Questions about ProdMask

Yes. prodmask scan is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence, free for commercial use, with no account and no time limit. Pro is a separate, paid tool for making the safe copy, and it's closed source.

That's what it's built for. It only reads, and it samples rather than dumping everything: up to 300 rows from each table. A key/value table such as wp_postmeta is read whole if it's small; otherwise it reads up to 20 rows for each key, or a 3,000-row sample if it can't list the keys. Its reports contain names, counts and categories, never the values it sampled. We still recommend a database user with read-only privileges, so the database itself enforces it.

No. It runs on your machine or CI runner and connects only to the database you point it at. There's no telemetry and no licence check in the free scanner. You can confirm both in the source.

Any MySQL or MariaDB database; it's tested in CI on MySQL 8.4 and MariaDB 11.8. The scan needs no preset, so custom apps work too. On top of that, it has built-in knowledge of WordPress (including multisite), WooCommerce (including HPOS and Action Scheduler), Magento 2 and Laravel.

It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, on amd64 and arm64. Other database engines aren't supported. The reservation form asks which databases your projects use, and the answers help decide what comes next.

Founding customers get the beta first and help decide what ships first. The beta starts with full copies; subsetting follows during the beta. Reserve a seat and we'll email you when it opens; there's no payment until then.

It depends on the key, and we won't pretend otherwise. Pro replaces every customer with a realistic fake, and it offers two key modes.

With a stable key, the same customer gets the same fake on every refresh. That's pseudonymisation: under the GDPR the copy is still personal data, though it carries far less risk than a plain copy.

With a throwaway key, a new one for each run, nobody can map the fakes back, you included. What could still identify someone then is the rest of the data, such as rare combinations of dates, amounts and postcodes. The evidence report's re-identification risk section lists exactly that, so your DPO can judge.

No tool can promise that. What Pro will give you is evidence: a signed report for each copy showing what was replaced, cleared and checked. It's worded for controls like ISO 27001 A.8.33, SOC 2 CC8.1, Vanta's “Production data segmented” and Drata's “Test Data”. Your auditor decides what it's worth.

Pro is licensed per company per year. You get a signed licence file that the tool checks offline: no licence server, no phoning home. If it expires, the tool falls back to the free features. Nothing stops working mid-pipeline because a server was down.

One business and its own databases. Pro covers up to three production databases, on the honour system. Agencies that refresh staging for clients need the Agency plan, which covers unlimited databases, including client projects.

Paddle, our reseller and merchant of record. Paddle takes the payment, charges the right VAT and issues the invoice. You can add your VAT number at checkout. Billing changes and cancelling happen in Paddle's customer portal, linked from your account.

Yes: a full refund within 30 days of buying, no questions asked. See the refund policy.

No. Both the scanner and Pro run on your own infrastructure, and neither sends us your data. For an agency, that means no new sub-processor for your clients to approve. This website only knows what you tell it: your email address, and for customers what Paddle shares about the purchase.