You searched for a free DPP solution, and the good news is that free options genuinely exist. The honest news is that "free" almost never means "free." A Digital Product Passport has to be created, hosted, kept online for years, resolved from a QR on the physical product, and updated as data changes. Someone has to build and run all of that. This guide lays out the real trade-offs — open-source frameworks, EU pilot projects, and hosted services (including our own, qr3) — without hiding anyone's weaknesses, including ours.
What "free" really costs for a DPP
A DPP is not a one-off PDF. To be compliant and useful it needs:
- a data model that fits the regulation for your product (battery, textile, electronics);
- hosting that stays up for the product's whole life — often many years;
- a resolver so a QR on the product opens the right passport (ideally a GS1 Digital Link);
- a way to update the data without reprinting labels;
- access control, versioning, and audit trails.
A "free" license covers exactly one line of that list: the software. The rest — servers, uptime, a resolver, security patches, schema updates as the rules evolve — is yours to build and pay for in engineering time. That is the trade-off to keep in mind as we go through the options.
Open-source options (Tractus-X, BaSyx) — powerful, dev-heavy
Two serious open-source ecosystems come up repeatedly in DPP conversations.
Eclipse Tractus-X is the reference open-source stack associated with the Catena-X automotive data-space ecosystem. It is genuinely powerful and built for sovereign, federated data exchange across companies. It is also developer-heavy: you are expected to self-host and operate a set of connected services, understand the data-space concepts, and integrate them yourself. The license is free; standing it up and running it in production is a substantial engineering and operations commitment.
Eclipse BaSyx is an open-source implementation of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) — the Industry 4.0 standard for digital representations of assets. It is a strong, standards-aligned foundation if your world is already AAS/Industry 4.0. Like Tractus-X, it is a framework you build on and host, not a turnkey "make me a passport" product.
The honest summary: with open-source you trade money for engineering and operational ownership. That can be exactly right for a large manufacturer with a platform team and a long-term data-space strategy. It is usually the wrong tool if you need a handful of compliant passports live this quarter and do not want to run infrastructure.
EU pilot projects (CIRPASS) — direction, not a turnkey product
CIRPASS is an EU-funded initiative that has worked on the DPP concept and roadmap, coordinating stakeholders and preparing the ground for product-passport pilots. It is valuable to follow if you want to understand where the standards and policy are heading.
What it is not is a product you sign up for and get passports from. Treat work in this category as direction and reference, not as a deployable solution. If you are reading it as "free DPP software," you will be disappointed — that is not its job.
Hosted/SaaS (incl. qr3) — what you trade money for
Hosted services flip the trade-off: you pay money and get back time, uptime, and a resolver someone else operates. With qr3 specifically, here is the honest picture — strengths and limits.
What you get: a REST API, SDKs, a CLI, and an MCP server; a live GS1 Digital Link resolver at https://qr3.app/dpp/{gtin}/{serial} (JSON-LD via ?format=jsonld); ready-made battery and textile passport builders; and consumer-facing passport pages in 25 EU languages. You can go from API key to a resolvable passport in minutes rather than standing up infrastructure.
The honest limits: qr3 is not free for creating passports. The Free tier is real and includes API access, but it ships 0 DPPs — you can explore the API, but creating a live passport needs a paid plan. Pricing is Free €0 (0 DPPs), Pro €29/mo (50 DPPs), Business €79/mo (500 DPPs), Agency €199/mo (2,000 DPPs), and Enterprise (custom, from €800/mo, 50,000 DPPs). So if your definition of "free" is "zero euros, forever, including passport creation," qr3 does not meet it — an open-source self-host might, at the cost of engineering. That is the trade we are not going to hide.
A fair comparison table
No competitor pricing is asserted as fact here; open-source licenses are free, and operational cost depends entirely on your setup.
| Option | License / price | Time-to-live | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eclipse Tractus-X | Open-source (free license); you host & operate | Long — self-host + integrate a data-space stack | Large manufacturers with a platform team and a federated data strategy |
| Eclipse BaSyx (AAS) | Open-source (free license); you host & operate | Long — build on an AAS framework | Industry 4.0 / AAS shops wanting a standards-aligned base |
| CIRPASS (EU pilot) | EU-funded initiative — not a product | N/A — reference & direction, not deployable | Teams tracking where DPP standards/policy are heading |
| qr3 Free | €0 — API access, 0 DPPs | Minutes to explore the API | Developers evaluating the API before paying |
| qr3 Pro+ | Paid (from €29/mo, 50 DPPs) | Minutes — API + resolver, no infra | Teams that want passports live now and will pay to skip ops |
How to actually decide
A few honest questions to route yourself:
- Do you have a platform team and a multi-year data-space strategy? Open-source (Tractus-X / BaSyx) rewards that investment.
- Are you already standardized on AAS / Industry 4.0? BaSyx fits that world.
- Do you need passports live this quarter, with a resolver, and prefer not to run infrastructure? A hosted service (qr3 or another) saves you the operations.
- Is your hard constraint "zero euros, including creation"? Then a self-hosted open-source stack is your path — budget the engineering and hosting honestly, because that is where the cost moves.
There is no universally "best" answer. The right choice depends on whether your scarce resource is money or engineering time.
FAQ
Is there a truly free DPP option? For the software license, yes — open-source stacks like Tractus-X and BaSyx are free to license. But you pay in hosting, integration, and maintenance. "Free license" is not "free to run."
Is qr3 free? The Free tier is real and includes API access, but it includes 0 DPPs — creating a live passport requires a paid plan (from €29/mo). We would rather say that plainly than imply otherwise.
Can I start open-source and move later, or vice versa? Yes. Because compliant passports are addressed via stable GS1 Digital Link URLs, you can prototype on one approach and migrate. Keep your GTIN/serial identifiers stable and your data portable.
Which is "more compliant"? Compliance comes from the data and the regulation (ESPR Reg (EU) 2024/1781; for batteries, EU Battery Reg 2023/1542), not from whether the tool is open-source or hosted. Both routes can be compliant if the passport contents are right.
Sources
- Eclipse Tractus-X
- Eclipse BaSyx
- CIRPASS — EU Digital Product Passport initiative
- ESPR — Regulation (EU) 2024/1781
- EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542
Want minutes-to-live instead of self-hosting? Explore the API on the free tier: app.qr3.app/sign-up
