For over 10 years, people have asked whether this project will be open sourced. And for over 10 years, @firasdib kept saying, he might consider it (#77 (comment), #6 (comment), #930 (comment), https://github.com/firasdib/Regex101/wiki/FAQ#will-you-open-source-regex101).

To this day there's nothing new regarding this. @firasdib has no open source projects on his GitHub account that are note worthy. There is little to no activity in general. This guy will not open source Regex101. Don't be fooled, this won't happen.

To summarise what will be unavailable due to this proprietary usage:

• No one else will be able to self-host this. You are completely dependent on @firasdib. If he decides to block your IP for example, you're out of luck (that's also the reason this software is not being used by many companies)
• There is literally just one person making sure this projects stays up. If @firasdib is on vacation or he's not alive anymore, this project will cease with him.
• You are running software, which you can not control. @firasdib can inject malicious code and you will not realize this
• @firasdib can track you as much as he likes. He can do fingerprinting or other stuff to identify you

I recommend everyone to try open source alternatives and break out of this golden cage. Worthy mentions are

• https://github.com/gskinner/regexr -> http://regexr.com/
• https://github.com/CJex/regulex -> https://jex.im/regulex/

It's always a shame to see authors making a fool out of their own users. Luckily, there are still genuine, open source alternatives out there ❤️