[SOLVED] Does proxmox still offer a fully free version?

[tech719]

I have never had issues with (remote) login without a subscription. Can you please provide more details and maybe a screenshot?

I just got an error message that my ip has been blocked, No reason given. Maybe it was me trying to login too many times and on too many devices. I signed up again and answered the welcome email, followed the verify link. Then tried again to login, it worked so I tried login on pve and that worked as well. Must have been some error in my account setup. All is good, thanks for the reply, it did help.

tech719

 

[tech719]

Now, how do I get my IP unblocked? This may have been caused by my not having a subscription. When I go logged into the pve. There was a message that said apt-get update failed because of a blocked IP although the install script performed the attempt to update. I'm guessing that update is not part of an install without a subscription. I thought it might just be a Debian update in which case I would not need a subscription.

 

[UdoB]

Now, how do I get my IP unblocked?

You need to explicitly enable the "non-subscription" repository and disable the "Enterprise" one.

I am not sure: did you do that?

Then you have access to the official "non-sub"-repository; with zero restriction regarding the functionality but with no support (except here in the forum).

 

[Johannes S]

Now, how do I get my IP unblocked?

Normally Proxmox products don't do anything like that. Can you please post a screenshot of the message?
Did you install something like fail2ban at some point or run it at a hosting Provider?

 

[Miraculix_de]

I'm running a small private home server and are willing to pay for the cummunity edition but from point of view its quite expensive 115 € + 20% tax. Are there any discounts, e.g. black friday sale? Would you pay for a home server?

 

[leesteken]

Are there any discounts, e.g. black friday sale?

I have not seen such a thing in the past decade.

Would you pay for a home server?

There have been several threads about subscription pricing (for home labs) and donations (and other ways to support Proxmox) in the past. It very much depends on (the principels of) the individual user, as anyone can always come up with a reason why it's not convenient to spend any money today.

 

[Ruprecht]

I would like thank for this thread!
As I explained in this comment on my thread, I would like add here, that I really do not understand the business model of Proxmox, because it looks for me that Proxmox is just not able to deal with various questions like me who are investing their private time to learn with Proxmox itself, but:
Proxmox is actually killing their own community

I was thinking, that something like "Community support" is and should be free, and anyone could get it with just registering on this proxmox forum. What does this means? Should I pay to get support from people like me before I actually start using proxmox?

edit:
I think, that I understand the business model of Proxmox, but I meant that I do not understand why is Proxmox killing their own community of "individual IT professionals", as no-one who is not IT professional will learn Proxmox "because of boring".

Proxmox could be just very happy and thankfull that there are IT professionals who are willing to learn Proxmox on their own in their free time, because they are in fact investing in Proxmox, and became or could bring a new paying Proxmox client or partner.

 

[cosmos]

@Ruprecht, I have been operating proxmox for 10 years without a subscription. Still using it today and I'm gonna buy the small business subscription for one of our work servers running proxmox.

I was thinking, that something like "Community support" is and should be free, and anyone could get it with just registering on this proxmox forum. What does this means? Should I pay to get support from people like me before I actually start using proxmox?

No, you don't have to buy it! You can stay on the free version, like I and a lot of people over the world do. If you run into trouble, normally the community here or in reddit will help. That's how Linux for free works everywhere more or less.

And whenever I needed help here, I've found proxmox personnel actively helping me, even they didn't have to! Remember this is community support we are talking about and proxmox personnel must cater first for the needs of their paying customers.

If you want to help proxmox and get access to the production repositories you could pay for the so-called community subscription. I really think that proxmox should rename this to something else, to reflect the main difference to the absolutely free community edition. 115 euros a year buy you access to the enterprise repo. That's all. And it's a dirt cheap amount. If you think it's expensive, ask broadcom for ESXi and you'll get just how expensive things can get.

I'm not affiliated with proxmox. I have found better support by proxmox here for my free community version, than I have found in the VMWare forums and support as a paying customer. Thankfully the VMWare days are over for me, and we'll start moving our production platforms to the inexpensive paid-for proxmox platforms.

 

[Ruprecht]

@Ruprecht, I have been operating proxmox for 10 years without a subscription. Still using it today and I'm gonna buy the small business subscription for one of our work servers running proxmox.

