewed-emacs, and related MCP rollouts. It is not the whole platform. It is a focused operational component for teams who want Lisp-native service configuration and host-bound deployment at a clear price.
Start with open-source if you are learning, with royalties if you need closed-source distribution, with hosted direction if you want online professional evaluation, and with Enterprise if you need installed commercial deployment.