New Unraid OS License Pricing, Timeline, and FAQs

[MrCrispy]

16 hours ago, LSG501 said:

That is quite a substantial jump in price... it's basically doubled in a best case scenario and for all intense purposes it makes, imo, no real financial sense to buy anything but the lifetime license if you intend to use a server for more than 5 years....pretty common for a home server I would have thought..... which kind of makes me think you should have just increased all the prices instead of going down the yearly payment approach on lower tiers.

 

I wasn't sure about the changes being a good idea before but I'm even more sure it's not a great proposition compared with other options now - I would not pick unraid at these new prices, so I'm lucky to be grandfathered in.  I will likely jump on another copy now for a second server, bet I won't be the only one doing that or grabbing the upgrade now - so part of the 'quick influx of cash' before the change which might end up bringing in less long term.  I hope I'm wrong because the long term health of unraid is dependent on enticing new users but hmm....

 

Don't like the bit about security updates being the active minor release, and only for 1 minor release (it stops at x.x.0 of the second minor release), not to mention there's no mention of 'bug fixes' that may need a whole new minor release to fully fix them either... no actual timeline for release updates means a minor release could be months or years etc as well, I'd rather have a defined amount of time here, bit like android updates.

 

I also thought we were supposed to be getting an email about this change as a heads up, I haven't had one....

 

I still think this is fundamentally a subscription model on the lower tiers, it's not a subscription for the software, it's a subscription to stay bug free and secure and I HATE subscriptions and things that act the same way.  You can disagree or try and say otherwise but it won't change my opinion on this now I've see all the info that's been put out. 

 

I agree with this, but also the industry seems to be moving in this direction (i.e. subscriptions) and in general anti consumer practices. e.g rentals for movies, not owning anything, devices that can't be repaired, digital content you purchased for 'lifetime' that just disappears or stops working.

 

I read that big companies like Plex are going to discontinue lifetime licenses because its not a good business model. And I'm sure Plex makes quite a bit of money.

 

I'm going to say something that is obviously not the direction LimeTech wants, so please don't take it that I am advocating or asking for this: in my ideal scenario, Unraid goes full open source! Along with that comes massive influx of developers and much faster pace of development (as we've seen, the community is probably a massive part of it already). LT makes money by offering support, value add features, premium addons, partners with hardware oem's. As well as offer other products, integrations that other businesses will pay for etc. I'm not a bizdev person, all this may be unfeasible.

 

I wonder how many people will pay for lifetime vs the annual fees? or how often updates will be needed? I think LT giving all these options and looking out for current users is so admirable, I do wish there was a clear revenue stream that also allows people who can't afford the new prices to use it.

[guybrush2012]

It's easy to defend something when you're not affected. But what do new users say about it?

[Helmonder]

It's easy to defend something when you're not affected. But what do new users say about it?

That is a true word….

However unraid has not been “free” for some time. Alternatives like truenasnor proxmox are there and are free. So there is absolutely a place for users who want a free option.

Unraid already is not that place.


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[LSG501]

44 minutes ago, guybrush2012 said:

It's easy to defend something when you're not affected. But what do new users say about it?

 

38 minutes ago, Helmonder said:

That is a true word….

However unraid has not been “free” for some time. Alternatives like truenasnor proxmox are there and are free. So there is absolutely a place for users who want a free option.

Unraid already is not that place.


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I'm pretty close to being that 'new user', I have not been using unraid long and I said this in the original thread.  Unraid, well home server/nas software is a very niche market so cost is relevant imo, £100 (what price converted to) was basically the sweet spot price where it wouldn't matter if I stopped using it. 

 

At the new prices I would not have likely waited a little longer to get some more drives (they're all same size so the mixed sizes don't matter) and just went with truenas.... free is very attractive when people are reusing old hardware, quite common with unraid (I'm not but still), and there is often a limit people are prepared to pay for an OS these days, look how MS allowed 'free updates' for the last couple of versions of windows etc, yes bigger company but also more well known.  Throw in the mix that there is a potential competitor coming in from a youtuber with 15million or so users....

 

edit: I am also seeing posts on other sites where people are literally going, new and old users, going should I buy unraid now even if I don't intend to user it until later.....most responses are yes get it now.

