Cloudron Pricing and Licensing Help
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Hi @JaceBarnett,
yes I think that matches the statements made on the forum in the past. A subscription is always "bound" to the server its running on. When migrating it will move, but it cannot be active on more than one server at the same time.
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Thanks for the confirmation. The pricing page isn't super clear, but that's what I was thinking. Unfortunately, I don't think I can justify the expense then as I tend to generally only run an app or two per server, because I want maximum resource allocation for each app.
Although, now that I'm saying that, I'm wondering... can a person have multiple free cloudron accounts, or is that a violation of the TOS. I didn't really think about it until I was saying that I couldn't justify the expense, but then as I was typing I realized since I only run 1 or 2 apps per server, free might work perfectly assuming I am allowed more than one.
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Should be useful to use a single license on multiple servers. This for a good load balancing or separate/isolate personal app from public apps/other apps.
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@JaceBarnett You don't need multiple accounts, you can have a single account and in that single account you can have as many free servers as you want. You won't be violating our license. I think your situation is uncommon amongst our existing user base who want to maximize the number of apps on a server (to cut down server costs). The only 'catch' is that you are limited to the features and support of the free plan. If that works for you, please go ahead, it's not a problem.
@p44 Yes, we are working on something for this for the next release - https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/2760/what-s-coming-in-6-0 (the unified dashboard bullet point). I will have more details in the coming weeks.
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@fbartels Is the cost on a "per Cloudron deployed” basis?
I was trying to start a second Cloudron on my annual subscription to use the product and found this to be the case as well.
Pricing is per instance of cloudron deployed.
Unfortunately that seems rather obfuscated from their payment page. Given how cool these folks seem to be when following the community, it seems that not being straightforward about the cost upfront, is beneath this company. IMHO.
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@drsum1 that was certainly not our intention to obfuscate some pricing detail. You are right, the subscription is per Cloudron instance (and thus server). Do you have an idea how we could have made that clear for you? Are you referring to https://www.cloudron.io/pricing.html ?
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@nebulon Thanks for the rapid response.
I was disappointed to learn this after paying - not that I would have changed my mind, but my expectations weren't met. I would just suggest on the payment page you make it clear that the cost is per instance, not for unlimited instances.
Not sure of your business model, but perhap a pricing range that allows deployment of 2 - 5, or > 5 and charge more for these various plans.
Thanks again for your great support.
Jon -
@drsum1 said in Cloudron Pricing and Licensing Help:
I would just suggest on the payment page you make it clear that the cost is per instance,
+1 - couldn't hurt to make that explicit on the pricing page.
I'd also add something about how it doesn't include any hosting (as people often assume it does) and that Cloudron needs to be installed on a VPS or home server.
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@drsum1 This has made me very curious. Could you share other services which do allow for more than one instance/more than one installation? I took a look at the pricing page and sure, it doesn't specifically say that the price is for one paid Cloudron instance on one server... but I'm curious what precedents could have led you to even think that more than one VPS could be possible. And if so, I'd be curious to check out whatever other services you've used that do price like that.
I'm just thinking digitally here, but most fonts, Wordpress themes and plugins (and other paid themes and plugins), etc. are for one installation/project. Paid graphics, audio, various media can be used however many times in many different projects. Other projects like Yunohost and the like (the paid versions), as far as I know, also price it per server.
Anyway, like I mentioned, I'm curious what you've been using that allows for mutiple installs because I'm always on the look out for good software (often paid) that can be used in lots of ways. Thanks!
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Right, I think we assumed that per instance pricing is the norm for selfhosted products. For example, any selfhosted product (atlassian products like jira, confluence), plesk, cpanel, sendy, mattermost, gitlab etc are all per server afaik (and might have discounts for multiple instances).
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@scooke I believe I could install Plesk on multiple servers, but that may have changed.
Thanks for the discussion. My use case is multiple domains across multiple servers. Coming across cloudron via docker I assumed it would work similarly in that one can install it on multiple servers and run multiple domains on multiple servers as per the discretion of the webmaster.
I don't mind paying, I just thought of it more as the open source from which it sprung. So if I could run multiple instances of the "free" tied to my single paid license account - that would be ideal. I don't see a way to do that other than signing up a whole new email address if I want to "see" each of my paid instances. And I can't ever see my free instances on the cloudron.io site.
It seems the answer is that my use case is unusual. I'm cool with that, but if there is a way to add more than one cloudron to my cloudron.io account, can somebody point me to the process? Thanks.
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@drsum1 I'm not sure I've properly understood, but it's very easy to have multiple Cloudron licences.
From memory I think all you do is just install it on a new server, then go to your Cloudron.io account and upgrade the new instance.
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@drsum1 said in Cloudron Pricing and Licensing Help:
And I can't ever see my free instances on the cloudron.io site.
If you can send us a mail to support@cloudron.io with your Cloudron domain name and also your cloudron.io account, we can look into why it's not appearing. Thanks!
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@scooke said in Cloudron Pricing and Licensing Help:
I'm just thinking digitally here, but most fonts, Wordpress themes and plugins (and other paid themes and plugins), etc. are for one installation/project.
As you mention it, first fonts are not in the same category as Wordpress which carries a General Public License (GPL) which carries the obligation to ALL themes and plugins to be produce and distributed under the exact same condition, meaning they must be GPL as well.
Limiting the number of instance installation in the case of themes or plugins for Wordpress, or any FOSS which comes with such license of freedom, is among the biggest SCAM going on in this sphere right now, as this is a violation of the GPL license which, among other things, stipulate that once you have a copy, you can freely copy and distribute it under the same license's terms. Hence, technically speaking, if a wp theme developer does limits you in the number of instances you can install, then he's breaking the license himself which they still pretend to be GPL which is an absolute non-sense.
Clourdon is NOT GPL, nor even open source if I'm not mistaken, right now, even though most of the software part of the offer are. That's not a problem at all. simply because you do not absolutely need a Cloudron box to run any of the software offer which are coming with GPL. When one pays for either cPanel or Plesk the principle is the same, the prices are always PER INSTANCE, obviously, and that is even though they too offer GPL apps installation via their dashboard via Softaculous and the like.
My 2 cents worth, tale care
Andy
