Increasing prices for community edition?

[Alex1]

Most people probably know that Proxmox VE used to be free and that Proxmox introduced a community licence for access to the stable repo. There was a lot of people complaining about this some years ago but I was one of those who thought that is was ok as the price was only €49,90/yr/cpu.

But then last year the price increased to €59,90/yr/cpu and now it has increased to €64,90/yr/cpu and I'm starting to wonder if I should stop using proxmox as I'm not sure if I can afford it next year.

A heads up would also be nice so people don't end up in a situation where they can't afford it and also don't have time to make changes as the price have increased on the new invoice which is soon due.

It's kinda painful to try to stick with Proxmox VE when the pricing is so unpredictable.

"Can I afford it next year? Should I switch now just in case I can't? Where will it end? Will it continue at this speed and reach €110/yr in 4 years?"

I'm hoping I'll be able to stick with Proxmox VE, but I sure can't if the price just keeps getting higher and higher every year.

What is the reason for the price increases, and should we expect more of them in the next few years?

 

[nibblerrick]

I thought about that, too, and a little bit backgroundinformation from the staff is appreciated.

 

[fireon]

Yes i too. Community is important for an OS-Project. It should be cheap. COMMUNITY IS NOT ENTERPRISE!!! There are homeusers, little office... community is helping to find and fix bugs, most in there leisure time.

So YES. Please a bit backgroundinformation from the staff.

Thanks

 

[Waschbüsch]

I am not sure I understand the concern?
It is not like you have to have a subscription in order to use Proxmox VE.
Rather: you have to have a subscription to get the (more) stable repo.

There is a big difference.

 

[Nemesiz]

If I`m not mistaken http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Downloads show stable version of the pveversion command. You can use No-Subscription Repository and upgrade manually to stable version only.

 

[fireon]

If I`m not mistaken http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Downloads show stable version of the pveversion command. You can use No-Subscription Repository and upgrade manually to stable version only.

Yes this is right. But i can say it is really not a good idea to use the No-Subscription Repository. We have about 40 PVE Servers running, the most with subscription. Some testserver with the No-Subscription Repository. And very often we find somehting that is really really ugly. For example: After reboot (upgrade) machine is not able to boot anymore... there are much problems, and yes bugs will be find at No-Subscription Repository or Testing. Better tested packages on Enterpriserepo.

And yes we also have some Problems on Enterpriserepo. But they are tiny, never business critical.

I never afraid to upgarde servers with Enterpriserepo, but with the others already.

 

[nibblerrick]

Of course you can use the no-subscription-repo and that's great and OK.

The thing is how are the prices increasing and what to expect and why are the prices increasing this way. May be there are some good reasons for that we just don't know or the proxmoxteam just increases it and nobody mentions that it sucks so they don't know
Therefore a little feedback would be nice. From my position it is not to condemn it but to know about and why.

 

[Nemesiz]

fireon you want to say the version of package in public repo is different from enterprise repo? I think if the package in public repo is stable enough it is moved to enterprise repo with no additional changes. Or I`m wrong?

 

[LnxBil]

Yes, nemesiz, the enterprise repository is a subset of the pve-no-subscription repository.

 

[fireon]

fireon you want to say the version of package in public repo is different from enterprise repo? I think if the package in public repo is stable enough it is moved to enterprise repo with no additional changes. Or I`m wrong?

Yes this is right, but not always. There are some bugs they will fixed before. For eampel. As i begin with ZFS for a time, there was an bug with the Paht /dev/by-id, was really not nice, HDD changed there bus and the server was not able to boot. This error was only on the nosubscribtion repo. Bug was fixed before get to enterpriserepo.

 

[Nemesiz]

Does the package had the same number in public and enterprise repository after bug fix in enterprise repository?

 

[fabian]

Does the package had the same number in public and enterprise repository after bug fix in enterprise repository?

short answer: yes

long answer:

the (current) life cycle is as follows:
- patch on mailing list
- commit in git repository
- test package for internal testing
- upload to pvetest repository
- upload to pve-no-subscription repository
- upload to pve-enterprise repository

sometimes the process is sped up (usually in case of urgent bug fixes or security fixes)
sometimes packages do not proceed through the whole cycle (for example, a package might have made it only to pvetest when a newer version of the same package gets uploaded, in which case the outdated version does not go to pve-no-subscription and pve-enterprise)
everything that was available in pve-no-subscription currently also ends up in pve-enterprise (sooner or later), but when it does it might already be superseded by a newer version:
- version a.b-x of a package gets uploaded to pve-test
- version a.b-x of a package gets uploaded to pve-no-subscription
- version a.b-y of same package gets uploaded to pve-test
- version a.b-y of same package gets uploaded to pve-no-subscription
- both versions get uploaded to pve-enterprise, upgrading a system will upgrade to version a.b-y because it's newer

note that this process is not set in stone and might be improved/changed in the future - I just wanted to make this a bit more transparent

 

[nibblerrick]

Thank you for clarifying this fabian. Do you also have some information regarding the pricestrategy?

 

[Alex1]

I would really appreciate some information on this and what to expect in the coming years.

 

[tom]

The history of the community pricing was the following (in euro).

119,90 > 49,90 > 59,90 > 64,90

seemed the first price of the community subscription - € 119,90 was missed by most, so I added this for completeness.

If someone is interested in fixed pricing for more than one year, just purchase/ask for a two or three years subscription.
=> http://shop.maurer-it.com/contact.php

 

[fireon]

If someone is interested in fixed pricing for more than one year, just purchase/ask for a two or three years subscription.
=> http://shop.maurer-it.com/contact.php

Yes this is nice.

 

[nibblerrick]

Thank you tom, I have really missed the 119,90 Euro or had it wiped out of my head (?) althoug I remember the big discussion about introducing the subscriptions.
The ability to get a more-year-subscription is also very nice.
But about future price-strategy there is nothing you can say? Eventually how the price next year will be?

 

[Alex1]

Seems like they plan for at least a 5 EUR price increase each year, considering the pricing has gone like this since i started with community subscription:
49,90 > 59,90 > 64,90 > 69,90 > 74,90

The last two changes happened after this thread.

 

[Waschbüsch]

Seems like they plan for at least a 5 EUR price increase each year, considering the pricing has gone like this since i started with community subscription:
49,90 > 59,90 > 64,90 > 69,90 > 74,90

The last two changes happened after this thread.

I still don't see how this is even a topic:

• The entire project is open source, of high quality and very well documented.
  
• No one forces you to buy a subscription.
• You do not lose any functionality by not having a subscription.
• That bit of a nag when you log into the web interface without a subscription is trivial to disable.

What more do you want?

 

[Alex1]

That's where you're wrong. The subscription is(among other things for higher tiers) a service to get access to easy and stable updates, and you do indeed loose that functionality without a subscription.

It is a service you pay for to get stable updates, and the pricing keep increasing constantly with no information given on why this happens. I went with Proxmox VE to get a stable system as the price was just fine, but now the price keep increasing, so I have to make a choice, keep paying more and more for the service or use time to migrate to another solution to avoid possible bugs.

I really do like Proxmox VE and Maurer IT, but I think this pricing strategy with frequent silent increases is kinda dirty and something people should be aware of.