Edited March 24 by LSG501

[Frank1940]

46 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

and just went with truenas.... free is very attractive

But for how much longer???

 

Remember that Macrium used to allow their backup software (Reflect) for free and now they have subscription/major-version plan.  Their business plan was similiar to what Truenas has been using.    

 

MS may be giving their software updates away but only until your current hardware dies or is obsolete.  (Remember that WIN11 only will install on newer hardware...)   Plus, what about the fees for MS Office and, now, Copilot.  Even the lifetime version of MS Office will lose support, updates and support after a few short years.  Plus, I know they are putting Adverts in a side bar on many of their 'free' games.  When will they start putting them in Office???

 

The handwriting is on the wall.  The day that the 'home' user gets quality software for free or one time purchase is disappearing.  This is not like a book.  You simply take it home and use it until it falls apart. 

 

I can remember back when TV had very little advertising on it (~1948).  Then came advertising between programs. (on the half-hour or hour depending on program length.) Then one ad in the middle from the single sponsor of that program.  It continued to evolve until they stop play in sport events for commercials! 

 

Most of the complainants are demanding lifetime warranty and support when they make their one time purchase.  Those days are now behind us.  The glory days where the 'computing' market was growing at what seemed an exponential rate are gone.   We are now moving into the mature market phase and those companies who are going to survive this transition are going to have to adapt.  (The 'cash' cow phase probably lies ahead...) 

[LSG501]

12 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

But for how much longer???

Well truenas have courted businesses more than unraid have and built a business model that allows free for home users and paid/supported versions for business, they also have a merch store and oem servers..... basically a more rounded approach to income. 

 

I'm not saying that unraid needs to be free either, just that the new pricing makes it a lot harder justifying unraid over other highly regarded options.

[guybrush2012]

1 hour ago, Frank1940 said:

But for how much longer???

 

 

You can't compare Microsoft with Limetech.

 

This is about NAS software and there are good and free alternatives.

Examples: If you have a Ugreen NAS, then you have UgreenOS or you install TrueNAS Scale + TrueCharts, Proxmox, OpenMediavault, Xpenology.

 

You can also install CASAOS on UgreenOS (debian). Then you have a nice community-based open source GUI.

The same is with the OpenMediaVault + CASAOS. Portainers are also available.

 

Have you looked at alternative software?

 

TrueNAS and Proxmox have been around for a very long time. You should find out how you make money.

Instead of buying software for $249, people prefer to buy hardware.

Why should you spend so much money on NAS software when the others are just as good?

Limetech is doing itself no favors. This could also be the beginning of the end.

 

[ddube]

7 hours ago, guybrush2012 said:

 

You can't compare Microsoft with Limetech.

 

This is about NAS software and there are good and free alternatives.

Examples: If you have a Ugreen NAS, then you have UgreenOS or you install TrueNAS Scale + TrueCharts, Proxmox, OpenMediavault, Xpenology.

 

You can also install CASAOS on UgreenOS (debian). Then you have a nice community-based open source GUI.

The same is with the OpenMediaVault + CASAOS. Portainers are also available.

 

Have you looked at alternative software?

 

TrueNAS and Proxmox have been around for a very long time. You should find out how you make money.

Instead of buying software for $249, people prefer to buy hardware.

Why should you spend so much money on NAS software when the others are just as good?

Limetech is doing itself no favors. This could also be the beginning of the end.

 

 

It is what it is. I think the same and the future doesn't seem bright. I can understand that they want to live from the software, but let's be real it's a side job. I'm probably sure they could be more profitable going open source, setting up a donation button and bundle the software with some premade hardware.

 

Time will tell, but I hope they'll give us a way to retain the paid software if they fail (like register a new usb key because the one you had just died). If they succeed, I'll apologize for being an unbeliever. Mark my word.

[MrCrispy]

15 hours ago, guybrush2012 said:

 

You can't compare Microsoft with Limetech.

 

This is about NAS software and there are good and free alternatives.

Examples: If you have a Ugreen NAS, then you have UgreenOS or you install TrueNAS Scale + TrueCharts, Proxmox, OpenMediavault, Xpenology.

 

You can also install CASAOS on UgreenOS (debian). Then you have a nice community-based open source GUI.

