When You Need Oracle Active Dataguard License

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When License Oracle Active Dataguard (ADG) feature

You can use Oracle Data Guard as long as you are holding license for EE (DG license is included in Oracle Database Enterprise Edition). However Active Data Guard feature requires additional license on top.
You need ADG license if you are using any or all of the features from the list below.

• Using BCT (Block Change Tracking) at standby
• Running redo apply services while an User PDB is open in read only
• Running Multi Instance redo apply -RAC
• Rolling Upgrade Using Active Data Guard
• Automatic Block Repair
• Global Data Services
• Real-Time Cascading (transferring the redo to the cascaded destination without waiting for the redo to be archived to a standby redo log file.)
• Active Data Guard Far Sync

Starting from 18c (At least I test with 18c) you can have PDB$SEED and CDB$ROOT in read only without having ADG license. 

Lets have a quick test:

At Standby Database 

set line 200
col NAME for a40
select CON_ID,NAME,OPEN_MODE from v$pdbs;
    CON_ID NAME                                     OPEN_MODE
---------- ---------------------------------------- -   ---------
         2 PDB$SEED                                  READ ONLY
         4 PDB01                                          MOUNTED

CDB$ROOT and PDB$SEED is running read only. User PDB is in mount stage

select dest_id,dest_name,status,type,database_mode,recovery_mode from v$archive_dest_status where RECOVERY_MODE !='IDLE';

DEST_ID DEST_NAME                 STATUS    TYPE             DATABASE_MODE   RECOVERY_MODE
---------- ------------------------- --------- ---------------- --------------- ----------------------------------
         1 LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_1        VALID     LOCAL            OPEN_READ-ONLY MANAGED REAL TIME APPLY

DATABASE_MODE is open_read-only  RECOVERY_MODE is managed real time apply

SQL> select PROCESS,STATUS,THREAD#,SEQUENCE# DELAY_MINS from v$managed_standby;

PROCES	STATUS	THREAD#	SEQUENCE#	DELAY_MINS
------	------------	--------	--------	----------
RFS	IDLE	1	0	0
RFS	IDLE	0	0	0
ARCH	CLOSING	1	732	0
DGRD	ALLOCATED	0	0	0
DGRD	ALLOCATED	0	0	0
ARCH	CONNECTED	0	0	0
ARCH	CLOSING	1	733	0
ARCH	CLOSING	1	725	0
RFS	IDLE	1	734	0
RFS	IDLE	0	0	0
MRP0	APPLYING_LOG	1	734	0

Log apply service is running.

Lets have a look at the usages of ADG Feature

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM V$ARCHIVE_DEST_STATUS WHERE STATUS = 'VALID' AND RECOVERY_MODE LIKE 'MANAGED%QUERY' AND DATABASE_MODE = 'OPEN_READ-ONLY';

  COUNT(*)
----------
0

From Primary Database

SELECT DBID,NAME,DETECTED_USAGES,CURRENTLY_USED,FIRST_USAGE_DATE,LAST_USAGE_DATE FROM DBA_FEATURE_USAGE_STATISTICS WHERE NAME LIKE '%Active%';

DBID NAME                                                     DETECTED_USAGES CURRENTLY_USED FIRST_USAGE_DATE   LAST_USAGE_DATE ---------- --------------- --------------- -----  ------------------ ------------------ 1234567 Active Data Guard  - Real-Time Query on Physical Standby  0 FALSE
And as we can see the ADG feature never used and therefore we can conclude that we don't need ADG license if  PDB$SEED and CDB$ROOT are open read only and apply service is running. However license is needed as soon as you open an user PDB in read only and start the redo apply services