No, you don't have to buy it! You can stay on the free version, like I and a lot of people over the world do. If you run into trouble, normally the community here or in reddit will help. That's how Linux for free works everywhere more or less.

And whenever I needed help here, I've found proxmox personnel actively helping me, even they didn't have to! Remember this is community support we are talking about and proxmox personnel must cater first for the needs of their paying customers.

If you want to help proxmox and get access to the production repositories you could pay for the so-called community subscription. I really think that proxmox should rename this to something else, to reflect the main difference to the absolutely free community edition. 115 euros a year buy you access to the enterprise repo. That's all. And it's a dirt cheap amount. If you think it's expensive, ask broadcom for ESXi and you'll get just how expensive things can get.

I'm not affiliated with proxmox. I have found better support by proxmox here for my free community version, than I have found in the VMWare forums and support as a paying customer. Thankfully the VMWare days are over for me, and we'll start moving our production platforms to the inexpensive paid-for proxmox platforms.

THanks for information you provided, if there is difference between "community on pricing page" and "community here on forum", than I really just did not catch the difference. If so, it could be helpfull whenever it will be re-named somehow, or at least explained. My confusion was so much bigger because of my thread mentioned above was without any response from anyone from Aug 20, 2025. As I wrote on my post, it is not about money, it is about trust - and it looks that also confusion.

Why there is not something like "FREE pricing plan" with rules for companies and individuals?

 

[proxuser77]

I was thinking, that something like "Community support" is and should be free, and anyone could get it with just registering on this proxmox forum. What does this means? Should I pay to get support from people like me before I actually start using proxmox?

Sorry, but you seem to be deliberately mixing things up, probably just because you’re frustrated that no one was able to help you in the other thread.

With the Community Subscription, you’re paying for access to the Enterprise Repositories. The bullet point 'Community Support' simply clarifies that you won't receive 'Enterprise Support', which is only included in their more expensive tiers. Rather than writing 'no Enterprise Support', they simply say 'Community Support', which is the same support you get even without a subscription. It's not exactly hard to understand, is it?

Community support, like the product itself (with the non-production repositories), is completely free of charge. However, as everywhere else, community support is provided on a voluntary basis. There is no guarantee of an answer or a solution.

 

[proxuser77]

Why there is not something like "FREE pricing plan" with rules for companies and individuals?

Because there's no need for such a plan when you can simply download the software for free and start using it. Would you really prefer having to go through a registration process, handing over your email address and personal data, only to get a limited trial version of the software, like with most proprietary products?

 

[cosmos]

@Ruprecht I believe @proxuser addressed your points. The only difference between the absolutely free and the paid-for community version is that the latter provides you with access to the enterprise repos.

Perhaps the paid-for community license could be renamed to "base / base license" in order to alleviate possible confusion from the free version.

 

[Ruprecht]

OK, thanks a lot for clarification. It is really not hard to understand - when anyone explain it, and As I wrote several times, I am really do not stuck on my work because of not using Proxmox, I am absolutelly not frustrated, my goal was just provide Proxmox team and everyone interested my point of view with understanding informations provided.
I would just better understand to something like this instead of the official pricing page. (it is not proposal from me, and I am not saying that the page should look like this. It is just for better understangingwhat I am thinking, and please ignore other fonts used)


Nothing more, and please do not flame. I really do not blame anyone, but just provide the information, and it just happened.
Once again, thanks for clarification to anyone.

 

[cosmos]

No worries and nobody flames you It's easy to be confused, that's why I've opened this thread in the first place, I was in the same position.

And kudos for providing a sample proposal of the way it could look, I'm certain the team will took this into consideration.

 

[proxuser77]

Sorry if I came across a bit harsh there, and yes, adding the word only to “Community Support” might indeed make things a little clearer.

On the other hand, marketing people usually avoid negatively connoted terms in product descriptions, so I’m not sure they’d go for that.

Also, in my opinion, renaming it to Lite could actually cause more confusion, since it might sound like it refers to the product itself, implying fewer features compared to Basic or Standard. But since this is about licences or support contracts, not different editions of the software, I think the current terminology works just fine.

But that's just me, and I'm not a marketing professional, so I’ll leave it to the experts to decide what they think fits best.