The same is with the OpenMediaVault + CASAOS. Portainers are also available.

 

Have you looked at alternative software?

 

TrueNAS and Proxmox have been around for a very long time. You should find out how you make money.

Instead of buying software for $249, people prefer to buy hardware.

Why should you spend so much money on NAS software when the others are just as good?

Limetech is doing itself no favors. This could also be the beginning of the end.

 

 

I think the value proposition of Unraid is not being communicated to users and is getting lost.

 

Unraid is primarily about the array - i.e. shfs using software real time parity, mix/match disk sizes, and NOT striping data.

TrueNas or any of the custom NAS OS's don't do this.

THIS is what keeps your data safe and allows you to grow.

 

You can use mergerfs to combine disks. But the only alternative for parity is snapraid and its not real time.

 

Everything else - vm's, dockers, community apps. all of that came much later, all of it its just a wrapper around open source projects you can use on any other distro or custom OS, with maybe a little bit more work.

 

No one else has the data safefy. Not if you want to avoid striping and keep data in native format.

[MrCrispy]

For people with massive servers, the $250 price is just 1 more hdd out of the 20 they have, so its no big deal.

for casual users, its the choice between adding a 20TB hdd or not. Remember if they use Unraid they also need another hdd of same size for parity.

 

In the real world a lot of people don't use backups or parity, this is not a good thing of course but its the reality. This is where the new price will hurt.

[PoMpIs]

Hello...

I just saw the new prices... I hope everything goes well, I love Unraid... I have had a Pro license for many years, which I use on a PC as a NAS with 52Tb for Torrents 24/7, without parity or copy security, if it fails the content of that disk is lost and nothing happens

 

A few days ago I bought a Basic to put on a MiniPC.... and if I don't upgrade it now to Pro later it will be more expensive?

 

I hope everything goes well and this is not the beginning of the end of Unraid, please🙇‍♂️

[IonelChila]

I am out. I know enough *nix to muster my own raid and lite OS.  For what I use I can't justify the new pricing scheme.  Good luck 

Edited March 25 by IonelChila

[JonathanM]

42 minutes ago, IonelChila said:

For what I use I can't justify the new pricing scheme.

Until the 27th what you purchase is still a lifetime license at the old price.

[xokia]

On 3/24/2024 at 1:14 AM, MrCrispy said:

 

I agree with this, but also the industry seems to be moving in this direction (i.e. subscriptions) and in general anti consumer practices. e.g rentals for movies, not owning anything, devices that can't be repaired, digital content you purchased for 'lifetime' that just disappears or stops working.

One of the reasons some of us moved to home labs, to avoid cloud based subscriptions fees. I'll throw my $.02 in as a user for under a year. At the new pricing model I likely would NOT have been a customer. I purchased a pro license when only needing the lower tier license (currently have 5 drives) just to support the folks making the SW. I however would have purchased none of the licenses if it required an annual fee. I am allergic to subscription based models.

 

The proof will be in the pudding. Either new customers will flee or grumble and accept it.

 

Maybe with the new pricing model they can afford to implement a real cache drive? Maybe some ECC protection on parity so it doesn't dump the parity drive on error? Currently failures tend to be catastrophic to parity which weakens the value of the feature JMO.

Edited March 26 by xokia

[Hoopster]

45 minutes ago, xokia said:

I however would have purchased none of the licenses if it required an annual fee. I am allergic to subscription based models.

I likely would have felt the same way at first glance if the new pricing was the pricing in 2011 when I bought my first Unraid license. I have faithfully avoided and abandoned all software that has gone to a subscription model over the years; however, what Limetech is moving to is not subscription pricing, it is an annual maintenance fee.  If you don't pay the fee, your software still works, your data is still intact, etc. Subscriptions do not work this way.  You don't pay and your software quits working.

 

After looking at other options, I very probably would have come back to Unraid for my NAS if the new pricing had always been the way it is moving to and "gambled" yearly on whether or not to pay the fee while I saw where Unraid was headed.  It is still a great bargain for what it provides.  I have followed this pattern with software that offers a perpetual license for a particular version but comes out every year with a "new and improved" version for which I have to pay an upgrade fee.  I will often skip a couple of years and run older software until something new comes along that compels me to upgrade. 

