We are using Nextcloud in our company, but what are the real benefits of using a licence in our company ? Is it only about support ?
The fact is file sharing working well, without licence and we donât really need web supportâŚ
Sure that this is not a fake email? Check the header information. The FROM meta should be something like *@nextcloud.com
Have a look here, what the benefits are: https://nextcloud.com/pricing/
But yes, AFAIK the biggest benefits are support, maintenance, early patches and customization.
Nextcloud is open source - there is no legal limit to your use of Nextcloud. We simply warn users of large installations that if they rely on Nextcloud, they should consider getting a subscription to ensure they have a solution that is enterprise-grade. Without subscription youâre using a home user solution which is fine until it breaks.
Among other things, a subscription gives support, yes - I often call it âjob insurance for the sysadminâ, as often your job is on the line if you canât fix a problem in software that your company relies on. Your boss will ask you âwhy did you deploy random software from the internet instead of a solution from a vendor we have a contract withâ
Itâs not just someone you can ask âhow do I share a fileâ, but you get direct access to our engineers who develop Nextcloud. We donât have a âsupport teamâ which asks if youâve tried to reboot your server
It also gives you access to security information and security patches ahead of release, so if security is important for your company - you should get a subscription.
You also get access to portal.nextcloud.com which gives you a few pieces of software from partners, free or for pay. For example the Outlook add-in, which costs money, but we offer a free Nextcloud FileMaker Pro addon there as well. It also gives you access to documentation that we donât have in public. That includes deployment advice, or specifc things like for the GDPR, for example, if you get a data request, you need our docs to comply.
We give training, do security reviews for customers who want that and we of course can do custom development. If you need something, you are being listened to - youâre a customer after all.
However, it would be great to let people know that it is an option and not like other Freemium-Software that starts to say at some point, that you have to pay to continue to use it.
Donât you think we made this clear enough in the email and the support-section of the admin-settings. In my opinion the wording is very clear and is not misleading about what a Nextcloud Enterprise Subscription is and what not
It created confusion, so it wasnât clear for everybody. People are very careful about emails they havenât been asking for.
Ubuntu/Debian, Apache, Postfix, Exim, ⌠donât send me mails because Iâm using their software 24/7 or in any other condition which might let them think it could be commercial use and I could buy some support or give a donation.
Do you have an option for smaller businesses as well now? Smaller companies probably donât want or cannot afford the cheapest enterprise option. It would be great to cover them as well (maybe without any support but at least access to the portal and proprietary software components).
Not really, we actually want to make Nextcloud good and easy enough for small (<50 users) businesses to âjustâ run. Sometimes small businesses want the Nextcloud Outlook integration and in those cases we sell them a âportal onlyâ Nextcloud subscription with the add-in so it IS possible.
You also wonât get this mail about support if youâre 25 users, btw
Of those, only Ubuntu has a commercial support offering and despite all their efforts, they failed to make the development of the distro profitable. Even though it seems distributions are the easiest open source product to make profitable from a support subscription model (see Red Hat and SUSE as biggest pure open source companies).
We donât want to bother anyone but at least make sure enterprises are aware of the options available to them. So only system administrators at big companies (with installations with hundreds to thousands of users) get an email. Seems a rather low âpriceâ to pay for getting software worth tens to hundreds of thousands of euros for free⌠Yes, thatâs what they would pay for a proprietary competition that, generally, is of lower quality, too.