UJAM open Gorilla Engine to third-party developers

Underlying plug-in & VI technology now available to others

UJAM's latest announcement sees the company open up' Gorilla Engine, the development platform that has powered their own product catalogue, along with releases from the likes of Avid, Reason, Loopcloud, The Crow Hill Company and others.

Now available through structured public licensing for independent developers, studios, and enterprise teams worldwide, Gorilla Engine provides manufacturers with end-to-end distribution infrastructure, subscription-ready licensing and branded delivery tools that are all built directly into the development workflow, with no custom backend required. The opening coincides with UJAM's latest update, Gorilla Engine 26.03, which introduces third-party Product Hub support, kitting the engine out with a fully integrated licensing and delivery system.

Gorilla Engine Gorilla Engine provides developers with access to more than 60 professional-grade effect algorithms, filters and oscillators, all inside a modular environment where sound designers, developers and UI designers can work in parallel. Sound core design, prototyping and final compilation each have their own dedicated tooling, with a flexible UI layer and scripting language that keeps audio logic, interface layout and control behaviour cleanly separated.

Once a plug-in is ready to ship, Gorilla Engine manages the complete packaging pipeline. Developers can preview their work inside popular DAWs and export signed and notarised installers for VST, AU, AA, and standalone formats from a single environment. Plug-ins built on Gorilla Engine run natively across macOS (universal binary) and Windows (x86), while built-in encryption discourages low-effort piracy without adding friction for legitimate users. Optional iLok integration satisfies customers who expect it, and Native Kontrol Standard (NKS) and MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) support is available right out of the box.

Gorilla Engine is also available as a C++ library that can be included within existing plug-in tech stacks. It is available for macOS and Windows as part of the SDK and can also be compiled to Linux ARM or even bare metal, upon request.

We built Gorilla Engine because we needed it for our own releases, and it has been the platform behind everything UJAM has shipped commercially. Product Hub is the piece that closes the loop. With it, a developer on Gorilla Engine gets the same licensing and delivery infrastructure that we use ourselves, without having to build any of it. We think that changes what is possible for independent developers and for the enterprise teams who have spent years building and maintaining their own delivery infrastructure. - Wolfram Knelangen, COO, UJAM

For development teams currently working in Kontakt, Gorilla Engine offers a direct migration path rather than a platform shift. Gorilla Script, the platforms scripting language, is intentionally similar to Kontakt Script (KSP), meaning many existing scripts carry over with minimal modification. Core group and mapping parameters export directly, interface design and control logic move to a JavaScript-based UI layer, while modulation, filter and effect chains can be rebuilt quickly inside Gorilla Editor - teams with years of accumulated KSP investment do not need to start from scratch.

UJAM say that the economics are equally direct. Getting started as a developer often requires a licensing investment of thousands of dollars before a single product ships. Gorilla Engine instead offers a free license tier that gives developers full access to the platform with no upfront cost, including the ability to build, test and prototype without a financial commitment until they are ready to distribute commercially.

Later in 2026, UJAM are planning to introduce GE React, a new UI layer for Gorilla Engine that brings a React-inspired component model to plug-in interface development. GE React is described as a purpose-built flavour' of React, engineered specifically to deal with the performance constraints and real-time requirements of audio software. Developers familiar with component-based UI patterns will find the model recognisable, while the implementation is designed from the ground up for plug-in development rather than adapted from browser-based tooling. UJAM expect GE React to make interface development faster and more maintainable across teams of all sizes, and say that the project reflects the platforms continuing commitment to modern, developer-friendly tooling.

Availability Gorilla Engine is available now for macOS and Windows under a tiered licensing model:

Free license provides full access to the Gorilla Engine development environment for learning, experimentation and private plug-in creation.

Commercial and Enterprise licenses are available for teams planning to distribute or monetise their work. Further information and license options are available via the link below.

www.gorilla-engine.com

LINK:	https://www.soundonsound.com/news/ujam-open-gorilla-engine-third-party...
	See more stories from soundonsound

Most recent headlines