 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out for Limetech but I understand and support what they have done with pricing.  I am just grateful now to be grandfathered in with my three perpetual licenses. After March 27, that option will not exist for new users.

Edited March 26 by Hoopster

[MrCrispy]

42 minutes ago, xokia said:

Maybe with the new pricing model they can afford to implement a real cache drive? Maybe some ECC protection on parity so it doesn't dump the parity drive on error? Currently failures tend to be catastrophic to parity which weakens the value of the feature JMO.

 

Any improvements to the core system will be welcome. Unfortunately I don't think there have been any? all the new stuff is about dockers/vm/themes? I posted before about my thoughts on this, using snapraid etc, but have not gotten any official replies, everything Ive seen is only about ZFS

[xokia]

1 hour ago, Hoopster said:

I likely would have felt the same way at first glance if the new pricing was the pricing in 2011 when I bought my first Unraid license. I have faithfully avoided and abandoned all software that has gone to a subscription model over the years; however, what Limetech is moving to is not subscription pricing, it is an annual maintenance fee.  If you don't pay the fee, your software still works, your data is still intact, etc. Subscriptions do not work this way.  You don't pay and your software quits working.

Slice it any way you want its a subscription. Other SW venders have a similar model, updates end and your SW still works you just no longer get improvements. I know for sure I wouldn't even have messed with unraid. I wont mention who I would have gone with as that is a bit tacky on a vendors page. But there are other "freeware" options out there that are just as capable. I was running one of them and was overall happy. I switched because I thought there was an issue with at the time a 13900 running on their SW. The linux kernel was newer on unraid. Turned out to be a HW issue (motherboard) that for some reason ran slightly better on unraid but did eventually pop up under unraid.

 

I could have gone back after discovering the real issue but was overall happy with the forum support on unraid. And I dont mind supporting decent SW development.  Subscriptions are just a no go for me though. They can quickly get out of hand once you start adding them all up. Plus I am allergic to subscription models 😄

Edited March 26 by xokia

[Hostile_18]

As a new user, I probably wouldn't have gone for the new pricing model either. It's great that we will be grandfathered in, but I do worry about the long term health now new users will very likely reduce significantly.

 

I'd of rather looked at reducing costs of the business and having much slower updates, plus all the other extra monitization ideas floated in this thread.

[_cjd_]

The idea that this is a subscription model doesn't sit with me. I have Adobe software from before they went subscription. It still (mostly) works. I even owned previous versions, and guess what? I had to pay for the new version. But I can't use the latest versions, which are a mess. My use is a few hours here and there, but that's not how their sub model works.

This is a mixed model, not quite subscription but not quite a "pay for new versions" either as you'll get them within each year but not outside paid years. I'd be surprised if it generated much volume of people paying the annual fees. Cost already drove people away. It's just a question of how many more.

Really, I think it's more price increase with leverage pushing buyers to the lifetime option.

I'd likely still budget for this myself... The array setup is why. But I'm wary at this point and if I need another machine, I'll be poking at alternatives again.

I understand why the decision was made. I'm not sure how it'll play out. My biggest worry is actually that this doesn't signal the beginning of the end.

[PoMpIs]

I have two licenses, a Pro for many years and a basic, today I decided and updated the basic to Pro as well...

I want Unraid to continue existing for life 🤞

[Hoopster]

9 hours ago, xokia said:

Slice it any way you want its a subscription.

Agree to disagree on this point.  Call it what you want but it is not a subscription. 

 

For five years I managed a product line for a software company that had a true subscription pricing model.  The customers paid monthly.  As soon as they stopped paying, the software and service it provided stopped working and was terminated.  This is not what Limetech is doing.  But, hey, if you want to believe it is a subscription, that is your right.

[xokia]

2 hours ago, _cjd_ said:

This is a mixed model, not quite subscription but not quite a "pay for new versions" either as you'll get them within each year but not outside paid years. I'd be surprised if it generated much volume of people paying the annual fees. Cost already drove people away. It's just a question of how many more.

Really, I think it's more price increase with leverage pushing buyers to the lifetime option.

I'd likely still budget for this myself... The array setup is why. But I'm wary at this point and if I need another machine, I'll be poking at alternatives again.

I understand why the decision was made. I'm not sure how it'll play out. My biggest worry is actually that this doesn't signal the beginning of the end.

This is what drives folks to open source software (but maybe not sell a perpetual license to begin with?). From a business perspective I get it. These folks do work to provide updates. No one wants to work for free. I guess we will see how it goes. I'll be building another system in the next month or so but after discovering this thread it wont be unraid. And not a hit against unraid but I'd rather bite the bullet and just switch early.

 

Quote

Agree to disagree on this point.  Call it what you want but it is not a subscription. 

 

For five years I managed a product line for a software company that had a true subscription pricing model.  The customers paid monthly.  As soon as they stopped paying, the software and service it provided stopped working and was terminated.  This is not what Limetech is doing.  But, hey, if you want to believe it is a subscription, that is your right.

You are discussing how a company chooses to categorize its products. The customer doesn't care how YOU categorize it. The customer cares how it affects their bottom line. If it has a reoccurring fee its a subscription. You can try and convince your customer until you are blue in the face its not a subscription. Most likely they will just get annoyed with you and move on.

Edited March 26 by xokia

[ijuarez]

I will not be affected by the new price tiers, but all this about subscriptions and the down fall of unraid and no they will not survive this., Blah blah.

I find it funny because some of the same people that are complaining have netflix, hulu and Disney. Pay it gladly every month.  I have other  subscriptions primary my house payment, my car payment, health insurance etc.

 

Truenas is free but like someone said for how long, sure there's free alternatives like CasaOS but im sure at some point that developer is going to want to get paid, so for how long?

 

If i was just starting would i choose unraid? yes, why for the same reason that I got it in the first place. I did not have money for server grade equipment i had a pc and bunch of different sizes drive in a beige tower. Limetech without charging extra gave me following technologies, XEN-- KVM--Docker--ZFS for the cost of a license i bought 11 yeas ago. No other software has done that!

 

Ok enough soap box, I hope this change brings the cash flow that limetech needs to hire developers to take unraid to the next level

 

Edited March 26 by ijuarez

[ddube]

29 minutes ago, ijuarez said:

I will not be affected by the new price tiers, but all this about subscriptions and the down fall of unraid and no they will not survive this., Blah blah.

I find it funny because some of the same people that are complaining have netflix, hulu and Disney. Pay it gladly every month.  I have other  subscriptions primary my house payment, my car payment, health insurance etc.

 

Truenas is free but like someone said for how long, sure there's free alternatives like CasaOS but im sure at some point that developer is going to want to get paid, so for how long?

 

If i was just starting would i choose unraid? yes, why for the same reason that I got it in the first place. I did not have money for server grade equipment i had a pc and bunch of different sizes drive in a beige tower. Limetech without charging extra gave me following technologies, XEN-- KVM--Docker--ZFS for the cost of a license i bought 11 yeas ago. No other software has done that!

 

Ok enough soap box, I hope this change brings the cash flow that limetech needs to hire developers to take unraid to the next level

 

That's the problem. You see it as someone who is already sold to unraid. You won't be impacted by this like all of us. But it is important to note that if I was considering unraid with the new price scheme, I would have passed. There is no way I would have bought a software that will gatekeep me behind that model. Call it what you want. I would have prefered to buy unraid v6, then unraid v7 and so on.

 

The market for this is VERY competitive and you can find a lot of options for either free or a one time payment. You have to understand that this is a hussle and they could have grown bigger by going open source. Like many have stated, there is a lot of ways to be profitable.

 

Anyway, the release schedule have always been so opaque that you can't expect anything. Paying yearly for updates means that people will expect to get an excellent return on investment. They never were able to provide that and they won't be able to sustain that kind of support.

 

Never forget that this is a driven community software, the one that gives support already paid for and won't pay more. New people may come but will leave when there is no clear roadmap and deadlines to release. Show me where I can find this information ? Nothing is public about it.

 

All of this have been a bad press for unraid.

[JonathanM]

20 minutes ago, ddube said:

I would have prefered to buy unraid v6, then unraid v7 and so on.

That's exactly what you can do with the new model, except the new versions are at a much lower price than the initial buy in. There is no requirement to pay until you want the next version.